Improving Primo Usability and Teachability with Help from the Users

In the aftermath of a consortium migration to a shared cloud-based resource management and discovery system, a small college library implemented a web usability test to uncover the kinds of difficulties students had with the new interface. Lessons learned from this study led to targeted changes, which simplified aspects of searching, but also enhanced the librarians’ ability to teach more effectively. The authors discuss the testing methods, results, and teaching opportunities, both realized and potential, which arose from implementing changes

Audiovisual preservation strategies, data models and value-chains

This is a report on preservation strategies, models and value-chains for digital file-based audiovisual content. The report includes: (a)current and emerging value-chains and business-models for audiovisual preservation;(b) a comparison of preservation strategies for audiovisual content including their strengths and weaknesses, and(c) a review of current preservation metadata models, and requirements for extension to support audiovisual files

Transitioning Applications to Semantic Web Services: An Automated Formal Approach

Semantic Web Services have been recognized as a promising technology that exhibits huge commercial potential, and attract significant attention from both industry and the research community. Despite expectations being high, the industrial take-up of Semantic Web Service technologies has been slower than expected. One of the main reasons is that many systems have been developed without considering the potential of the web in integrating services and sharing resources. Without a systematic methodology and proper tool support, the migration from legacy systems to Semantic Web Service-based systems can be a very tedious and expensive process, which carries a definite risk of failure. There is an urgent need to provide strategies which allow the migration of legacy systems to Semantic Web Services platforms, and also tools to support such a strategy. In this paper we propose a methodology for transitioning these applications to Semantic Web Services by taking the advantage of rigorous mathematical methods. Our methodology allows users to migrate their applications to Semantic Web Services platform automatically or semi-automatically

Tools for modelling and simulating migration-based preservation

This report describes two tools for modelling and simulating the costs and risks of using IT storage systems for the long-term archiving of file-based AV assets. The tools include a model of storage costs, the ingest and access of files, the possibility of data corruption and loss from a range of mechanisms, and the impact of having limited resources with which to fulfill access requests and preservation actions. Applications include archive planning, development of a technology strategy, cost estimation for business planning, operational decision support, staff training and generally promoting awareness of the issues and challenges archives face in digital preservation

Changing Trains at Wigan: Digital Preservation and the Future of Scholarship

This paper examines the impact of the emerging digital landscape on long term access to material created in digital form and its use for research; it examines challenges, risks and expectations.

White, Man, and Highly Followed: Gender and Race Inequalities in Twitter

Social media is considered a democratic space in which people connect and interact with each other regardless of their gender, race, or any other demographic factor. Despite numerous efforts that explore demographic factors in social media, it is still unclear whether social media perpetuates old inequalities from the offline world. In this paper, we attempt to identify gender and race of Twitter users located in U.S. using advanced image processing algorithms from Face++. Then, we investigate how different demographic groups (i.e. male/female, Asian/Black/White) connect with other. We quantify to what extent one group follow and interact with each other and the extent to which these connections and interactions reflect in inequalities in Twitter. Our analysis shows that users identified as White and male tend to attain higher positions in Twitter, in terms of the number of followers and number of times in user's lists. We hope our effort can stimulate the development of new theories of demographic information in the online space.Comment: In Proceedings of the IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI'17). Leipzig, Germany. August 201

Applied Research Through Partnership: the Experience of the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Research Observatory

Paper presented at a seminar on ‘Los Observatorios Regionales de Políticas Públicas como Herramientas de Gestión de Información: Una Aproximación al Estudio del Rendimiento Autonómico, at the Centro de Estudios de Gestión, Análisis y Información, Campus de Somosaguas, La Universidad Complutense, Madrid, 23-24 November, 2000 Ten years ago, a Regional Research Observatory (ReRO) was established to provide ‘clients’ in Yorkshire and Humberside with a single point access to a region-wide data and analysis service. The Observatory’s portfolio covered activities relating to applied research and consultancy, intelligence, education and training, publications and networking. The first part of the paper explains the concept of the Observatory as it was initially conceived as a form of partnership across all the universities in the region, outlines the structure of the organization that was created, explains the arrangements for operating the Observatory as a partnership initiative, and exemplifies the outputs and achievements during the first half of the decade. In order to facilitate its regional monitoring activities, ReRO constructed a Regional Intelligence Centre (RIC), a customised geographical information system in which to store key data sets and generate a range of statistical indicators for the region as a whole or its constituent parts. The second part of the paper explains the structure of the RIC and its contents. It argues that the main advantage that derives from the construction of such a centre is the value that is added to raw information through data handling and integration, through skilled interpretation and through the provision of new information, maybe in the form of forecasts of what is likely to happen in the future, as well as analyses of what has happened in the past. The third and final part of the paper explores some of the key issues and difficulties relating to the operation of the Observatory and considers some of the reasons that have accounted for its loss of momentum in the last few years. This has occurred over a period of increased political attention to regional administration and planning in the UK, exemplified by the creation of Scottish and Welsh Assemblies and the emergence of Regional Development Agencies and Regional Assemblies across England. A retrospective evaluation demonstrates a number of lessons that have been learnt and provides a number of useful guidelines to those attempting to establish similar structures elsewhere in the developed world