Quick sketch

I’ve just had a meeting with Sue and Sam (from URO) about use cases.  It was useful, as always, to put our heads together and we came up with a quick sketch of a potential infrastructure for Bibliosight that we would like feedback on:

A quick sketch

N.B.  This assumes it is possible to programmatically bulk upload XML records to EndNote – I have no idea if this is possible – and to intraLibrary which should be possible based on discussion at the meeting on Tuesday.

The sketch arose from the fact that research administrators currently use EndNote which they wish to continue using as dedicated citation management software for its high level functionality and the need to simplify their workflow rather than expect them to add records to two separate systems.  Such an approach could also inform our developing use cases to a) auto-populate the repository with metadata from WoS and b) alert repository/research administrators when an article is published so we can pursue an appropriate full text version for the repository.

Use Cases meeting

Carnegie and University Research Office

What information is reported currently:

All published outputs in an academic year Aug 1 – July 31 and forthcoming publications (collected by the research administrators)

• Authored books
• Book chapters
• Edited books
• Reports
• Journal articles
• Electronic journal articles
• Published abstracts (peer reviewed)

Additional Repository items reported (grey literature)

• Conference papers
• Key note presentations
• Power point

Current practice

Information needed is captured by Sam using Endnote. Sam in addition uses Endnote to customise the details of researcher outputs e.g. by centre, individuals, academic year etc. The current Endnote version X2 is a very user friendly interface with additional features such as groupings, access to Web of Science (WOS) directly produces a formatted bibliography i.e. Harvard and others as well as site as you write.

The wish list

• Easy user interface
• Able to transfer current records from endnote to the repository
• Manipulation of the information uploaded to generate reports and reference lists by faculty, centres, authors, academic year, type of output etc
• Upload grey literature into the repository
• Notification of new output which has been entered into the repository via WOS
• Automated updates of academic profiles i.e. new outputs

Generating use cases

According to the web-authority that is Wikipedia “a use case describes ‘who’ can do ‘what’ with the system in question. The use case technique is used to capture a system’s behavioral requirements by detailing scenario-driven threads through the functional requirements.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_case

A template for developing a use case is outlined as follows:

• Use case name
• Version
• Goal
• Summary
• Actors
• Preconditions
• Triggers

The “use cases” in the original bid really just comprise the summary part of this template and I would now like to work with the University Research Office (and other potential “actors”) to flesh out these sketches and develop new ones:

• The repository team/URO are automatically notified when bibliographic information about an article associated with Leeds Met is available in Web of Science. Such a facility can be incorporated into the workflow to ensure citation data is up to date in the repository.

• Researchers have expressed the wish for targeted communications regarding their outputs which would encourage them to deposit an appropriate author produced version of a recently published / cited article. A link to Web of Science could therefore produce an automated communication which would alert them to the presence of their citation on Web of Science, and request an author version for the repository. This would be much more useful to them than a regular, generic reminder to deposit their publications, and the timeliness of it would make deposit a more likely outcome. It would have the potential to contribute to advocacy of the repository service by providing evidence of the putative link between Open Access and increased citation rate.

• The Research Excellence Framework (REF) that will replace the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 2010 is yet to be finalised; it is likely to make greater use of quantitative measures of assessment, such as bibliometrics. The need exists, therefore, to implement technologies that facilitate the extraction and collation of relevant data for use by institutions, individual academicsand HEFCE. It is also important to develop use-cases that inform the evolving process of the REF.

In the first instance I hope to have a discussion on the blog to more clearly elucidate our goals, preconditions and triggers before sitting down with our actors (URO/academic staff).