Introduction
This largely graphical article attempts to explain the JISC
Information Environment (JISC IE) [1] by
layering a set of fairly well-known services, projects and
software applications over the
network architecture diagram [2].
The JISC Information Environment (JISC IE) technical
architecture specifies a set of standards and protocols that
support the development and delivery of an integrated set of
networked services that allow the end-user to discover, access,
use and publish digital and physical resources as part of their
learning and research activities. The key standards and protocols
specified in the technical architecture are listed in the
JISC IE Architecture Standards Framework [3].
Before looking at the diagrams below, (for which a
larger original is available), it is probably worth noting a couple of points:
- Firstly, the services, projects and software applications
listed here are intended to be seen as examples of the kinds of
activities happening at that point in the architectural diagram.
The list is in no way intended to be exhaustive. Apologies in
advance to anyone who thinks that their very important
activity should be listed but isn't!
- Secondly, the placement of individual services, projects and
software applications at particular places on the diagram is
somewhat arbitrary, in some cases more so than others. In
particular, remember that almost all the activities mentioned
below offer some kind of user-interface direct to the end-user
and can therefore be thought of as presentation layer activities,
at least to a certain extent. The intention here is to select the
core function of the chosen service, project or software
application and to position it accordingly. The reader is, of
course, free to disagree with the author's analysis!
The terminology used in the architecture diagram used below is
defined in the
JISC IE glossary [4].
Presentation layer services
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Presentation layer services provide the end-user with a
"personalised, single point of access to a range of heterogeneous
network services, local and remote, structured and
unstructured".
Almost all access to JISC IE services is currently through the
end-user's Web browser, though there are some exceptions to this
(see below). In the future, one can anticipate increased access
to services through mobile technology such as phones and
PDAs.
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Institutional portal activities, such as that being undertaken
by the PORTAL project at the University of Hull, will provide
members of the institution with a single, personalised interface
to many of the resources they need to undertake their research,
learning and teaching activities.
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Subject portals, such as those being developed by the Resource
Discovery Network Subject Portal Project (SPP) and the LTSN
Learning and Teaching Portal, provide the end-user with a
discipline or topic specific view of available resources.
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Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), a.k.a. Learning
Management Systems (LMSs), provide the student with a single
environment within which he or she can discover and access
learning resources and carry out learning-related tasks.
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Library portals extend the functionality offered by the
library catalogue, typically including cross-searching of local
and remote collections.
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As mentioned above, most access to JISC IE services is through
the end-user's Web browser. There are some exceptions however. Desktop
reference managers, like EndNote and ReferenceManager, and other
desktop tools such as FeedReader and the Google toolbar, provide
the end-user's desktop with much of the functionality one might
expect to get from portals and other services.
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Fusion services
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Services in the fusion layer bring together metadata records,
by searching (using Z39.50 or SRW), gathering (using the OAI-PMH,
RSS/HTTP and/or HTTP) or manual cataloguing.
Commercial abstracting and indexing services like ISI Web of
Science are hard to place within the JISC IE architecture. They
are shown here as an 'index' (based in part on the generic name
of the type of service that they offer). Given that they don't
make content available directly (only metadata about content),
abstracting and indexing services do not belong in the provision
layer. However, the increased portalisation of these kinds of
services (for example in the form of ISI Web of Knowledge) means
that aspects of their services could easily be positioned in the
presentation layer.
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The two services that feature heavily in end-user surveys of approaches
to resource discovery are Google and the library catalogue. Services
like Google build full-text indexes from fairly unstructured content
('Web pages' made available from 'Web sites') in the provision layer.
With the development of machine interfaces to such indexes (in the
form of the 'Google APIs') these services can be said to fit firmly
into the fusion layer.
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In addition to its human-oriented Web sites, the RDN also
offers machine interfaces to its catalogues of high-quality
Internet resources. The interfaces take the form of Z39.50 and
SRW targets, as well as more ad hoc approaches to embedding the
RDN service within institutional services in the form of
RDN-Include.
Similarly, Amazon also offers machine interfaces to its
catalogues.
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Library catalogues are another resource discovery service that
feature highly in the experience of students and researchers. Most
library automation applications support machine interfaces to the
catalogue in the form of a Z39.50 target, though the software isn't
always configured to have this feature enabled.
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There are a number of Rich/RDF Site Summary (RSS) news-feed
aggregation services available on the Web. Probably the best
known is that offered by Syndic8.com. In addition to a
human-oriented Web interface, such services also typically offer
machine interfaces in the form of aggregated RSS channels.
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Another form of aggregation is that offered by OAI service providers
such as the ePrints UK Project. Such services aggregate metadata
records from multiple repositories; in the case of ePrints UK these
are enhanced through the use of a number of Web services, before
making them available for searching or harvesting using Z39.50,
SRW or OAI-PMH.
Celestial is a service that harvests metadata from
repositories that support the Open Archives Initiative Protocol
for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), and caches that data for other
services to harvest.
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Brokers, like that offered by the Xgrain project, take a query
from a presentation layer service and pass it on to one or more
content providers in the provision layer. Results from multiple
content providers are merged and ranked before being passed back
to the presentation layer service.
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OpenURL resolvers
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OpenURL resolvers accept metadata about an item, encoded in the
form of an OpenURL, and provide the end-user with a set of links
to delivery services where the item can be obtained and to value-added
services associated with the item.
Most OpenURL resolver services are expected to be offered
within the institution, typically by the library, using software
such as SFX from ExLibris.
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Where the institution does not offer an OpenURL resolver
itself, a national default OpenURL may be offered for use by
anyone in the UK higher and further education community.
Experiments in this area are being undertaken by the ITAM and
ZBLSA projects.
In some cases, institutional resolvers may be hosted off-site,
for example using the 1Cate service from Openly Informatics.
However, it is arguable whether this should be considered as a
true 'shared service'.
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Shared infrastructure
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Shared infrastructural services support the activities of all the
other services within the JISC IE.
Identifier resolver services, such as those offered at
purl.org, dx.doi.org and hdl.handle.net, take an identifier
encoded as a URI and return an HTTP redirect to the current
location of the resource being identified.
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Service registries provide machine-readable information about
available services. The JISC IE Service Registry will make
available information about the collections and services that are
available as part of the JISC IE.
UDDI.org (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration)
provides a global registry of Web services.
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The Athens Access Management System provides a single, shared authentication
and authorisation service for the UK higher and further education
community.
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A variety of other Web services are, and will become,
available - including those covering terminology, institutional
and user preferences and metadata schema registries. Examples of
Web services currently available or being developed include
OCLC's Dewey auto-classification service and Southampton's
citation analysis services (both being trialled as part of the
ePrints UK Project).
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Content providers
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Content providers make content available. Content is the stuff
that end-users want to get at - scholarly journals, monographs,
textbooks, learning objects, abstracts, manuscripts, maps, music
scores, still images, geospatial images and other kinds of vector
and numeric data, as well as moving picture and sound collections.
Content made available by institutions will increasingly be
managed in the form of eprint archives and/or learning object
repositories.
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Content will also continue to be made available through
nationally managed repositories such as those currently offered
by the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) and the learning
object repository being developed by the JORUM project.
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Content is also made available directly by the publishers, for
example the Institute of Physics Publishing and Blackwell Publishing,
and through intermediaries such as ingenta.
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Finally, some disciplines will continue to develop
subject-specific repositories such as those currently available
at arXiv and Cogprints.
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Conclusion
The purpose of this article has been to illustrate the JISC IE
by showing where various services, projects and software
applications fit into the architectural diagram. The fact that
the positioning of some services is a little arbitrary is not a
serious problem. The network service diagram is not intended to
be a straightjacket into which all services must neatly fit. In
any case, as indicated in the final slide of a recent
presentation about the
JISC IE technical architecture [5], end-users are unlikely to perceive a neatly
regimented hierarchy of services anyway. Furthermore, as can be
seen from the list of services, projects and software
applications above, the architecture is not intended to say that
the only route to content is through a presentation layer
'portal', i.e. moving from front to back through the diagram.
Services will interoperate with each other in a variety of ways,
sideways across the diagram as well as front to back. The diagram
helps services to see where they fit within the bigger picture
and informs the selection of standards and protocols needed to
allow different services to interoperate with each other.
References
- Investing in the Future: Developing
an Online Information Environment
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ie/
- JISC Information Environment
Architecture
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/distributed-systems/jisc-ie/arch/
- JISC Information Environment
Architecture Standards Framework
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/distributed-systems/jisc-ie/arch/standards/
- JISC Information Environment
Architecture Glossary
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/distributed-systems/jisc-ie/arch/glossary/
- JISC IE Architecture - external
trends and their potential impact
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/distributed-systems/jisc-ie/arch/presentations/tech-trends-2003/
Author Details
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