Andrea Mannocci

The D-NET software toolkit

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the architectural principles and the services of the D-NET software toolkit. D-NET is a framework where designers and developers find the tools for constructing and operating aggregative infrastructures (systems for aggregating data sources with heterogeneous data models and technologies) in a cost-effective way. Designers and developers can select from a variety of D-NET data management services, can configure them to handle data according to given data models, and can construct autonomic workflows to obtain personalized aggregative infrastructures. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a definition of aggregative infrastructures, sketching architecture, and components, as inspired by real-case examples. It then describes the limits of current solutions, which find their lacks in the realization and maintenance costs of such complex software. Finally, it proposes D-NET as an optimal solution for designers and developers willing to realize aggre...

The Europeana Network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy Data Infrastructure

Epigraphic archives, containing collections of editions about ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions, have been created in several European countries during the last couple of centuries. Today, the project EAGLE (Europeana network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy, a Best Practice Network partially funded by the European Commission) aims at providing a single access point for the content of about 15 epigraphic archives, totaling about 1,5M digital objects. This paper illustrates some of the challenges encountered and their solution for the realization of the EAGLE data infrastructure. The challenges mainly concern the harmonization, interoperability and service integration issues caused by the aggregation of metadata from heterogeneous archives (different data models and metadata schemas, and exchange formats). EAGLE has defined a common data model for epigraphic information, into which data models from different archives can be optimally mapped. The data infrastructure is based on the D-NET software toolkit, capable of dealing with data collection, mapping, cleaning, indexing, and access provisioning through web portals or standard access protocols.

The OpenAIRE Workflows for Data Management.

The OpenAIRE initiative is the point of reference for Open Access in Europe and aims at the creation of an e-Infrastructure for the free flow, access, sharing, and re-use of research outcomes, services and processes for the advancement of research and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. OpenAIRE makes openly accessible a rich Information Space Graph (ISG) where products of the research life-cycle (e.g. publications, datasets, projects) are semantically linked to each other. Such an information space graph is constructed by a set of autonomic (orchestrated) workflows operating in a regimen of continuous data integration. This paper discusses the principal workflows operated by the OpenAIRE technical infrastructure in its different functional areas and provides the reader with the extent of the several challenges faced and the solutions realized.

The EAGLE Europeana Network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy: A Technical Perspective

The project EAGLE (Europeana network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy, a Best Practice Network partially funded by the European Commission) aims at aggregating epigraphic material provided by some 15 different epigraphic archives (about 80 % of the classified epigraphic material from the Mediterranean area) for ingestion to Europeana. The collected material will be made available also to the scholarly community and to the general public, for research and cultural dissemination. This paper briefly presents the main services provided by EAGLE and the challenges encountered for the aggregation of material coming from heterogeneous archives (different data models and metadata schemas, and exchange formats). EAGLE has defined a common data model for epigraphic information, into which data models from different archives can be optimally mapped. The data infrastructure is based on the D-NET software toolkit, capable of dealing with data collection, mapping, cleaning, indexing, and access provisioning through web portals or standard access protocols.

Preliminary Analysis of Data Sources Interlinking

The novel e-Science’s data-centric paradigm has proved that interlinking publications and research data objects coming from different realms and data sources (e.g. publication repositories, data repositories) makes dissemination, re-use, and validation of research activities more effective. Scholarly Communication Infrastructures (SCIs) are advocated for bridging such data sources by offering an overlay of services for identification, creation, and navigation of relationships among objects of different nature. Since realization and maintenance of such infrastructures is in general very cost-consuming, in this paper we propose a lightweight approach for “preliminary analysis of data source interlinking” to help practitioners at evaluating whether and to what extent realizing them can be effective. We present Data Searchery, a configurable tool delivering a service for relating objects across data sources, be them publications or research data, by identifying relationships between their metadata descriptions in real-time.