The Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories

(APSR)

CAUL Meeting 2004/1University 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 findableusable trustworthyunderstandable 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 inEndangered Cultures)

with links to AILLA (Archive of the Indigenous Languages of LatinAmerica) and DELAMAN (Digital Endangered Languages andMusics 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 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

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 APSRThere would be no access to DEST funding unless additional monies were granted

Thank you

Vic Elliott1 April 2004