Transcript Document
CAUL Meeting 2004/2
Hobart
13 September 2004
Roadmap
Recap
Partners
Extent and Intent
Activity and Operational Structures
APSR Developments
Digital Sustainability Program (NLA)
Practices and Testbeds Program
ANU
USyd
UQ
National Services Program
International Linkages Program
External Involvement
Recap
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
Recap
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
Recap
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 practice that will ensure
continuity of access to key information resources over time
Recap
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
Within APSR, role of APAC to carry these eResearch links, beyond their
direct involvement in University of Sydney testbed project
Recap
Activity Structure
Recap
Operational Structure
APSR Developments
Tom Ruthven appointed as Executive Officer July 2004
Website established <www.apsr.edu.au>www.apsr.edu.au
University of Queensland <www.library.uq.edu.au/escholarship>
University of Sydney <sorrt.library.usyd.edu.au>
Presentations
Questnet 2004, Cairns, 6 July
Robin Stanton - APSR and the national information infrastructure
IAML Biennial Conference, Canberra, 13 September
Tom Ruthven - The brave new world of libraries and repositories
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
Digital Sustainability
Progress
Project Officer appointed from 1 September
Strategy paper developed in consultation with ANU, USyd, UQ testbed
projects
Work continuing on
partner expertise registry
sustainability analysis of testbed repositories
sustainability assurance for testbed repositories
Consultation with Digital Systems Technology Centre (DSTC) about digital
preservation tools
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
ANU
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
Progress
ANU DSpace <dspace.anu.edu.au>
Production environment
4 communities
105 collections
Participating repository in PictureAustralia
Development area
13 communities
108 collections
Staff appointments
2 additional project officers about to be appointed to join 2 existing project
staff members
DSpace development
ANU contribution
image derivative/thumbnail generation
integrating Apache Cocoon with DSpace
Presentation
OpenPublish 2004, Sydney, 30 July
Peter Raftos – DSpace and ANU
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
USyd
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
USyd
Progress
Sustainability framework
Requirements and specifications, primarily in CIPHE image banks and
PARADISEC, under development
Interoperability middleware
Framework under development for internal testing in November (ACL)
APAC
Extensible storage space provided to USyd testbeds to investigate storage
processes
Staff appointments
1.5 programmers appointed
SORRT
Project branded as SORRT (Sustainable Object Repositories for Research and
Teaching)
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
UQ
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 conform 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 semi-automatic 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
UQ
Progress
Data and service provider models
Keystone and Fedora software under evaluation
Test repositories identified
UQ Research Quantum
ePrints@UQ
Australian Digital Theses Program
Standards
Series of open standards identified for adoption
Staff appointments
Programmer appointed
National Services Program
Objective
Provide services to national higher education and research
sector
Technical advisory services
Knowledge transfer and educational services
Consultation and collaboration services
Timeframe
2005-2006
National Services
Progress
Program to begin formally in 2005
Commitment to make ANU version of DSpace available to Australian higher
education sector Q4 2004
‘DSpace in a box’ on CD or DVD
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
Progress
International Linkages
Program to begin formally in 2005
Existing or prospective partnerships
Digital Curation Centre (DCC), Edinburgh
Thomson Scientific (ISI) Web Citation Index Project
(ANU, CalTech, Cornell, Max Planck Society, Monash, NASA/Langley,
University of Rochester)
DSpace/Google/OCLC IR Search Project
(ANU, Cornell, Cranfield, European University Institute, HKUST, IUPUL, MIT,
Minho University, Ohio State, Univ Arizona, Calgary, Oregon, Parma,
Rochester, Toronto, Washington, Wisconsin)
Digital Publishing System (DPubS) – Cornell and Penn State
(ANU investigating involvement)
University of Sydney
SETIS (Michigan, Oxford and Virginia), PARADISEC (AILLA and DELAMAN),
ACL/SSIU/TimeMap (UCLA and Unesco)
External Involvement
Potential for involvement in APSR by others than immediate project
partners
National Services Program (starting in 2005)
Occasional open workshops and forums
External Involvement
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
13 September 2004