Integrating Wiki Functions into OCLC Services

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Integrating Wiki Functions into OCLC Services

• Jeffrey A. Young
• OCLC Office of Research
• jyoung_at_oclc.org
• CNI Fall 2005 Task Force Meeting
• Phoenix, Arizona
• 5-6 December 2005

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Context

• The web is evolving beyond the creation and
  publication of information toward services that
  enable communication and personal expression
• Wikis
• Blogs
• Podcasts
• Flickr
• Amazon
• Netflix
• There are benefits to doing this in an open and
  interoperable way (standards and protocols)

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Strategic fit

• With Open WorldCat we can expand the OCLC
  cooperative to enable anyone to contribute
• Individual opinions (ratings and reviews)
• Communal facts (tables of content and notes)
• Other collaborative opportunities
• Pathfinders/reading lists
• Terminology services
• Bibliographies
• Supports Corporate Objective 2 Deliver OCLC
  products and services at the point of need
• OCLC as the first resource rather than the last
  resort

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WikiD (An OSS J2EE webapp) Accessed via Wiki
URL OpenURL SRW/U OAI RSS
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Pilot project

• Phase 1 October-December
• Users can add and edit reviews associated with
  WorldCat records through Open WorldCat
• User can add and edit descriptive content through
  Open WorldCat
• Users will have to register to add or edit
  content
• Phase 2 November-June
• Functionality available in Open WorldCat will be
  added to WorldCat records through FirstSearch and
  possibly other OCLC Services

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Purpose of the pilot

• Assess the quantity and quality of contributed
  content
• Profile contributors to determine who they are,
  why they are using this, etc.
• Evaluate the use of the content (click through
  rates, return visits, repeat contributions, etc.)
• Elicit ideas from users about how to expand the
  project

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Contributions per month
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Middleware WikiD overview

• Ward Cunningham describes a wiki as "the simplest
  online database that could possibly work".
• The cost of this simplicity is that wikis are
  generally limited to a single collection
  containing a single kind of record (viz. Wiki
  Markup Language records).
• WikiD (Wiki/Data) extends the wiki model to
  support multiple collections containing arbitrary
  schemas of XML records with minimal additional
  complexity.

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Extending wikis utility

• Wiki
• supported markup
• wikitext
• supported outputs
• HTML, wikitext
• page editing
• a single text block
• searches
• full text searching
• collections managed
• one per wiki

• WikiD
• supported markup
• any XML Schema (wikitext, MARC, METS)
• supported outputs (via XSLT)
• any XML Schema
• page editing
• a single text block, or,
• field level
• searches
• full text searching
• fielded searching
• collections managed
• one/multiple per WikiD

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History Using the OAI-PMH Differently

• OAI XSL content extension verbs
• Used OAI-PMH as an interactive web service
• The addition of an XSL Stylesheet reference in
  OAI responses provided a human interface without
  disrupting its intended purpose of automated
  harvesting
• Dare to store XML content in the OAI records
  ltmetadatagt element
• Sharp criticism for daring to add OAI extension
  verbs
• Extract ltmetadatagt content from OAI GetRecord
• Perform HTTP redirect to dcidentifier in oai_dc
  record
• OpenURL Spec Registry http//www.openurl.info/reg
  istry/
• info URI Registry http//info-uri.info/

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Extensible Repository Resource Locators(ERRoLs)

• Decouple extension verbs from the OAI mechanism
• Extend principles to any repository registered at
  UIUC
• One way to think about ERRoLs is as a resolver
  for OAI repository and item identifiers, with
  various resolution targets (using rule-based URL
  construction)
• http//errol.oclc.org/orpubs.oclc.org.html
• HTML renderings of OAI verbs
• Raw ltmetadatagt extraction and crosswalks
• Content dereferencing
• Extensible services, protocols, and XSL
  Stylesheets
• RSS
• OpenURL 0.1 API
• Customized via OAI Identify ltdescriptiongt
  elements
• SRW/U

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Limitations of ERRoLs

• ERRoL pushed the boundaries of OAIs harvesting
  mandate
• The ERRoL URL encoding rules were non-standard
• http//errol.oclc.org/orpubs.oclc.org.rss
• Many OAI repositories were too slow and/or
  unreliable
• I was the only one exploiting ERRoL to its full
  potential
• I was requested to update from OpenURL 0.1 to 1.0
• Every OAI repository I operated was configured
  differently
• I needed a way to update my repositories online
• Coincidentally, I was playing with a wiki around
  this time and was disappointed with its
  performance and features

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Synthesis of available solutions

• Instead of transforming OpenURL requests into
  ERRoL requests, I could flip it and use OpenURL
  as my core infrastructure.
• I could merge my OAI repositories into a single
  version-controlled database divided into
  Collections
• Each collection can have its own native
  metadataFormat
• XSL Stylesheets provide the user interfaces and
  crosswalks
• Use SRW/U as the database API
• The SRW community developed an Update web service
  protocol
• I developed WebEdit to bridge the gap between
  HTML forms and the XML-based Update service
• This gave me everything I needed to create a
  wiki-style application to manage multiple
  collections of structured datasets
• Conventional wiki capabilities could be contained
  in a single collection within the general model
• The conventional wiki collection could serve as a
  user interface for the creation and maintenance
  of the various collections

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Servlets and data flows
WikiD
WebEdit
OpenURL 1.0
SRW/U
Update
Pears DB Engine
File system
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OpenURL 1.0

• Most people continue to think in terms of OpenURL
  0.1
• Deliver the appropriate copy of a journal
  article
• OpenURL 1.0 abstracts the 0.1 function
• Supply the appropriate service related to an
  identifiable resource
• The words appropriate, service,
  identifiable and resource are left to the
  imagination of developers
• OpenURL 0.1 is thus an application of OpenURL
  1.0
• WikiD is another example of an OpenURL 1.0
  application
• identifiable resource can be anything (but
  typically refers to internal collection items)
  and appropriate service can mean anything (but
  typically refers to wiki-style functions)

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Support for multiple collections

• CollectionWikiPages is the primary bootstrap
  collection and gives WikiD its out-of-the-box
  wiki functionality
• Consider that many conventional wiki
  implementations treat certain types of WikiNames
  as special (e.g. WikiNames that begin with the
  word Category)
• In the same spirit, CollectionWikiPages treats
  WikiNames that start with the word Collection
  as special
• This special class of WikiNames allows users to
  create, reference, and manipulate collections in
  much the same way they would create and reference
  wiki pages.

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Summary

• OCLC contributed content pilot project
• Extends the cataloging cooperative and creates a
  social platform for members libraries and their
  patrons
• Pilot in Open WorldCat/FirstSearch (fall 2005)
• If the pilot is successful, by December 2005
  well develop a business case for a complete
  service based on user contributed content
• WikiD research project
• Allow non-programmers to quickly and easily
  create new user-contributed collections of
  structured data through its wiki interface
• Supports a variety of standards-based protocols
  to enable stand-alone use or integration into
  other systems
• Supports custom displays and services at the
  collection and item levels
• Demonstrates the efficacy of OpenURL 1.0 beyond
  the appropriate copy problem

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Reference Links

• Open WorldCat contributed content (example)
• http//worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/oclc/58795737ta
  breviews
• WikiD project page
• http//www.oclc.org/research/projects/wikid/
• WikiD demo
• http//alcme.oclc.org/wikid/