Using an Application Profile Based
Service Registry
Ann Apps
Mimas,
The University of Manchester, UK
Outline
• Purpose and use of JISC Information
Environment Service Registry (IESR)
• IESR domain model
• IESR Application Profile
• Benefits of Application Profile in practice
• IESR future
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What is IESR?
• Aim: assist other applications to
discover and use appropriate materials
• JISC Information Environment
– Collections of resources for researchers,
learners, teachers in UK
• Middleware Registry of:
– Collections of resources
– Services that provide access
• Funded by JISC: Mimas, UKOLN
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Service Registry Use
Registry
Discover
Client / Portal
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Register / Contribute
Invoke
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Collection
/ Service
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IESR Use Cases
• Ideas about possible uses
• Dynamic
• Harvest into local registry
– Effectively dynamic
•
•
•
•
Static by portal application builder
By a person
By a service application
Contribute by Editor or Harvest
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Metasearch Portal Scenario
• Physicist, Mary: literature survey about
Higgs-Boson particle
• Portal discovers bibliographic collections
about particle physics with Z39.50
– Vocabulary service needed
• Portal provides to Mary result of Z39.50
cross-search using ‘Higgs-Boson’ in
‘title’
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Benefits of Dynamic Use
• Portal
– Amalgamated set of resources
• IESR provides:
– Discover: resource collections
– Locate: access details
– Invoke: interface connection details
• Portal builder doesn’t need to know
about all resources
• Users discover collections unaware of
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IESR Use by a Person
• Application developer looking for
suitable Web Services to plug in
• Materials science lecturer: resources to
recommend to students
• Aeronautical engineer: find RSS feeds
for personal portal
• Funding Body: collection management
tool
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IESR Domain Model
Collection
hasService
Service
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owner
administrator
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Agent
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IESR Entities
• Collection:
– Aggregation of resources
• Service:
– System that provides one or more functions
• Informational service:
– Provides access to a collection
• Transactional service: Other functionality
• Agent:
– Collection owner / Service administrator
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IESR Application Profile
• Documents IESR Metadata
– Set of properties for each entity
• Based on CEN Guidelines
– Semantics
– Occurrence
• Additional Attributes
– Searchable
– General / Specific Attributes
– Extended to capture a description set
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IESR Metadata Properties
• Collection Metadata based on DCCAP
(based on RSLP Collection Description)
– Plus some specific IESR properties
• Service Metadata bespoke
– DC properties where possible
– Connection details – interface property –
uses appropriate standard
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Example Imported Property
Name:
title
Term URI:
http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title
Label:
Title
Defined By: http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/#title
Source Def: A name given to the resource
IESR Def:
The name of the collection
Condition:
This is the single main title of the collection
and must be present
DataType:
<string>
Occurrence: Min: 1; Max: 1
Searchable: 4, 1097; title
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Another Imported Property
Name:
Term URI:
Label:
Defined By:
Source Def:
IESR Def:
Enc Scheme:
DataType:
Occurrence:
Searchable:
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type
http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/type
Access Method
http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/#type
The nature or genre of the resource
Technical type of interface to service
http://iesr.ac.uk/terms/#AccMthdList
<string>
Min: 1; Max: 1
1148; accessmthd
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Example IESR Property
Name:
Term URI:
Label:
Defined By:
Source Def:
Enc Scheme:
DataType:
Occurrence:
Searchable:
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usesControlledList
http://iesr.ac.uk/terms/#usesControlledList
Uses Controlled List
http://iesr.ac.uk/terms/#usesControlledList
A classification scheme used by collection
http://iesr.ac.uk/terms/#CtrldVocabsList
<string>
Min: 0; Max: unbounded
20, 1040, 1112; classn
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IESR XML Schema
• Data supplied in XML (old DC-in-XML)
• Serialisation of Application Profile
– Properties -> XML elements
– Vocab Encoding Schemes -> XML Attributes
• Not possible to impose Occurrence
– Need extra validation checks
• DC element refinements as comments
• Not possible to constrain enc schemes
• Reluctant to change to new DC-in-XML
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Application Profile Issues
• Multiple entities: description set
• IESR specific terms now have
`standard’ URIs, eg itemType
– Reluctant to change now schema in use
– Document mapping in AP comment
• Balance of correctness and
completeness against practical usability
– Onerous data contribution
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Application Profile Benefits
• Inform Use Cases
– All properties should have a use
– Find gaps in properties / vocab terms
• Inform data input
– Web form editor
– Mappings for harvested data
• Human readable documentation of data
specification is significant benefit
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Metadata Schema Use
• OCKHAM Registry (US NSDL)
– Outcomes of NSF projects
• CETIS / DEST: eLearning/Admin in Australia
• aDORe Digital Object Repository (LANL)
• Australian Partnership for Sustainable
Repositories: collection description service
• Standards development:
– DC Collections AP: now conformant
– NISO Metasearch Initiative CD Spec
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IESR Future
• Funded until July 2009
• More content
– E.g. JISC Collections; England NHS
• Persistence and quality of content
• Further application development
• Further service registry research and
international collaboration
• Demonstrate and encourage viable use
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An Application Profile in
Practice
• Central data specification to inform
– Development of IESR
– Application developers
– Promotion of IESR Metadata Schema
• Realise domain model into concrete
application
• Formal, but human readable,
specification
• Invaluable for communication
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IESR Details
Thank You! Questions?
http://iesr.ac.uk/
[email protected]
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