1. Enabling Interaction and Quality in a Distributed Data DRIS
CRIS Bergen, Norway
May 11, 2006
D. Scott Brandt Associate Dean for Research Michael Witt Senior Research Systems Administrator
Purdue University Libraries
Scope of this project includes carving out a niche in the IR world and exploring what a DIR can or should be comprised of– basically: Analyzing Options for Storing and Describing Research Datasets in a Distributed Environment… We are in a proof of concept stage, and know that others have done some similar things, but think we have some interesting things to share.

2. Background: Purdue University
Nine Colleges: Agriculture, Consumer & Family Sciences, Education, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management, Pharmacy/ Nursing/Health Sciences, Technology, Vet Medicine
73 Departments, several cross-disciplinary: e.g. Agricultural & Biological Engineering
Purdue is heavily Science and Engineering oriented—researchers in theses areas tend to lend themselves to collaboration. Note: College of Liberal Arts research competencies are cross-disciplinary (e.g., include: addictive behaviors, agro-biomed ethics, environmental policy, health risk communication, neuroscience, technology in the workplace, etc.) which also lends to working in multi-disciplinary areas. In addition, we are collaborating closely with our Information Technology division within the university (ITaP), and with the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC)– which supports the UK equivalent of NSF+NIH

3. Purdue University Libraries
2004 initiative for Librarians (faculty) to collaborate with other faculty across campus—apply library science knowledge and expertise to various research data problems:
collect, organize, describe, curate, archive, disseminate data/information
Thus, all pieces were in place for new initiative by new dean—working as interdisciplinary partners in research, including co-PIs in sponsored funding and grants, bring library science perspective, knowledge, principles, etc. to the table…

4. Strategic directions
University: “interdisciplinary and collaborative endeavors grounded in the strengths of academic disciplines”
Libraries: Libraries faculty are integrated into campus research agenda
Note that they link– we are tuned to university strategic directions and, the culture as well as initiatives, projects, proposals

5. Areas of research collaboration
Agronomy
Biology
Cancer Center
Center for the Environment
Chemical Engineering
Chemistry
Cyber Center
Discovery Learning Center
Earth & Atmospheric Science
English
IT at Purdue
Mechanical Engineering Technology
Regenstrief Center
This is a list of departments and centers with which we have collaborations and projects going on currently…

6. Current areas of participation
E. Coli K-12 Model Organism Resource NIH proposal (B. Wanner, Biology, PI, D. Scott Brandt, Libraries, Co-PI) : create archival process for curated database, assist in applying ontologies for data representation and annotation
An Expert System Multimedia Tutorial for Locating Technical Information, Purdue University TLT Digital Content grant (Megan Sapp, PI, Amy Van Epps and Michael Fosmire, co-PIs, with Bruce Harding, Mechanical Engineering Technology): develop tutorial for MET102 course in using and applying standards
URL-based Search Interface to the Distributed Institutional Repository Purdue University Graduate School (Michael Witt, Libraries, PI, Darcy Bullock, Civil Engineering, Co-PI): develop toolkit to deploy customized searching of dissertations by school, advisor, etc.
AquaEcon Web Library: An Electronic Resource on Economics-Related Literature on Aquaculture, NOAA (K. Quagrainie, Agricultural Economics PI, Hal Kirkwood, Libraries, as co-PI) : build and populate database
These were projects where we approached them at callouts or through other discussions, and for which we have secured funding as part of the award

7. Progression towards CRIS
Institutional repository (IR)
Distributed institutional repository (DIR)
Interactions related to DIR leading to CRIS-like applications
Leverage DIR for DRIS/CRIS

8. Distributed Institutional Repository
e-prints
archival collections
Metadata Repository
grid resources
Applications
data archive
native databases
I wanted to just quickly touch on the DIR project—this is one of things we currently bring to the table. Our distributed approach is innovative if not unique, and currently is the foundation for working on metadata and crosswalks, OAI-PMH, interfacing with different repository types, grid-based data, etc.
OAI
Service Provider
OAI
Data Providers

9. A systems-based approach to Libraries supporting research: linear
inputs
experimentation
outputs
CRIS
Data repositories
Document repositories
A current research information system links people engaged in research with funding and other resources such as interdisciplinary collaborators
A repository of well-described data resulting from research processes is preserved and shared for repurposing
Journal article pre-prints, post-prints, conference and working papers, dissertations and other e-prints represent research outputs in a document repository

10. A systems-based approach to Libraries supporting research: cyclical
CRIS
data
repository
e-print
repository

11. An example application: SRU
Linking to electronic theses and dissertations (ETD)
URL-based search interface to DIR running as a web service
$16,000 Strategic Development Initiative award for fellowship and server

12. Getting to the datasets: SRB
The Storage Resource Broker
Developed by the San Diego Supercomputer Center
Uniform access to heterogeneous, distributed storage
Metadata catalog (MCAT) and preservation functionality
TeraGrid, collaboration with Information Technology at Purdue and Rosen Center for Advanced Computing

13. An example systems interaction
OAISRB: provides an OAI-PMH interface to the SRB to expose metadata from resources on a data grid to OAI service providers
Apache Tomcat Server
OAI-
PMH
Interface
(OAICat)
MCAT
(SRB)
SRB
Client
(Jargon)
OAISRB H A R V E S T
HTTP
XML
Data grid

14. Sample OAISRB config #### OAI Handler Base URL Format
#### SRB Connection Parameters
SRB.HOST=orion.sdsc.edu
SRB.PORT=7620
SRB.USERNAME=mwitt
SRB.PASSWORD=nyah
SRB.HOMEDIRECTORY=/dspace/home/mwitt.purdue
SRB.MDASDOMAINNAME=purdue
SRB.DEFAULTSTORAGERESOURCE=dspace-fs1
SRB.MCATZONE=dspace
#### SRB Collection Count and SRB Collection Names
SRB.root=/TGzone/home/lars.itap
SRB.maxcollections=1
SRB.collection1=LARSDATA
#### Custom Parameters for SRB GRID
SRBRecordFactory.repositoryIdentifier=mwitt.purdue
Display.MaxListSize=50
#### Custom Identify response values
Identify.repositoryName=SRB Data Grid
Identify.earliestDatestamp= T00:00:00Z
Identify.deletedRecord=no
#### Crosswalk (in this example, FGDC-to-unqualified Dublin Core)
DC.Identifier=title
DC.Description=purpose
DC.Title=title
DC.Format=File Format
DC.Creator=address
DC.Subject=metprof

15. Metadata research
Metadata librarian worked for four months analyzing metadata needs and processes for several data sets
Results included DC descriptions, enhanced with thesaurus headings, and a basic crosswalk
Also: metadata descriptions from scratch are too manually intensive…

16. Metadata- Water Quality
A flat file with only “system” metadata
Began with Dublin Core
Enhanced subjects with thesaurus from NAL (US National Agriculture Library)
Looked at DIF (Dir. Interchange Format)
Looked at cross-walk with FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Comm.) format

19. Next steps: Metadata
Articulate metadata workflow to imbed metadata into the process
Review automating all data
Determine how/where to validate and automate descriptive metadata

20. Conclusions and Questions
Use existing, native metadata whenever possible
Automate and periodically assess processes to ensure quality
Diminishing returns: we settled on discovery and collection-level metadata
Crosswalks are useful but can truncate or distort the original meaning
The importance of interactions, among people and systems
How do we implement CRIS/CWIS/DRIS in our environment?
What is the role of the Libraries in such?

21. Takk (thank you) Michael Witt D. Scott Brandt mwitt@purdue.edu