Dear UB
Here is Akira and my new version of our part of the SWAP review. This
version includes expanded text for each of the review categories
(objectives and scope, functional requirements, domain model), as
suggested by Tom in his post of 30 July.
cheers
Andrew & Akira.
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Review of the Scholarly Works Application Profile
Part 1: Objectives and Scope, Functional Requirements, Domain Model.
Objectives and Scope
The Scholarly Works Application Profile (SWAP) [1] was developed in
order to provide a method for describing eprints, alternatively referred
to as scholarly works, research papers or scholarly research texts. A
'Scholarly Work' is a distinct intellectual or artistic scholarly
creation. SWAP defines an eprint to be a scientific or scholarly
research text , for example a peer-reviewed journal article, a preprint,
a working paper, a thesis, a book chapter, a report, etc.
The purpose of the SWAP was to offer a solution to metadata issues
identified in Eprints UK, a JISC funded research project, and to provide
a richer metadata profile for the Intute repository search service [2]
to use to aggregate content from digital repositories. [3]
The audience for the profile is described in the background statement
[9] as the JISC repositories search service and other parts of the JISC
repositories programme; and the eprints repositories community in the
UK, especially those running live eprints repositories, and those about
to establish such repositories. The target user group for SWAP is
defined as: Implementers of UK Institutional Repositories search
service; Managers and administrators of UK eprint repositories;
Implementers of the Prospero interim repository. [4]
Use cases for the SWAP are set out in the description of each of the
functional requirements for the profile - they are too long to list here
individually. [5]
Functional Requirements
The descriptions provided for in SWAP allow the description of the range
of eprints/scholarly works typically produced by academics and
researchers. While, the SWAP describes a large number of functional
requirements, descriptions made using the profile are principally
designed to [9]:
* Provide richer, more consistent metadata descriptions of
eprints;
* Facilitate search, browse or filter by a range of elements,
including journal, conference or publication title, peer-review status
and resource type;
* Enable identification of the latest, or most appropriate,
version and facilitate navigation between different versions of eprints;
* Support added-value services, particularly those based on the
use of OpenURL ContextObjects;
* Implement an unambiguous method of identifying the full
text(s) of eprints;
* Enable identification of the research funder and project code;
* Facilitate identification of open access materials.
Domain Model
The domain model used by SWAP is based on the Functional Requirements
for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model, issued by the International
Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) in 1998 [6]. FRBR models the
bibliographic world using 4 key entities - 'Work', 'Expression',
'Manifestation' and 'Item' - which are the subject of bibliographic
descriptions. The SWAP model includes a fifth entity, 'agent', which
embodies the FRBR supporting entities of 'person' and 'corporate body'.
The SWAP documentation includes both a diagrammatic description of the
domain model and a natural language expression of the diagram [7]:
"A ScholarlyWork may be expressed as one or more Expressions. Each
Expression may be manifested as one or more Manifestations. Each
Manifestation may be made available as one or more Copies. Each
ScholarlyWork may have one or more creators, funders and supervisors.
Each Expression may be have one or more editors. Each Manifestation may
have one or more publishers."
Andrew & Akira
20 August 2008
[1] http://knowware.nada.kth.se/DCWiki/EprintsApplicationProfile
[2] http://www.intute.ac.uk/
[3] None of the SWAP documentation describes the objectives of SWAP
itself, although the statement about the background to the development
of the profile provided on the SWAP wiki [8] gives what are essentially
the objectives of the profile [9]. The description above also uses
information from an article in Ariadne [10], and a 2006 presentation by
J. Allinson and A. Powell [11].
[4]
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Functional_Requirement
s#Stakeholders_and_designated_community
[5]
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Functional_Requirement
s#Functional_Requirements_Specification
[6] http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.htm
[7] http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Model
[8] http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/SWAP
[9] http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/SWAP#Background
[10] http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue50/allinson-et-al/
[11]
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/j.allinson/eprints-ap-openscholarship
.pdf
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/j.allinson/eprints-ap-openscholarshi
p.pdf>
Questions asked of the SWAP for this part of the review.
1. Is there a description of the context in which the
application profile is used (or can be used)?
Yes.
2. Is the target user group for the application profile
identified and described?
Yes.
3. Are the organizations and individuals who participated in the
development of a profile identified and described?
Yes.
4. Are any arrangements, guidelines, or intentions regarding the
future development and maintenance of the profile described?
Yes.
5. Are the functional requirements defined?
Yes.
6. Does the model depict the set of entities to be described and
the relationships among those entities?
Yes
7. If an application profile uses an externally defined data
model:
FRBR is used as the basis
8. Is the externally data model identified?
Yes.
9. Are deviations from the externally defined data model
documented?
Yes.
