The Other Side of the Interface.

orThe sound of one hand clapping

Phil Barker, philb@icbl.hw.ac.uk

Journal ToCs Place in the Repository Ecosystem

Ecology is the study of systems that are complex, dynamic, and full of interacting entities and processes.

… ecology, and examples of the ecosystems it studies, may offer a useful analogy to inform the task of understanding and articulating the interactions between users, repositories, and services and the information environments in which they take place.

http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/272/

An ecosystem

• Species

• Resources

• Interactions

Image from D. Kumar (1992) Fish culture in undrainable ponds: A manual for extension, FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 325. Rome, FAOhttp://www.fao.org/docrep/003/T0555E/T0555E00.HTM . Image © Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations

A Repository Ecosystem?

Species: – Repositories– Library services– Web services– Repository managers– Researchers– Journal publishers

Researcher 1

Submission process

Publishing house

A Repository Ecosystem?

Resources– Information resources

• Journal papers, data, metadata– Money– Time / attention

A Repository Ecosystem?

Interactions– Human-Human– Human-Machine– Machine-Machine:

• APIs, RSS Feeds, HTTP

Repository Ecology

• We can study many aspects of the repository ecosystem

• One example is “Metadata in an ecosystem of presentation dissemination”

Robertson, Barker & Mahey, Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications 2008http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/johnr/2008/09/25/metadata-in-an-ecosystem-of-presentation-dissemination/

http://dcpapers.dublincore.org/ojs/pubs/article/viewFile/938/934

JournalToCs API

What is an API

An application programming interface (API) is an interface to a software program that allows other software to interact with it.

An API is an abstraction, a set of specifications; to implement one you need code in the server and the client.

JournalToCs API

One side of an interface, what's the other?

Possible complements

An RSS feed reader used by the repository manager

– Pretty much what we have now– No integration with workflow

Submission process

Institutional repository manaager

Possible Complements 3

• Response to query from the repository.

Would need work on the client side

Need to ask for data specifcally

Pull data into where it is used

Submission process

Institutional repository manaager

Possible complements (3)

Embed RSS alerts into repository

Would need work on client side

Need to set up alert request (then let it run)

Pull data to where it is used

Submission process

Institutional repository manaager

Possible complements (3)

Push alerts to the repository (XMPP, cf Jabber, Google Wave)

Would require work on server and client.

We push data to you when it is there rather than your system asking if there is anything.

Puts the data where it is used.

Submission process

Institutional repository manaager

Possible complements

All except the most basic option require

Further work => Further funding

Clarification of your requirements

Liaison with developers of target system (IR, VRE)

Summary

The JournalToCs API serves and important role in the repository ecology, but implementing at JournalToCs is only half the story.