“How much do you know about SWORD?”

Dec 122011
 

We recently posted a survey about ‘Data Deposit’.  The survey is still open if you wish to respond.

The first question in the survey asks:

  • “How much do you know about SWORD?”
We asked this simple question as we wanted to find out the general level of knowledge about SWORD within the community who responded.  The survey was sent to various email lists with an interest in managing research data, SWORD, and repositories.  The following graph shows the responses to this question (survey responses as at 12/12/2011, number of responses = 35):
The responses confirm our suspicion that a lot of people have heard of SWORD and know what it does, but a reasonable proportion either haven’t heard of it, or don’t really know much about it.  So there is good news, and room for improvement in this result.
We’ll post further results from the survey over the next few weeks.

Survey: Depositing Research Data using SWORD

Dec 012011
 

The SWORD v2 project has been asked by the JISC to look into the applicability of the SWORD protocol for depositing Research Data.  The SWORD protocol has always been agnostic about the type of resource it is depositing, however its initial development stemmed from a requirement for the deposit of scholarly communications outputs into repositories – these typically being small text-based items.

In order to investigate how well SWORD and SWORD v2 would deal with Research Data, we need to know about the different types of research data that you are working with.  This will allow us to discover some of the range of different data types in use, and the general and specific requirements of each.

We’ve tried to keep the survey short – it is only 9 questions long.  If you have a few minutes to share some information with us about the data you work with, we would very much appreciate it.

Visit the survey at http://swordapp.org/sword-v2/sword-v2-data-deposit-survey/

SWORD v2 ready to use!

Nov 082011
 

As part of the SWORD v2 project finding, resources were allocated to implement it in a number of repository platforms.  First off the block to release SWORD v2 implementations as part of their core functionality are EPrints and DSpace:

There are also client code library implementations available if you wish to create SWORD v2 clients.

SWORD v2 standard development process

Oct 182011
 

Have you wondered how the SWORD v2 development process has taken place, from humble beginnings in 2010 to the standard today?  Richard Jones (SWORD v2 Technical Lead) from CottageLabs explains during a Pecha Kucha session at the 2011 Repository Fringe event #rfringe11

OER Publishing Client Project

Sep 132011
 

We recently announced one of the clients that the SWORD v2 project has been able to fund (the ‘right-click deposit‘ project).  This blog post describes the other project that was funded: “A SWORD-V2 Client for Publishing Open Education Resources (OER) to Connexions”.

Kathi Fletcher is a Shuttleworth Fellow who is focusing on how to foster an ecosystem of innovative tools and services around an education highway (metaphorically) made of open education resources (OER).  Part of this involves implementing a SWORD v2 deposit interface for the Connexions repository of OERs.  Connexions (cnx.org) is a globally available repository of educational materials that can be freely shared, reused, and adapted.

In order to make the deposit of new OERs into the repository even easier this project has been funded to create a deposit tool that will load and convert word document files into CNX-compatible packages, and then deposit them using SWORD v2.  The SWORD interface will then be able to be used to update, augment, and make new versions of the OER modules contained within the repository.

This project will be a good showcase of the applicability of SWORD for all types of content repositories, not just traditional ‘Institutional Repositories’.

We’ll post updates on this blog as the project develops.

Right-Click deposit project

Sep 092011
 

The SWORD project recently published a call for project proposals to create new SWORD v2 clients.  We are happy to announce that two projects have been funded which we’ll introduce in some blog posts.

This blog post introduces the first of the two: Right-click deposit by Kim Shepherd.  The project proposal aims to:

Create a configurable Windows SWORD v2 client which offers quick access to repository deposit via the Windows right-click context menu.

It would be developed with a focus on easy and non-intrusive installation to allow easy large-scale deployments. It will be designed to take advantage of the familiarity most Windows users have with right-click menus and actions, so that users do not have to learn how to use “yet another app”.

Some usage examples include:

  • Pre-configure repository/collection settings and deposit any file with one click
  • Configure repository settings and select collection at time of deposit
  • No configuration, select all options at time of deposit
  • Configure a range of deposit profiles which can be selected via the context menu

We’ll post updates on this blog as the project develops.

SWORD v2 – request for project proposals

Jul 212011
 

The JISC funded SWORD v2 project has been working to extend the original SWORD protocol that facilitates the deposit of materials into repositories.  Based on the Atom-Pub protocol, SWORD v2 enhances the power of SWORD by taking the existing ability of deposit, and adding the ability to retrieve, update, or delete deposits as they pass through the deposit lifecycle.

The project has developed SWORD v2 implementations for DSpace, EPrints and Fedora.  In addition it has developed client code libraries (APIs) for Java, PHP, Ruby and Python.

In order to increase the number of SWORD v2 client implementations, the JISC have donated over £5,000 to fund new SWORD v2 clients.  The majority of this money is being made available in a contested request for projects.  We are seeking developers or development teams to submit ideas for creating new SWORD v2 clients, either by upgrading existing SWORD clients, building SWORD functionality into other scholarly communications tools, or developing entirely new deposit tools.  In addition a small amount of the money will be used to provide technical support to the winning developers by the original SWORD v2 team ensuring that the projects have access to all the help and support they need.

Entrants are encouraged to make use of the existing SWORD v2 client code libraries.  Using the existing client code libraries will lower the development effort needed, enabling rapid, efficient, and cost-effective development.  Proposals to add SWORD v2 into existing well-adopted and mature systems are particularly welcome.

To enter, please tell us the following, in no more than 3 pages:

  • What you plan to develop
  • How this will have a positive impact on repository deposit rates
  • Who will be part of the development team, and some information about their skills
  • How much money you request to perform this development
  • Contact details for the developer(s), including any institutional affiliations

Entries will be judged by a panel of staff from the SWORD v2 project, UKOLN, and JISC.  It is anticipated that 2 to 5 projects will be funded, depending upon the quality of submissions, and the amount of money that each submission requests.  The decision of the judges is final, and the project reserves the right not to spend the whole amount of money if not enough entries of sufficient quality are received.

By submitting a proposal you additionally agree to the following:

  • The completed project will be delivered within 3 months of being notified of their success.
  • The code created will be licenced with an appropriate Open Source licence (to be discussed and agreed with the project), and the source code published online.
  • All liability for tax, local or foreign on the money is the responsibility of the developers.

To enter, submit your proposal to info@swordapp.org by 5:00pm Friday 12th August BST.  Winners should be announced by the end of August.  Proposals are welcome from any country.

SWORD extension project

Jul 152011
 

We’re glad to announce that the SWORD v2 project has been granted extension funding by JISC. The original SWORD v2 project has been extending the current SWORD standard from its current model of ‘fire and forget’ deposits, to a full CRUD model where items can be updated, replaced, or deleted too.  The project will deliver the new draft standard, server implementations for DSpace, EPrints and Fedora, along with client libraries in Java, PHP, Ruby, and Python.

For this extension to the project, the SWORD team is joining up with the SONEX team.  SONEX (Scholarly Output Notification and EXchange) have spent the past couple of years undertaking various activities, one of which has been identifying deposit opportunities within the scholarly communications environment.  The SWORD and SONEX teams have worked closely together in the past on exploring how SWORD can facilitate the deposit use cases identified by the SONEX work.

The extension project will be split into two halves:

  1. Explore the applicability of SWORD for dataset deposit
  2. Develop further clients to increase the adoption of SWORD v2

The first part of the extension project has already started.  Projects and researchers who have been working with dataset deposit into repositories are being contacted in order to find out more about the way that data transfer takes place, to see where SWORD could fit in.  In particular, projects of the JISC MRD (Managing Research Data) programme are being targeted.  Once this work has been completed, a gap analysis of their use cases and requirements will be compared with the functionality offered by SWORD.

Further details of the second part of the project will given in other blog posts in the near future – stay tuned: we’re looking for input in the form of ideas, possible systems to be enhanced with SWORD v2 functionality, and we’ll be seeking funded development parters.

Looking back at Open Repositories 2011

Jun 182011
 

Everyone is home from Open Repositories 2011 now.  As usual it was a great conference, and we were once again surprised by how often SWORD is referred to in different presentations.

SWORD was promoted by the team twice at the conference:

  • The SWORD Course: The course was presented by Stuart Lewis and Richard Jones. The slides from the course are available online. This year saw the addition of a new module, ‘An introduction to SWORD v2′.
  • SWORD v2 debut presentation: This was the first time that SWORD v2 has been presented at a large conference. The presentation was delivered by Stuart Lewis and Richard Jones, and showed the evolution of SWORD v1 to v2, demonstrated the benefits and use cases of the new version, and looked at the implementations that are under development.  The slides can be viewed on slideshare.

SWORD also played a part of the Developer Challenge, with a special prize being offered to the the most innovative use of SWORD in an open-repositories context.  The prize was won by a group made up of DSpace developers from New Zealand (The University of Auckland Library, and the Library Consortium of New Zealand) and an EPrints developer from the UK, currently living in Korea.  Part of their submission involved an Android mobile application they had created that could deposit geo-tagged photos directly into a repository using SWORD.

Where does SWORD fit into the future?

May 212011
 

Are you coming to the Open Repositories 2011 conference?  If so, you might be interested in the ‘Developers Challenge‘.  The theme of the the challenge this year is:

“Show us the future of repositories!”

This competition will be fascinating, as it will allow repository users, managers, and developers to team up in order to show us glimpses of the future, and how repositories will be playing a role in that future.

This year there is an extra prize for the most innovative use of SWORD in an open-repositories context.  In order for repositories to be successful, they need to solicit content.  How do you see SWORD fitting into that?

Many of the SWORD team members, past and present, including a lot of the current SWORD v2 project developers will be at the conference.  If you’d like to talk about SWORD, get a bit of advice about how to prototype with SWORD, or how SWORD could feature in your ‘developers challenge’ submission, come and find one of us for a chat.

Finally, if you’ve not signed up yet but want to come, we’ll be running ‘The SWORD Course‘ again at the conference, between 8am and 12noon on Tuesday June 7th.  Email info@swordapp.org if you’d like to join us.

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