A multi-level metadata approach for a public sector information data infrastructure

This paper describes an approach for representing and handling metadata about Public Sector Information data sets in a large scale data infrastructure as designed within ENGAGE, a project of the FP7 Research Infrastructures programme. A multi-level approach is adopted, allowing management of metadata at various levels of expressive power, and thus enabling different use cases and requirements to be served through a single platform. CERIF is being investigated as a common conceptual model to ensure information integra- tion from diverse sources without loss of meaning and furthermore as the basis for the generation of Linked Open Data. Through detailed mappings from common metadata schemata used for PSI it is shown that CERIF is a data model suitable for representing rich contextual metadata for the domain of governmental datasets

From open data to data-intensive science through CERIF

OGD (Open Government Data) is provided from government departments for transparency and to stimulate a market in ICT services for industry and citizens. Research datasets from publicly funded research commonly are associated with the open scholarly publications movement. However, the former world commonly is derived from the latter with generalisation and summarisation. There is advantage in a user of OGD being able to ‘drill down’ to the underlying research datasets. OGD encourages cross-domain research because the summarized data from different domains is more easily relatable. Bridging across the two worlds requires rich metadata; CERIF (Common European research Information Format) has proved itself to be ideally suited to this requirement. Utilising the research datasets is data-intensive science, a component of e-Research. Data-intensive science also requires access to an e-infrastructure. Virtualisation of this e-infrastructure optimizes this

OpenAIRE guidelines for CRIS managers: supporting interoperability of open research information through established standards

OpenAIRE is the European infrastructure enabling researchers to comply with the European Union requirements for Open Access to research results. OpenAIRE collects metadata from data sources across Europe and beyond and defines interoperability guidelines to assist providers in exposing their information in a way that is compatible with OpenAIRE. This contribution focuses on a specific type of data source, CRIS systems, and the respective OpenAIRE guidelines, based on CERIF XML. A range of issues, spanning different aspects of information representation and exchange, needed to be addressed by the guidelines in order to define a complete solution for interoperability

OpenAIRE guidelines for CRIS managers 1.0

The Guidelines specify the interoperability layer between Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) and the OpenAIRE infrastructure. The information interchange is based on the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF) data model, the CERIF XML exchange format, and the OAI-PMH protocol. The Guidelines are intended mainly for implementers and administrators of CRIS who plan to communicate research information to OpenAIRE. OpenAIRE (openaire.eu) is the European infrastructure enabling researchers to comply with the European Union requirements for Open Access to research results. OpenAIRE collects metadata from a variety of data sources: publication repositories, data archives and CRIS across Europe and beyond. Interoperability guidelines are defined for each type of source. CERIF is a standard data model for research information and a recommendation by the European Union to its Member States. The custody of CERIF has been entrusted by the Euoropean Union to euroCRIS (eurocris.org), an international not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the interoperability of CRIS

Value Added Service Management in 3G networks

rd generation mobile communication networks (3G) have been heralded as a paradigm shift that will irreversibly change the structure of the telecommunications industry. In an ideal "3G world", roaming users will be offered an abundance of value-added services typically developed by independent service providers. It is commonly recognized that the plethora of business combinations and technical implementations in the emerging 3G era will substantially raise the bar on the respective management frameworks. The present contribution deals with service provision aspects in 3G network environments and particularly focuses on service deployment and management matters. We conduct a requirement analysis of the 3G service provision process and illustrate the need for an integrated service management platform. Next, we elaborate on the architectural and implementation details of a service provision management platform capable of intelligently delivering downloadable applications to 3G mobile users, as designed and developed within the frame of the EC IST project MOBIVAS. Finally, we conclude the paper by positioning our approach with regard to relevant standardization activities and laying out directions for future work

A scheme for the introduction of 3rd party, application-specific adaptation features in mobile service provision

The long term vision of beyond 3G wireless communications describes an evolution towards beyond 3G systems. The ultimate goal of this evolution is a dynamic environment that enables the delivery of situation-aware, personalised multimedia services over heterogeneous, ubiquitous infrastructures. Under this perspective, the need is emerging for applying, in a systematic way, adaptability and reconfigurability concepts for service delivery in largely diverse contexts. Moreover, it is widely recognised that services will be increasingly developed by independent third parties. The present contribution complements previous work by the authors, related to mediating service provision platforms and advanced adaptability and profile management frameworks, by introducing mechanisms that allow third parties to dynamically enhance the service delivery and adaptation middleware in order to achieve application-specific customisations in various aspects of the mobile service provision process. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2003

Specification and dynamic introduction of 3rd party, service-specific adaptation policies for mobile applications

The development, delivery and management of mobile services are the subject of many research activities in both the academia and industry. The ultimate goal of these efforts is a dynamic environment that enables the delivery of situation-aware, personalised multimedia services over heterogeneous, ubiquitous infrastructures, commonly termed as systems beyond 3rd generation (3G). Reconfigurability and adaptability are key aspects of the mobile systems beyond 3G. Reconfigurable mobile systems and networks introduce additional requirements and complexity in service adaptation. Moreover, it is widely recognised that services will be increasingly developed by independent third parties, besides mobile operators and equipment vendors. The present contribution complements previous work by the authors, related to mediating service provision platforms and advanced adaptability and profile management frameworks. It introduces mechanisms and middleware that undertake the service adaptation overhead, imposed by the complexity of reconfigurable mobile networks, from application developers and third party service providers. In particular, it enables the introduction of third party policies for adaptation decision. Finally, it facilitates the adaptable application development and service deployment independently from the underlying dynamically reconfigurable communication environment. © 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc

Enabling delivery of mobile services over heterogeneous converged infrastructures

Traditionally, end customers have been offered different categories of communication, data and media services (e.g., fixed/mobile voice, fixed/mobile data, broadcasting) through vertically separated, rigidly integrated infrastructures. Major advances in a variety of technological fields, mainly in the area of mobile computing and networking, have created prospects for a fully converged environment, where ubiquitous access to an abundance of value-added services will be offered over a single, as perceived by the users, highly reconfigurable system. This vision can be enabled by the seamless "plugging" of diverse access networks to a high-speed IP backbone; however the path to its realization poses a variety of additional challenges. The required support of complicated business models and service delivery over highly diverse contexts introduces significant complexity to service management and provision. The present contribution presents object-oriented mediating service management platforms as a catalyst for making these demanding tasks feasible, identifies their desired functionality and provides an overview of such a distributed framework that we have designed and prototyped. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the latter is able to be a critical enabler of flexible, adaptable service provision over future heterogeneous networks, while supporting advanced business paradigms

The data model of the OpenAIRE scientific communication e-infrastructure

The OpenAIREplus project aims to further develop and operate the OpenAIRE e-infrastructure, in order to provide a central entry point to Open Access and non-Open Access publications and datasets funded by the European Commission and National agencies. The infrastructure provides the services to populate, curate, and enrich an Information Space by collecting metadata descriptions relative to organizations, data sources, projects, funding programmes, persons, publications, and datasets. Stakeholders in the research process and scientific communication, such as researchers, funding agencies, organizations involved in projects, project coordinators, can here find the information to improve their research and statistics to measure the impact of Open Access and funding schemes over research. In this paper, we introduce the functional requirements to be satisfied and describe the OpenAIREplus data model entities and relationships required to represent information capable of meeting them