Special Session at the 4th IEEE International Conference on e-Science

December 12, 2008, Indianapolis, USA

Morning Session

9.30am-10.30am

Keynote by David de Roure (Southampton), How Repositories can Learn from the Failings of the Grid

10:30am-10:45am

Virtual Poster Presentation: Aschenbrenner, Andreas; Blanke, Tobias; Hedges, Mark: "Synergies between Grid and Repository Technologies - a Methodical Mapping"

Abstract

Next generation research works across institutional boundaries, disciplines, even across language and culture. Grid and repository technologies both address these requirements, yet, they have - up to now - developed largely isolated from each other. The grid and the repository community can benefit greatly from a convergence of their respective technologies towards an integrated content- and context-aware e-Science infrastructure. This paper classifies interfaces between digital repositories and grid technologies on a storage, an object, and a service level; the potential opportunities; as well as respective activities to date.

10.45am-11am

Break

11am-12am

Accepted full papers

Wilkinson, Ross; Treloar, Andrew: "Rethinking Metadata Creation and Management in a Data-Driven Research World"

Abstract

Research data collections are tremendously important so need good curation. However data collections are significantly different to publication repositories so we need to ensure that these differences are taken into account when managing research data. We believe that a good way of approaching this problem is to articulate the needs of research data stakeholders – particularly users and creators. Consequently we have described an analysis of these needs and then examined costs in the light of these varying needs – it is important to note that costs are often incurred by different people to the beneficiaries. We finish the paper by showing practically how incurring software costs can provide valuable savings for both data creators and data managers.

Von Hinten, Christoph; Hense, Andreas; Razum, Matthias: "A Wiki for Collaboration and Publication in Research"

Abstract

Wikis are used by many projects as part of a collaboration platform. Yet, they have not been adopted by the majority of researchers for creating permanent scientific output. In this paper we try to overcome the shortcomings of Wikis by replacing their persistence layer by a digital object repository. Our solution, which combines JSPWiki and Fedora, provides automatic provenance metadata, assigns persistent identifiers, takes care of proper versioning, and prepares the Wiki's content for long term archival. Our architecture allows the Wiki application to be run by a temporary project, whereas the digital object repository can be maintained by a long-lasting organisation. We also discuss the possible impact of this approach for collaboration and publication in research.

Afternoon Session

2pm-4pm

Expert panel on Adding value to data - Digital Repositories in an e-Science world

Confirmed presentation:

• Adil Hasan: SHAMAN
• Roger Barga: MS activities
• Reagan Moore: Preservation Management Policies

  Abstract

  Preservation Management Policies

  Preservation environments are designed to maintain attributes about records needed for authenticity, integrity, and chain of custody. Attributes are also needed for making assertions about trustworthiness
  of the preservation environment itself. The iRODS (integrated Rule Oriented Data System) automates the enforcement of management policies across distributed data that have been organized into a shared collection. The properties supported by iRODS provide a good match to
  the attributes needed for a preservation environment.

• Matthias Razum: eSciDoc
• Andrew Treloar: The Australian programme

  Abstract

  This presentation will provide a brief overview of the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). It will focus on the structure of ANDS and the planned highlights of the first year of operation. It will also talk about the approach we are adopting for discovery, using an information model based on ISO2146. Further details on ANDS at http://ands.org.au/.

4pm-5pm

Wine Reception