"ASK will build services on top of what is essentially an online file system
(VFS)"
That's the way mature content management systems have worked since they
first became widely used in the for-profit world over a decade ago. See A
Storage Subsystem for Image and Records Management, IBM Systems Journal
32(3), 512-540, (1993). See http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/hmgpubs.htm
for more on the topic.
It seems to me that the academic world is about a decade behind the
for-profit world at designing and using content management technology. BTW,
there exist about 80 open-source projects working on digital libraries
a.k.a. digital repositories a.k.a. digital content management a.k.a. ...
There are also more than a score of commercial offerings, with some of those
having no-fee versions. See Borghoff, U. M., Rödig, P., Scheffczyk, J., &
Schmitz, L. 2003. Langzeitarchivierung: Methoden zur Erhaltung digitaler
Dokumente. Heidelberg: dpunkt.verlag. xv, 283 pp. ISBN 3-89864-245-3. More
details from dpunkt.verlag Web site, retrieved February 24, 2004, from:
http://www.dpunkt.de/buch/3-89864-245-3.html Much of this effort seems to
me terribly wasteful of skills that could be better applied.bb
These many projects all seem to work in isolation, notwithstanding
occasional pious lip-service about co-operation. At least, many pubs and
web pages from this community seem singularly free of citations of other
people's work, and next to none of them. See "Speculation about Faster
Progress towards Digital Repositories" in the Digital Document Quarterly at
http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/ddq_4_4.htm#_Toc123007622.
Best wishes, Henry
H.M. Gladney, Ph.D.
-----Original Message-----
From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Alistair Young
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 4:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Institutional Repositories: do they need a new name?
Hello everyone, thought I'd introduce myself to the list. I'm working on
Howard's ASK project and just getting to grips with the repo terminology.
I have a low-level interest in it all in that ASK will build services on top
of what is essentially an online file system (VFS).
I find it helpful to think of the VFS as being at the kernel level of a repo
system. It has levers and switches that the user layer can pull and press to
get at content in the repo. To do this, there's a layer between the user and
kernel layers which enforces access permissions on the levers and switches.
When a user's repo object tries to, say, read a file from the content store,
the access layer should obtain the user's "attribute" object and compare
what's in it with the rules governing access to the levers and switches
being accessed.
Which takes us up another layer to the authn/authz layer, where shibb
(guanxi yay!) lives.
The flow sort of goes, user presents themself at the repo front door.
The repo says "go and get authenticated (shibb) and then come back here.".
User does so. Repo asks user's home institution for their attributes,
constructs a "digital badge" for the user, pins it to them and lets them in.
Various services within the repo only have to check the badge to determine
whether the user can use that service.
An interesting question at the moment is whether that badge should be
composed of IMS ES or SAML attributes.
thanks for listening!
Alistair
On 19 Jan 2006, at 11:53, rrankin wrote:
> Is it a Collections Management System?
>
> Ricky
>
>
> __________________
> Ricky Rankin
> Principal Analyst
> Information Services
> Queen's University Belfast
>
> Tel: 02890 974824
> Fax: 02890 976586
> email: [log in to unmask]
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:JISC-
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Phil Barker
> Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 10:39 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Institutional Repositories: do they need a new name?
>
> Hello Howard, everyone
> I think that Howard's "repository" might be a third sense of the word,
> which you might expand as "repository system"
> (where a system is "A collection of components organized to accomplish
> a specific function or set of functions"[1]). This would sit in
> between the "repository service" as a putative component in the system
> (though I guess Howard has called it Content management -- though it
> wouldn't be a content management system) and "repository service" as
> the service you provide to users once you have your "repository
> system" and agreed on a whole load of explicit and implicit policies.
>
> As I understand it, work on reference models will help us understand
> what the components of a "repository system" might be, and the work
> done by other projects represented on this list (WM-Share, CD-LOR etc)
> along with more general work on "repository ecologies" (Blinco and
> McLean's Wheel of Fortune
> [2]) will help us understand the policies required to shape these
> services.
> (NB, I'm not suggesting a decoupling of the two areas of work, it's
> necessary that they feed into each other!)
>
> Phil
>
> [1] IEEE Std 610 : IEEE standard computer dictionary (1990) [2] here's
> another version of the Wheel of Fortune:
> http://www.rubric.edu.au/extrafiles/wheel/index.html
>
> Howard Noble wrote:
>> Hello, like the postings on this subject.
>>
>> How about: a repository is an integrated set of software components
>> that provide discrete services, examples of which are:
>> a.. 2.1 Alert
>> b.. 2.2 Archiving
>> c.. 2.3 Authentication
>> d.. 2.4 Authorisation
>> e.. 2.5 Content management
>> f.. 2.6 DRM
>> g.. 2.7 Federated search
>> h.. 2.8 Filing
>> i.. 2.9 Group
>> j.. 2.10 Harvesting
>> k.. 2.11 Identifier
>> l.. 2.12 Member
>> m.. 2.13 Metadata management
>> n.. 2.14 Packaging
>> o.. 2.15 Person
>> p.. 2.16 Rating/ annotation
>> q.. 2.17 Resolver
>> r.. 2.18 Role
>> s.. 2.19 Search
>> t.. 2.20 Service registry
>> u.. 2.21 Workflow
>> v.. 2.22 Accounting
>> w.. 2.23 Version control
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Phil Barker Learning Technology Adviser
> ICBL, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
> Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University,
> Edinburgh, EH14 4AS
> Tel: 0131 451 3278 Fax: 0131 451 3327
> Web: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/
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