PerX and TechXtra

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PerX and TechXtra
Discovering eprints finding needles in the
haystack? 12th Sept, European Research Institute,
Birmingham

• Roddy MacLeod
• Heriot Watt University
• R.A.MacLeod_at_hw.ac.uk
• http//www.slideshare.net/libram/perx-and-techxtra
  /

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Two names

• Their roles in making research outputs more
  easily accessible

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• PerX Pilot Engineering Repository Xsearch
• A project (not a service)
• http//www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/perx/
• Subject Portals Project
• http//www.portal.ac.uk/spp/

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• TechXtra formerly EEVL Xtra
• A service (not a project)
• http//www.techxtra.ac.uk

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• June 2005 - May 2007
• JISC Digital Repositories Programme

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• Repositories Research Team Wiki (DigiRep)

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• lt 1fte
• Partners
• Heriot-Watt University
• Cranfield University
• Institution of Civil Engineers/Thomas Telford Ltd
• Geotechnical, Rock and Water Resources Library
  (Arizona)
• Regional Support Centre East Midlands
• Adiuri
• Looked at various issues concerning subject-based
  access to digital repositories
• Broad perspective on digital repositories

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Information landscape
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We investigated..

• The range and availability of digital repository
  sources
• Cultural barriers to use of repositories in the
  subject community
• The functionality of software tools
• Advocacy materials to encourage participation of
  repository providers
• Maintenance issues
• Interactions with infrastructural shared services
• Enhancing metadata quality
• Embedding and reuse of resource discovery
  services
• Improving search and browse results presentation
• Service profiling for particular audiences

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We produced

• Listing of Engineering Repository Sources
• Engineering Digital Repositories Landscape
  Analysis
• Listing of Basic Functional Requirements for
  Cross Search Service
• Focus Groups Reports
• Advocacy Materials
• Setup Maintenance Report
• Shared Service Report
• OAI-PMH Metadata Augmentation Report
• Embedding and reuse report

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Plus two working demonstratorswww.engineering.ac.
uk
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Plus two working demonstratorswww.engineering.ac.
uk/civil
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Administrative interface
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What did we find out?

• "We feel more strongly than ever that there are
  significant advantages to a disciplinary approach
  to electronic services supporting advanced
  scholarship and higher education" Stephen and
  Harrison (2002)
• What may work for one discipline does not
  necessarily work well for another discipline.
• Need for Subject focused services
• Agree 46.8
• Strongly agree 46.8

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What did we find out?

• Creating subject perspectives is not always easy.
• There are gap areas
• Subject information environments are complex
• Repositories are less important in engineering
  than some other subjects
• The hybrid approach has limitations
• Maintenance of OAI-PMH and automating
  reharvesting, is challenging

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What else did we find out?

• More content is needed
• Shared services were mostly at the trial stage
• We could embed a cross-search service in a VLE
• Its more difficult than you might think

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Problems faced by PerX
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Further PerX reading

• Building Bridges with Blocks Assisting digital
  library and Virtual Learning Environment
  integration through reusable middleware. In
  Proceedings ELPUB 2007.
• Digital Repositories Building an information
  infrastructure in the UK. Research Information,
  Oct/Nov 2006.
• The PerX Project - not just for engineers.
  E-MmITS, the electronic newsletter of the
  Multimedia and Information Technology Group
  Scotland, Spring/Summer 2006, pp. 11-14.
• Overcoming the obstacles of harvesting and
  searching digital repositories from federated
  searching toolkits, and embedding them in VLEs.
  In Proceedings 2nd International Conference on
  Computer Science and Information Systems
• Engineering the changing information landscape.
  FreePint (198).
• PerX Pilot Engineering Repository Xsearch. D-Lib
  Magazine 12(3).
• Digital Repositories in UK universities and
  colleges. Freepint (200).

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TechXtra
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Cross search 4 million items from

• Aeronautical Research Council Technical Reports
  (ARC)
• arXiv - ePrint Archive
• Australasian Digital Thesis (ADT)
• Australian Research Repositories Online to the
  World (ARROW)
• Caltech Earthquake Engineering Research
  Laboratory Technical Reports
• CISTI - Canada Institute for Scientific and
  Technical Information
• CiteSeer - Computer and Information Science
  Articles
• Copac - Library Catalogues
• CSA Discovery Guides
• DiVA - Academic Archive On-Line
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• DSpace at MIT
• Emerald Engineering
• Euclid Mathematics and Statistics Journals
• Geotechnical, Rock and Water Resources Library
  (GROW)

• Higher Education Academy Joint Engineering/Materia
  ls Subject Centre Resource Database Inderscience
  Journals
• Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Virtual
  Library (sample file)
• Intute - Science Engineering and Technology
• Intute Repository Search
• IoP Electronic Journals
• JORUM
• NASA Technical Reports
• National Engineering Education Delivery System
  (NEEDS)
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and
  Dissertations (NDLTD)
• OneStep Jobs
• OneStep Industry News
• Open Video Project
• Pearson Education - Books
• Recent Advances in Manufacturing (RAM)
• SearchLT Engineering

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TechXtra
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I've just explored this in a bit more detail and
wanted to congratulate ( thank you) for
providing this service.
This is really useful resource! 
I like TechXtra very much.
it is a good site.
I think TechXtra is quite great
Hi, I love your database/search facility
Extra..... very professional
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Large STM cross-search services

• Google Scholar
• Live Search Academic - 27 million articles
  indexed. Most are STM
• Scitopia 3 million from 15 societies
• WorldWideScience.org 19 databases
• Scirus 100 million plus 29 databases
• Scitation 1 million
• ScienceResearch millions
• Science.gov 50 million

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Subject communities

• iMechanica
• TechKnow

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Any questions?