1. ADVISER http//:ADVISEReu.vws.co.uk Discovering, Disseminating & Exploiting Project Deliverables & other results of Framework 4 & 5 RTD projects Presented at TERENA - NORDUnet 1999

2. About ADVISER n A large scale demonstration project in the Telematics Applications Programme, to: u offer a service, with u better visibility of RTD “results” u better access to people who produced them or can interpret them, via:  On-line access to project summaries, home pages, deliverables etc. F On-line interaction with technology brokers

3. ADVISER services n E.g., istADVISER (part of bidADVISER) u classifies ACTS, ESPRIT & TAP projects using terms from the IST thematic areas

4. Issues in ADVISER n Discovery - who is doing what? u details / deliverables of projects n Dissemination - who to? u Researchers, end-users, intermediaries, brokers n Exploitation - for what purpose? u the significance of what you find n Performance (e.g., response time)

5. Discovery & use would be easy, if only... n Projects all presented their results in the same way, & used metadata to do it n The metadata met most people’s needs n We could find relevant information instantly & extract it automatically n We knew how to exploit the information

6. In reality… n With a few exceptions (e.g., DESIRE), it is hard to find high quality data on the web efficiently and effectively n In ACTS, ESPRIT, TAP, BRITE-EURAM: u under half of projects have web pages u there is no reliable index of web pages u there is little or no meta-information

7. What is available now? n Variable data from project homepages n Accurate but uninformative basic data about the existence of RTD projects (e.g., from CORDIS) n Horizontal action / Support actions (e.g., EXPLOIT, ETHOS, NECTAR, SCIMITAR) n Selected “showcase” information (e.g., PROSOMA), which highlights projects that are felt to be particularly interesting

8. Data in homepages - 1  project identity  summary of project aims and objectives  links to related projects  partner information  who to contact for project information  summary of deliverables  AND...

9. Data in homepages - 2  list of on-line deliverables  other project publications  relevant non-project publications  project presentations  project demonstrators  hardware or software products  news

10. Variability in data n Hard to automate resource-discovery, because the terms used vary, e.g.: u “summary of project aims and objectives” is called Purpose / Overview / Objectives / Project aims u “partner information” is called Partners / Who are we? / Consortium / Participants n Imagine the problems for multi-linguality!

11. Relevance to companies n They want to know u whether our coverage is complete u what potentially-useful results have been produced u whether the results are relevant to their own regional situation u how they can make use of those results in their region

12. Information must be complete & up-to-date u Some technologies for this (in ADVISER): F data merging (combine multiple sources of data including lists of projects) F data mining (e.g., in the TREVI project of PROSOMA) F metadata (e.g., tables of contents, added to project web sites) F bridging services, directory services & caching (e.g., to create persistent data objects).

13. Is the information on RTD results significant? n Most metadata does not tell you this u It is not sensitive to context F It gives a precise and accurate description (which is good) F but it largely ignores its purpose (bad) u We need context-sensitive metadata F This assumes ‘content’ is part of a process

14. What makes RTD results get noticed? n Some ideas u Providing a context to make them relevant to people and companies who were not directly involved in the original RTD work u Providing information on who is using the results u Providing information on what is being done with the results

15. Adding value to RTD n ADVISER is being used by technology brokers and other intermediaries u They add a context for understanding the business relevance of RTD results u They can find out who is using the results u They can find out what the uses are u They can find markets and applications

16. Working with ADVISER n We have successfully showed how to provide on-line access to ever-changing grey information about RTD results. n We are keen to do more, & to collaborate with other providers of tools and services n Try us now at F http://ADVISEReu.vws.co.uk n Or mail: billw@scs.leeds.ac.uk