eNewsletter Summer 2010: DL.org Oureach & Training



DL.org Outreach & Training - Driving Forward Interoperability, Best Practices & Modelling Foundations

Issue July/August 2010

New Look! PDF Downloadable Version

 

In this Issue

  • Editorial
  • DL.org @ AMR2010, August, Linz
  • 2nd DL.org Workshop, 9-10 September @ ECDL2010
  • DL.org Networking Session @ ICT2010, Brussels, Belgium
  • DL.org Autumn School in Athens, 3-8 October 2010
  • Face-to-Face with Wolfram Horstmann, DL.org Expert
  • DL.org @ OR2010, July, Madrid
  • New Strategic Alliance: Scientix
  • Views from DL.org Experts on Blog
  • Editorial

    DL.org would like to open this Summer 2010 eNewsletter with a “special thank you” to the experts, both inside and outside the project, who are bringing valuable insights into the challenges surrounding interoperability, best practices and modelling foundations with the aim of taking Digital Libraries to the next level. This is very much the focus of a series of DL.org upcoming events where we will continue to harness expertise in the field and strategic alliances with an eye to sharing these insights with the community and through our educational and training programme. The ultimate goal is to enable the embedding of research into real-world systems, thus opening up new research perspectives, from Cultural Heritage to eScience.

    Upcoming DL.org events to mark in your diary:

    • 2nd Workshop on Making Digital Libraries Interoperable: Challenges & Approaches, 9-10 September during ECDL2010 in Glasgow, Scotland.
    • ICT2010 Networking Session on Global Information Systems for Science and Cultural Heritage: The Interoperability Challenge on Wednesday 29 September in Brussels, Belgium.
    • Autumn School on Digital Libraries & Digital Repositories: Modelling, Best Practices & Interoperability, 3-8 October 2010, Athens, Greece.

    On 17 August 2010 the DL.org User Working Group will also be presenting at the 8th International Workshop on Adaptive Multimedia Retrieval in Linz, Austria. 

    Our special feature is an interview with Wolfram Horstmann, Expert in the DL.org Quality Working Group and Programme Chair of the 5th International conference on Open Repositories last July in Madrid, offering insights into the grand integration challenges addressed during the event and how future conferences will build on the achievements attained. The interview is complemented by an overview of our involvement in this conference.

    This summer’s strategic alliance with Scientix, a European initiative aimed at fostering skills development in a fast-evolving scientific and technological landscape.

    We wrap up this eNewsletter with a teaser on some recent insights delivered by DL.org Experts recently posted on our Blog.

    DL.org @ AMR2010

    8th International Workshop on Adaptive Multimedia Retrieval, 17-18 August 2010, Linz, Austria

    Spotlight on the DL.org User Working Group

    The Workshop centres on multimedia retrieval and artificial intelligence with particular reference to feature extraction techniques, computer linguistic approaches, dynamic data analysis methods, interactive machine learning, visualisation methods and user interface design. By bringing together researcher communities from these areas, the Workshop aims to intensify the exchange of ideas with a look at current activities and interconnections.
    Within this context, the DL.org User Working Group aims to bring into sharp relief the focus and current outcomes of its investigation into interoperability from the user perspective. The talk, entitled A Survey of Context-Aware Cross-Digital Library Personalisation, is presented by Anna Nika (pictured) from the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications at the University of Athens.
    The talk is motivated by a recognised need to address not only Digital Library (DL) interoperability but also cross-DL personalisation. DL interoperability calls for the sharing and combining of user information across different DL systems so that they can leverage data and resources from each other. To achieve this goal, DL systems should be able to maintain compliant and interoperable user models and profiles that enable propagation and reconciliation of user information across different DLs. The paper motivates the need for cross-DL personalisation, defining and examining the user model profile together with context interoperability, as well as surveying and discussing existing user model interoperability approaches.

    DL.org presentations for more on this and related DL.org presentations.


    2nd DL.org Workshop, 9-10 September 2010 @ ECDL2010

    2nd DL Workshop, 9-10 September 2010 @ ECDL2010, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

    Making Digital Libraries Interoperable: Challenges & Approaches

    The central theme of this Workshop is Digital Library Interoperability, a multi-layered and context-specific concept, which encompasses different levels along a multidimensional spectrum ranging from organisational to technological aspects. The Workshop addresses this challenging area from several perspectives: content, user, functionality, policy, quality, and architecture. Contributions, based on a Call for Papers, will focus on relevant Digital Library interoperability aspects from conceptualisation at a high organisational level to instantiation at process level, as well as modelling techniques for representing and enabling interoperability between heterogeneous digital library mediation approaches, methods, and systems.

    The Workshop, which targets  between 40 and 50 participants from the Digital Library research and application communities, as well developers from scientific communities and Library professionals and decision-makers, will thus move beyond addressing the interoperability challenge at content or service level to encompass multiple dimensions that need addressing.

    2nd DL.org Workhop.


    DL.org Networking Session at ICT2010, Brussels, Belgium

    ICT2010 Networking Session, Wednesday 29 September during ICT2010, Brussels, Belgium.

    Global Information Systems for Science and Cultural Heritage: The Interoperability Challenge

    ICT2010 is Europe's most visible forum for research and innovation in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) arena, bringing together researchers, business people, investors and high-policy makers in the field of digital innovation from across Europe and globally. The policy priorities of ICT2010 are the Digital Agenda and the European Commission’s next financial programme of EU funding for research and innovation.
    The Networking Session on Global Information Infrastructures is co-ordinated by DL.org and co-hosted with two other European projects: DC-Net (Digital Cultural Heritage Network) and GRDI2020 (Towards a Global Research Data Infrastructure of the Future), both funded by the GÉANT and e-Infrastructures Unit of the European Commission, with the aim of exploring interoperability challenges from multiple perspectives.
    The Session, from 9:00-10:30 on Wednesday 29 September, offers an important forum for developers, programme owners, researchers and implementers across diverse application domains, scientific data infrastructures, cultural heritage infrastructures and Digital Libraries to share knowledge and formulate guidelines for interoperability. The Session will spotlight new research perspectives for Digital Library and information infrastructure interoperability emerging from the findings of the host projects, as well as policy & investment priorities with an eye to interoperability and Europe’s Digital Agenda, serving as a springboard for fruitful interactive discussions with the audience.

    Overview of the ICT2010 Networking Session.


    DL.org Autumn School in Athens, 3-8 October 2010

    Digital Libraries & Digital Repositories: Modelling, Best Practices & Interoperability

    Hosted by the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Athens (NKUA), the DL.org Autumn School in Athens next October is a premier educational and training event in the Digital Library landscape.
    Our research-oriented Autumn School is designed for librarians and librarian decision-makers, information scientists, computer scientists, PhD students, early career researchers and young professionals working in the Digital Library (DL) and Digital Repository (DR) arena. The School is focuses on modelling issues, practical solutions and best practices on interoperability. Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of the six core concepts characterising DLs and DRs: content, functionality, user, policy, quality and architecture, first captured in the DELOS Digital Library Manifesto and of how to address interoperability challenges along a multi-dimensional spectrum. The School is led by internationally established lecturers with hands-on sessions and ample opportunities to interact with lecturers and peers alike, as well as to experience the city of Athens.

    Autumn School overview, programme & learning outcomes, registration (please read the Terms & Conditions), lecturers, venue & accommodation.

    Five DL.org Bursaries are available to PhD students, post-doctoral researchers and young professionals. Please refer to the dedicated section on this website for more details.


    Face-to-Face with Wolfram Horstmann, DL.org Expert

    Wolfram Horstmann, CIO Bielefeld University Library

    Expert in the DL.org Quality Working Group and Programme Chair of the 5th International Conference on Open Repositories, July 2010, Madrid

    Digital Repositories are being developed in a number of fields, spanning education, research, science and cultural heritage, on national, regional, institutional, lab and personal level. In this evolving landscape, repository platforms are transforming the nature of scholarly communication.

    How would you describe the main aims and focus of Open Repositories 2010?
    The Open Repositories conference series, now in its fifth edition, has grown to become one of the most important conference on repositories, particularly in terms of ensuring academic institutions are well placed to offer rich information sources. This year’s Open Repositories brought together individuals and organisations engaged in the conception, implementation and management of digital repositories, as well as stakeholder communities to address theoretical, practical and strategic approaches and ensure Digital Repositories offer value-add now and in the years ahead. The burning issues at this year’s conference are summed up as “The Grand Integration Challenge”, as repositories become increasingly complex and dispersed, not just linking to Google but to a very broad provider scenario encompassing research publications, research data, bibliographic data and administrative data linked to the world wide web and diverse applications.
    The Open Repositories conference series primarily targets the infrastructure community made up of developers and service providers who focus on machine interoperability as well as the end-user community. One trend that has emerged through Open Repositories is an increasing focus on developing repositories that cater to specific academic domains, including customised services meeting specific end-user requirements in fields as diverse as Biology, Chemistry or the Humanities. But while more end-user oriented services are emerging, there is also a great deal of interest in infrastructure development and issues that pertain particularly to developers, researchers, and service providers.

    Read the full interview.

    DL.org @ OR2010, 6-9 July 2010, Madrid, Spain

    Interoperability for Digital Repositories: Towards a Quality and Policy Framework – Interoperability Policy Session, Tuesday 6 July
    Giuseppina Vullo, Humanities Advanced Technology & Information Institute (HATII), University of Glasgow and Co-ordinator of the DL.org Quality Working Group, presented the talk entitled Interoperability for Digital Repositories: Towards a Quality and Policy Framework to a highly receptive audience during the Interoperability Policy Session at OR2010.

    Birds of a Feather 7 July 2010, Wednesday 7 July 2010
    New Paths to Interoperability, Best Practices and Modelling Foundations for Digital Repositories
    The Birds of a Feather (BoF) session explored interoperability from diverse perspectives spanning content, functionality, user, policy, quality and architecture, highlighting how current investigations are shaping key outputs, from the DL Reference Model to the Cookbook. Insights were shared with participants, who on their part exchanged experiences and future plans, highlighting how the investigations of DL.org are valuable to this end, as summed up on the website.

    Read more.


    New Strategic Alliance - Scientix

    Scientix is a web-based community for science education launched by the European Commission  to ensure access to teaching materials, research results and policy documents from European science education projects financed by the European Union and by various national initiatives. Scientix targets teachers, researchers, policy makers, local actors, parents and anyone interested in science education. Scientix is operated by European Schoolnet, which brings together 31 EU Ministries of Education. The Alliance with DL.org has been forged to foster the project's training and educational programme, as well as to disseminate key findings chiefly on the policy front.

    DL.org has forged alliances to underpin its investigation into Digital Library Interoperability, Best Practices & Modelling Foundations and to share important insights into the evolving Digital Library and Repository Landscape. See the full list of our Alliances.


    Views from DL.org Experts on Blog

    Sharing DL.org Insights Virtually

    A number of experts from the DL.org Working Groups are offering valuable insights not only into the wider Digital Library landscape as we move towards new frontiers, as exemplified by the Digital Agenda for Europe (EC, May 210) but also with regard to specific findings and approaches undertaken by the project culminating in outputs like the Reference Model and the Cookbook.

    Recent Posts include:

    • Antonella De Robbio, University Centre for Libraries of the Library System, University of Padua, Italy and Expert in the Policy Working Group - On the Digital Agenda for Europe and On Organisational Interoperability.
    • Edward Fox, Professor at Virginia Tech & Expert in the Functionality Working Group - On Credible Interoperability Requirements.
    • Sarantos Kapidakis, Professor at Ionian University & Expert in the Quality Working Group - On Interoperability, Policy & Quality.
    • Further insights and comments are offered by Perla Innocenti and Giuseppina Vullo, University of Glasgow, who respectively lead the Policy & Quality Working Groups.
    DL.org Blog.

    See also updates in our Publications section for background documents of interest to the Digital Library community and the intellectually inquisitive.


    Contact

    To find out more on how you can interact with DL.org and contribute to eNewsletters, please contact us at: info@dlorg.eu

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    DL.org (ICT No. 231551) is funded by the European Commission under the ICT Thematic Area "Digital Libraries & Technology Advanced Learning", 7th Framework Programme