Paper Abstracts

The gCube Interoperability Framework, Leonardo Candela, George Kakaletris, Pasquale Pagano, Giorgos Papanikos, Fabio Simeoni

Interoperability is one of the most challenging issues in the design and interoperation of large-scale computing infrastructures for multidisciplinary research. Interoperability requires solutions that can “embrace” heterogeneity, that is, accommodate multiple incarnations of similar resources, as well as hide heterogeneity, that is, provide consumers with a homogeneous view of the different resources. The authors look at the measures put in place by the D4Science infrastructure to address a range of interoperability issues.

Author affiliations: Leonardo Candela, Pasquale Pagano – Institute of Information Science and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy; George Kakaletris, Giorgios Papanikos - University of Athens, Greece; Fabio Simeoni, University of Strathclyde, Scotland, UK.

Handling Repository-Related Interoperability Issues: the SONEX Workgroup, Peter Burnhill, Pablo de Castro, Jim Downing, Richard Jones and Mogens Sandfaer

The sharing of scholarly content through a network of Open Access repositories is becoming commonplace but there is still a need for systematic attention into ways to increase the rate of deposit into, and transfer of content across, the OA repository space. This is a report of a small international group supported by the Joint Information Steering Committee (JISC) with remit to describe, analyse, and make recommendations on deposit opportunities and use cases that might provide a framework for project activity geared to the ingest of research papers and other scholarly works. The multi-authored, multi-institutional work is put forward as the default and nine use case actors are listed, as deposit agents, with four main use case scenarios. There is also some comment and pointers to projects in Europe which address some of these use case scenarios.

Author affiliations: Peter Burnhill, EDINA National Data Centre, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK; Pablo de Castro, Carlos III University Madrid, Spain; Jim Downing, University of Cambridge, UK; Richard Jones, Symplectic Ltd, UK; Mogens Sandfær, Technical University of Denmark.

Epidemiology Experiment and Simulation Management through Schema-Based Digital Libraries, Jonathan Leidig, Edward A. Fox, Madhav Marathe and Henning Mortveit

Digital Libraries that maintain inputs, result datasets, and the documentation of analyses would be beneficial for users of simulation and experimentation systems. A schema describing the simulation model may be used by a generated digital library for semantic integration with a simulation infrastructure. Based on a provided schema, the digital library may generate a generic user interface layout, database schema, and processes for launching new simulations. User roles are supported through a generic interface capable of performing a variety of user tasks. Formal descriptions of simulation content enable provenance investigations and domain-specific search. Simulation infrastructures with digital libraries are provided interoperability through managed datasets and interconnected software components. The authors present a generic, component-based simulation supporting a digital library that is customised through provided schemas and extensible through the addition of components.

Author affiliations: Jonathan Leidig, Madhav Marathe and Henning Mortveit, Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory (NDSSL), Virginia Tech, U.S.; Edward A. Fox, Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, U.S.

Interoperability Patterns in Digital Library Systems Federations, Paolo Manghi, Leonardo Candela and Pasquale Pagano

Service providers willing to offer functionality over an aggregation of information objects are becoming key actors in the digital library world. This aggregation is usually performed by collecting and processing objects from a federation of data providers, for example, institutional repositories, data archives, through well-known standard protocols for data exchange. Higher level interoperability issues affect these scenarios and determine the quality of the service offered and the success of these provider initiatives. Interoperability issues are mainly due to the impedance mismatch occurring between the data models of the objects to be exported by data providers and the data model of the service provider and can be measured in terms of “structural heterogeneity”, “semantic heterogeneity” and “granularity-of-representation heterogeneity”. The authors define a basic architecture through which to describe interoperability patterns arising when constructing such a federation and present the D-NET software Toolkit as a general-purpose practical solution.

Author affiliations: Leonardo Candela, Paolo Manghi, Pasquale Pagano – Institute of Information Science and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy

A Framework for Digital Library Function Description, Publication, and Discovery: A prerequisite for interoperable digital libraries, George Athanasopoulos, Katerina El Raheb, Edward Fox, George Kakaletris, Natalia Manola, Carlo Meghini, Andreas Rauber and Dagobert Soergel

Digital Library interoperability, as reported in the DL.org Digital Library Reference Model, is intimately bound up with function interoperability. A prerequisite for the latter is an appropriate function description, publication and discovery mechanisms. The importance of a framework that accommodates the specification of key digital library function characteristics, such as interface, behaviour, dependencies and semantics, has been underscored by the DL.org Functionality Working Group. Such a framework should be used in appropriate registries that cater for the publication and discovery of DL functionality. The authors report the findings of the DL.org Functionality Working Group in terms of a DL function description framework and a set of contemporary registries that can serve as the basis for the provision of a DL function interoperability enabling registry.

Author affiliations: George Athanasopoulos, Katerina El Raheb, George Kakaletris and Natalia Manola, University f Athens, Greece; Edward Fox, Virginia Tech, U.S.; Carlo Meghini, Institute of Information Science and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy; Andreas Rauber, Vienna University of Technology, Austria; Dagobert Soergel, University at Buffalo, U.S.

Quality interoperability within digital libraries: the DL.org perspective, Giuseppina Vullo, Genevieve Clavel, Nicola Ferro, Sarah Higgins, René van Horik, Wolfram Horstmann, Sarantos Kapidakis, Seamus Ross

Quality is the most dynamic aspect of digital libraries and becomes even more complex when it comes to interoperability. The authors formalize the research motivations and hypotheses on quality interoperability conducted by the DL.org Quality Working Group. The authors start by providing a multi-level interoperability framework adopted by DL.org and go on to illustrate key research points and approaches connected with the interoperability of DL quality, grounding them in the DL.org Reference Model, which stems from the DELOS Network of Excellence. By applying the Reference Model concept map to their interoperability motivating scenario, the authors subsequently present the two main research outcomes of their investigation: the Quality Core Model and the Quality Interoperability Survey.

Author Affiliations: Giuseppina Vullo, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK; Genevieve Clavel, Swiss National Library; Nicola Ferro, University of Padua, Italy; René van Horik, Data Archiving and Networked Services, Netherlands; Wolfram Horstmann, University of Bielefled, Germany; Sarantos Kapidakis, Ionian University; Seamus Ross, University of Toronto.

Modeling Users and Context in Digital Libraries: Interoperability Issues, Anna Nika, Tiziana Catarci, Akrivi Katifori, Georgia Koutrika, Natalia Manola, Andreas Nürnberger and Manfred Thaller

The modeling of user characteristics is an important mechanism for the support and enhancement of personalization in Digital Libraries (DLs). Contextual information is sometimes considered in the literature as part of the user model, although it in fact influences user-DL interaction. However, context modeling and user modeling are strongly interrelated. Similar methods are employed for the representation of user context and user model and the use of ontologies constitutes a promising approach for such a representation because they facilitate the sharing of information and reinforce interoperability. In this paper, we define the user model and user context for Digital Libraries, we examine identified context dimensions as well as context-independent and context-dependent user model attributes, we proposes the use of an ontology for user representation in DLs, and we discuss the advantages of such an approach for augmenting personalization and achieving user interoperability.

Author Affiliations: Anna Nika, Akrivi Katifori and Natalia Manola, University of Athens, Greece; Tiziana Catarci, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; Georgia Koutrika, Stanford University, California, U.S.; Andreas Nürnberger, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany; Manfred Thaller, University of Cologne, Germany