Progress Report April 2006

Progress Report September 2005 – April 2006

UKOLN: Julie Allinson (1.0), Mahendra Mahey (1.0), Rachel Heery (0.2) CETIS: Sarah Currier (0.5), Mark Power (0.5)

Workpackage 1. Repositories Support Management

Digital Repositories Programme wiki (DigiRep) and internal Digital Repositories Support Team (DRS) wiki created.
JISCmail discussion lists established with ‘JISC-Repositories’ active with over 785 members from over 20 countries.
Monthly DRS conference calls and face to meetings documented on the DRS wiki.

Workpackage 2. Collation of projects’ process-oriented outputs

Scenario and use cases: ‘Writing Effective Scenarios and Use Cases’ and ‘UML for use cases’ training arranged, received good feedback from attendees; supporting documents and templates on DigiRep. Submission process for gathering scenarios and use cases established; 52 scenarios and 6 use cases collected. Projects have indicated willingness to share.
Workflows (business processes): UML training; FAQ on DigiRep; further discussion scheduled. .
Standards: Collaboration with JISC Standards Catalogue activity at UKOLN; sub-group of projects have input into Catalogue; planned work on advising on conformance.
Scoping reference model: Evaluation of OAIS as a reference model, through DRS and CETIS Metadata and Digital Repositories SIG meeting. Initial scoping report to be circulated May 2006.
Deposit API: Meeting of repository developers to specify a Deposit API in March 2006, and subsequently small amount of funding approved to deliver a light-weight specification of a common repositories Deposit API. Attended US Augmenting Interoperability in Scholarly Repositories meeting.
e-Framework: DRS have input into e-Framework service definitions.
Themes: Identifying repository themes across the programme through site visits, to be mapped to reference model work.

Workpackage 3: Support for JISC’s Strategic Decision making

Roadmap produced (with Andy Powell) informing Repositories Capital Programme calls; input to plans for Repositories Expert Support Group; additional work on typology.

Workpackage 4: Advice and support to projects

Gathering intelligence through project / site visits (90% projects now visited by DRS team); creating FAQs and information pages on DigiRep, helping to identify synergies and topic areas. .
Training courses arranged (Scenarios, use cases and UML).
Clusters established, including DigiRep pages for collaboration. Second DR programme in March focused on Clusters proving successful, with all actions recorded on wiki and reported in Ariadne, April 2006. Some follow up meetings being planned.
DigiRep FAQs and Themes pages collate information on specific topic areas, including Personal Resource Management Strategies.

Workpackages 5 Programme dissemination and 6 Consultation/validation of work

Repositories demonstration and advocacy package in production, two deliverables completed.
Presentations at JISC-CETIS Conference and elsewhere; publicity papers published.
Meetings: Over 50 attended by team, including meetings with DAREnet, DLF, e-Framework, and US Repository Interoperability group.