JISC

Start date: 1 November 2004

End date: 31 October 2006

Funding programme: Virtual Research Environments programme (phase 1)

Project website: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/evie

JISC theme(s): e-Research

Researchers in all disciplines are increasingly expecting to be able to undertake a variety of research-associated tasks online. These range from collaborative activities with colleagues around the globe through to information-seeking activities in an electronic library environment. Many of the tools which enable these activities to take place are already available within the local IT infrastructure. However, in many cases, the tools are provided through discrete, bespoke interfaces with few links between them. Researchers face a number of challenges in this environment, including multiple methods of authentication and authorisation, finding information and sharing information between applications.   

Aims and Objectives   

The EVIE Project will address these issues by testing the integration and deployment of key existing software components within a portal framework.  

The main objectives of the EVIE Project are to:

• Establish an integrated VRE infrastructure based on open standards and existing software components to support the White Rose Grid research community at the University of Leeds
• Provide a set of additional resources and services through this environment, including facilities for enhanced search and retrieval.
• Deliver simplified-sign-on functionality to enable seamless integration between the identified platforms
• Provide a set of user validated recommendations identifying effective, scaleable and reusable mechanisms for construction of intuitive search and retrieval tools within this environment.
• Provision of enhanced resource discovery mechanisms with document visualisation techniques available to indicate relevance.
• Develop a robust, extensible, taxonomy for use within a VRE.
• Provide support for search and retrieval mechanisms across disparate information resources within a VRE.
• Identify long-term options and requirements for digital preservation in a VRE.
• Identify requirements for data integration to provide a seamless flow of information between systems integrated through the environment.

Project Methodology  

A portal is intended to provide a seamless, web-based interface to a range of university systems and services. The key benefit of a portal framework is to bring together disparate resources and systems into a single environment, so that end-users can utilise these tools in an integrated fashion, thus aiding efficiency and effectiveness, and improving the overall user experience. The portal framework for EVIE will integrate the University of Leeds Bodington VLE and the University of Leeds Virtual Knowledge Park VRE and other tools and services deployed in the project. It will be based around open standards, and this will enable us to deliver portlets and channels within an extensible framework. The portal will provide a customised and personalisable framework for the VRE. Customisation will enable us to deliver content to users based on their roles – for example, researchers would see content pushed to them based on their discipline; this might be most effectively utilised in the delivery of e-library resources to re-searchers through the VRE. Personalisation will enable users to tailor content to their own specific needs. One aim of provision of VRE services through the portal is to simplify authentication and authorisation. A VRE needs to inter-operate with central authentication and authorisation mechanisms across the campus in order to reduce the number of passwords which users have to remember, to enable improved trust relation-ships to be developed between systems and to reduce system administration overheads of maintaining multiple accounts and passwords on multiple systems. Routes to simplified-sign-on will differ according to the systems being integrated, and the need for security of data.

Implications/ Deliverables/ Stakeholders

Key project outputs will include:

• A user requirements analysis report with recommendations for service development and key integration of the key tools and services.
• A system integration route map, including technical and functional specification, and visual design criteria.
• A full, working demonstrator system.
• A report on digital preservation requirements for VRE systems.
• An implemented JSR168 Portlet that provides access to SRU/SRW services from the British Library, and others.
• A visual front-end to the resource discovery services provided in the VRE, showing visually the relative importance of sources and the correlations between them.
• A report summarizing the applicability of FAST classification for classifying content.
• A taxonomy for use within EVIE.
• The functional integration of key systems utilising simplified-sign-on mechanisms.
• A report on capabilities for ‘back-end’ integration of systems to provide greater integration at the data level.
• A final project report, including exit strategy.
• An evaluation and dissemination strategy.
• A dissemination event (or series of events).
• A set of guidelines for best practice.
• A set of end-user documentation.
• A set of recommendations for the transferability of the system to other institutions

Project Partners  

University of Leeds http://www.leeds.ac.uk 
Bodington.org http://www.bodington.org 
Virtual Knowledge Park http://vkp.leeds.ac.uk 
British Library http://www.bl.uk