Transcript Document

The Australian Partnership for Sustainable
Repositories
(APSR)
CAUL Meeting 2004/1
University of New South Wales
1 April 2004
Roadmap
 Partners
 Extent and Intent
 Activity and Operational Structures
 Digital Sustainability Program (NLA)
 Practices and Testbeds Program (ANU, USyd, UQ)
 National Services Program
 International Linkages Program
 External Involvement
Partners
 The Australian National University (Lead institution)
 The National Library of Australia
 The University of Queensland
 The University of Sydney
 Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing
Extent and Intent
In responding to the call to develop national research
infrastructure through the creation of a broad repository-based
architecture, the APSR proposal had at its core
 an overall focus on critical issues of access continuity to and
sustainability of digital collections
 a determination to build on a base of demonstrators for digital
continuity and sustainability embedded in developmental
repository facilities within partner institutions
 an aspiration to contribute to national strength by encouraging
development of skills and expertise and providing coordination
throughout the sector via a platform of national services and
international linkages
An open partnership both in its manner of working
and its ultimate manifestation within a national
centre
- predicated on a belief that the higher education sector needs catalysts to
encourage and enable institutions to take action
based on best practices that will ensure continuity
of access to key information resources over time
Such resources not simply text-centric in nature. Real
challenge lies in coping with huge volume of research data
and resources in varying formats and configurations
emerging from the eScience and eHumanities movements
cf. Tony Hey and Anne Trefethen ‘The data deluge: an
eScience perspective’ (2003)
Tony Hey ‘Why engage in e-science?’ (2004)
Within APSR, role of APAC to carry these eResearch links,
beyond their direct involvement in University of Sydney
testbed project
Activity Structure
Operational Structure
Digital Sustainability (Core Program)
 Led by NLA, program will support and work with demonstrator or
testbed projects and also feed directly into National Services and
International Linkages programs (notably in its links with the recently
established Digital Curation Centre in Edinburgh)
 Primary objective to provide mechanisms and expertise to ensure
digital information resources remain
available
findable
usable
trustworthy
understandable
re-usable
‘for as long as they are needed’
 Seeks to develop national centre of excellence, providing such
services as best practice documentation, software frameworks and
archives, generic tools, format registries, planning strategies, and
technology watch services
Practices and Testbeds Program
(1)
Implementation of Repository Technology in a
Standards Framework
(ANU)
Objectives
 Develop an open source repository infrastructure that addresses the
needs of Australian universities for the management of digital assets
 Develop mechanisms for building effective partnerships with academic
community for the management of their digital assets
 Participate in federation services with APSR partners and other SII projects
Key Tasks
 Develop repository system based on needs analysis from a broad set of
representative collections
 Become major contributor to DSpace open source development
 Contribute to international standards and best practice for the
management of digital repositories
 Populate ANU repository
 Develop policy framework for partnerships with academic staff
 Cooperate with other testbed projects to meet the objectives of the
Digital Sustainability program
 Evaluate success of software and policy development
ANU DSpace now live <dspace.anu.edu.au>
First collections images from ArtServe, ANU Archives and
Noel Butlin Archives Centre
Collections from other ANU communities programmed or
being considered for incorporation include
 ANU EPrints (documents also being contributed to
Google/DSpace/OCLC scholarly search demonstrator)
 ANU E Press (to be launched on 18 May) <epress.anu.edu.au>
 Anthology of Australian Music (audio collection)
 Various art image databases
 Coombs photography demonstrator
Practices and Testbeds Program
(2)
Sustainability and Interoperability in a Complex
Distributed Environment
(University of Sydney)
Objectives
 Develop a sustainable model for large complex object repositories
within a distributed research environment
 Document a set of supporting protocols and standards
 Develop appropriate enabling middleware and tools
Key Tasks
 Establish a project methodology for the testbed facilities
 Develop protocols within the common XML environment of the testbed
facilities
 Cooperate with other testbed projects and the MAMS project to meet
the objectives of the Digital Sustainability program
 Scope prototype demonstrator projects (cultural, health, historical)
 Develop and implement appropriate middleware and tools to enable
demonstrators
 Develop and implement testing and evaluation methods
 Undertake evaluation of protocols within partner and other facilities
nationally and internationally
‘complex distributed environment’
Testbed project will work with both local and international
partners
SETIS (Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service)
with links to Michigan, Oxford and Virginia
PARADISEC (Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in
Endangered Cultures)
with links to AILLA (Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin
America) and DELAMAN (Digital Endangered Languages and
Musics Archive Network)
ACL (Archaeological Computing Laboratory)/SSIU (Spatial
Science Innovation Unit)/Time Map collaboration
with links to Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (UCLA), Unesco,
MacquarieNet
Practices and Testbeds Program
(3)
eScholarship Australia
(University of Queensland)
Objectives
 Develop an integrated entry point to a range of repositories of research
output
 Encourage better reporting of academic research outputs
 Facilitate access to information about Australian research
Key Tasks
 Identify existing repositories at UQ to be used in project
 Investigate and adopt appropriate standards to be used, with emphasis on
open standards
 Test a range of harvesting protocols, including OAI-PMH
 Examine subject mapping techniques to ensure metadata conforms to
appropriate thesaurus descriptors. (Existing institutional subject classification
schemes will be mapped to the Australian Standard Research Classification.
Where metadata lack appropriate thesaurus descriptors, automatic and semiautomatic subject mapping techniques will be used.)
 Investigate and implement mechanisms to identify, capture, organise and
manage non-text, non-OAI compliant resources
 Cooperate with other testbed projects to meet the objectives of the Digital
Sustainability program
 Extend demonstrator application to other institutions
National Services Program
Objective
Provide following services to national higher education and
research sector
 Technical advisory services
 Knowledge transfer and educational services
 Consultation and collaboration services
Timeframe
2005-2006
International Linkages Program
Objectives
 Participate in and contribute to the development of international
standards applicable to digital access and sustainability
 Participate in selected international programs in the digital access and
sustainability area
 Maintain a technology watching brief across a wide range of
international programs in the digital access and sustainability area
Timeframe
2005-2006
Some initial steps in 2004 (participation in first DSpace User Group
meeting, Boston, 10-11 March, and linkage with JISC/eSCP Digital
Curation Centre, University of Edinburgh)
External Involvement
Potential for involvement in APSR by others than
immediate project partners
 National Services Program (starting in 2005)
 Occasional open workshops and forums
 Thought being given to establishing an inner
mailing/email list for those who register interest in
receiving news of APSR progress and developments
Also potential opportunity for others to participate as project partners
(specified in both original proposal and agreement between ANU and existing
project partners)
Such participation would require
 Strategic commitment to the development of institutional digital repositories
 Significant implementation program involving repository technology and a
collection program focused on research materials having sector-wide
relevance
 Commitment to sector-wide cooperation in the development of institutional
repositories
 Commitment to APSR objectives and willingness to contribute to APSR
processes
 Acceptance that partner responsibilities include participation in APSR core
activities such as standards setting, evaluation and adoption, expertise
network, skills pool, international linkages and benchmarking
New partners would bring own resources to APSR
There would be no access to DEST funding unless additional monies were
granted
Thank you
Vic Elliott
1 April 2004