Community-driven approaches to open source archaeological imaging

No abstract available

Recording, Documentation, and Information Management for the Conservation of Heritage Places: Guiding Principles

Provides guidance on integrating recording, documentation, and information management of territories, sites, groups of buildings, or monuments into the conservation process; evaluating proposals; consulting specialists; and controlling implementation

Looking before leaping: Creating a software registry

What lessons can be learned from examining numerous efforts to create a repository or directory of scientist-written software for a discipline? Astronomy has seen a number of efforts to build such a resource, one of which is the Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL). The ASCL (ascl.net) was founded in 1999, had a period of dormancy, and was restarted in 2010. When taking over responsibility for the ASCL in 2010, the new editor sought to answer the opening question, hoping this would better inform the work to be done. We also provide specific steps the ASCL is taking to try to improve code sharing and discovery in astronomy and share recent improvements to the resource.Comment: 11 pages; submission for WSSSPE2. Revised after review for publication in the Journal of Open Research Softwar

A review of GIS-based information sharing systems

GIS-based information sharing systems have been implemented in many of England and Wales' Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs). The information sharing role of these systems is seen as being vital to help in the review of crime, disorder and misuse of drugs; to sustain strategic objectives, to monitor interventions and initiatives; and support action plans for service delivery. This evaluation into these systems aimed to identify the lessons learned from existing systems, identify how these systems can be best used to support the business functions of CDRPs, identify common weaknesses across the systems, and produce guidelines on how these systems should be further developed. At present there are in excess of 20 major systems distributed across England and Wales. This evaluation considered a representative sample of ten systems. To date, little documented evidence has been collected by the systems that demonstrate the direct impact they are having in reducing crime and disorder, and the misuse of drugs. All point to how they are contributing to more effective partnership working, but all systems must be encouraged to record how they are contributing to improving community safety. Demonstrating this impact will help them to assure their future role in their CDRPs. By reviewing the systems wholly, several key ingredients were identified that were evident in contributing to the effectiveness of these systems. These included the need for an effective partnership business model within which the system operates, and the generation of good quality multi-agency intelligence products from the system. In helping to determine the future development of GIS-based information sharing systems, four key community safety partnership business service functions have been identified that these systems can most effectively support. These functions support the performance review requirements of CDRPs, operate a problem solving scanning and analysis role, and offer an interface with the public. By following these business service functions as a template will provide for a more effective application of these systems nationally

Searching Data: A Review of Observational Data Retrieval Practices in Selected Disciplines

A cross-disciplinary examination of the user behaviours involved in seeking and evaluating data is surprisingly absent from the research data discussion. This review explores the data retrieval literature to identify commonalities in how users search for and evaluate observational research data. Two analytical frameworks rooted in information retrieval and science technology studies are used to identify key similarities in practices as a first step toward developing a model describing data retrieval

SHERPA-LEAP: a consortial model for the creation and support of academic institutional repositories

Purpose: To introduce SHERPA-LEAP, a model for the consortial development, population and support of eprints repositories. Design/methodology/approach: The organisational and technical structures of the consortium are described, including a brief summary of central and local resource responsibilities. Some positive and negative aspects of a consortial approach to institutional repository development, and of the SHERPA-LEAP model in particular, are identified. Outstanding issues and future plans for the consortium are outlined. Findings: SHERPA-LEAP is found to be succeeding in its aims of developing and supporting eprints repositories within the federal University of London. Some lessons learned from the SHERPA-LEAP approach are identified, but the SHERPA-LEAP consortial model is found to have been mostly beneficial to the participating institutions. In particular, the networking and experience-sharing opportunities which any consortial solution will facilitate are highly valued by the SHERPA-LEAP partners. Value: The case study is intended to help to inform the decision-making of institutions and consortia which are considering consortial solutions to the establishment and maintenance of institutional repositories

Digital curation and the cloud

Digital curation involves a wide range of activities, many of which could benefit from cloud deployment to a greater or lesser extent. These range from infrequent, resource-intensive tasks which benefit from the ability to rapidly provision resources to day-to-day collaborative activities which can be facilitated by networked cloud services. Associated benefits are offset by risks such as loss of data or service level, legal and governance incompatibilities and transfer bottlenecks. There is considerable variability across both risks and benefits according to the service and deployment models being adopted and the context in which activities are performed. Some risks, such as legal liabilities, are mitigated by the use of alternative, e.g., private cloud models, but this is typically at the expense of benefits such as resource elasticity and economies of scale. Infrastructure as a Service model may provide a basis on which more specialised software services may be provided. There is considerable work to be done in helping institutions understand the cloud and its associated costs, risks and benefits, and how these compare to their current working methods, in order that the most beneficial uses of cloud technologies may be identified. Specific proposals, echoing recent work coordinated by EPSRC and JISC are the development of advisory, costing and brokering services to facilitate appropriate cloud deployments, the exploration of opportunities for certifying or accrediting cloud preservation providers, and the targeted publicity of outputs from pilot studies to the full range of stakeholders within the curation lifecycle, including data creators and owners, repositories, institutional IT support professionals and senior manager

Customized CV Service Workflows for DSpace Repositories

Slides for a presentation delivered at the North American DSpace Users Group Meeting at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, September 2019. Full workflows and service documentation available at bit.ly/UHoustonCVWorkflows. Conference abstract: The University of Houston Libraries has recently created and implemented workflows for the upload of large batches of faculty research into its DSpace Institutional Repository. These workflows are largely based on modifications made to existing scripts and open source packaging software, and were made possible through collaborative efforts with the Texas Digital Library and other DSpace institutions. This process has involved establishing new in-house metadata procedures and standards, templates for managing and sharing bibliographic data, and divisions of labor. Through the creation of these structured workflows, we have been able to scale our efforts, now employing and training a dedicated team of student employees to carry out this campus-wide service. Over a six-month span, the team has prepared over 1,300 full-text faculty works for ingest into the repository, using faculty CVs as its main source of bibliographic information. This presentation details the challenges and lessons learned from the development and refinement of these end-to-end workflows, as well as a discussion about the broader implications of establishing this option for our faculty researchers. We will package and publicly share all documentation related to this process in hopes that our efforts might inspire wider adoption of these workflows among the DSpace community.Librarie