WattNames
a JISC VRERI Project
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WattNames is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 UK: Scotland Licence.
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WattNames Project Deliverables
The project has produced two main deliverables: (1) a prototype of a standard exchange format to expose researcher's identity metadata and (2) a case study using Heriot Watt University scenario to show the feasibility of the model proposed by the project.
Prototype:
The prototype involves (1) a generic XML format based on the FOAF language (RDF-aware) and the ontology developed at the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), University of Southampton, to define the researcher's identity and (2) a basic RESTful interface to make reusable this researcher's identity.
A sample data containing the names and email addresses of 132 researchers and academic staff from the Department of Physics was obtained from the School of Engineering and Physics, Heriot Watt University. This data was formatted using the FOAF and ECS ontology, as shown in this example (the data is not real and do not refer to any real person working or studying at Heriot Watt University)
<!DOCTYPE rdf:RDF [ <!ENTITY cc 'http://creativecommons.org/ns#'>
<!ENTITY dct 'http://purl.org/dc/terms/'>
<!ENTITY ecs 'http://rdf.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ontology/ecs#'>
<!ENTITY foaf 'http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/'>
<!ENTITY rdfs 'http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#'>
<!ENTITY xsd 'http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#'>
]>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:cc="&cc;" xmlns:dct="&dct;" xmlns:ecs="&ecs;" xmlns:foaf="&foaf;" xmlns:rdfs="&rdfs;">
<rdf:Description rdf:about="">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/PersonalProfileDocument"/>
<foaf:maker rdf:resource="#wattnames"/>
<foaf:primaryTopic rdf:resource="&wattnames;person/j.smith@hw.ac.uk"/>
</rdf:Description>
<foaf:Person rdf:about="&wattnames;person/j.smith@hw.ac.uk">
<foaf:family_name rdf:datatype="&xsd;string">
Smith</foaf:family_name>
<foaf:givenname rdf:datatype="&xsd;string">
John</foaf:givenname>
<foaf:name rdf:datatype="&xsd;string">
John Smith</foaf:name>
<foaf:title rdf:datatype="&xsd;string">
Professor</foaf:title>
<ecs:hasEmailAddress rdf:resource="mailto:j.smith@hw.ac.uk"/>
<ecs:hasWebPage rdf:resource="http://www.hw.ac.uk/~jsmith/"/>
<ecs:memberOf rdf:resource="&seps;dp"/>
</foaf:Person>
</rdf:RDF>
Case Study:
Although Heriot Watt University allowed us to use staff metadata from the Department of Physics to develop the prototype, it was not possible to obtain the permission to expose this data via a publically available API on the web. An important factor for the success of WattNames Project was to be able to be a data source for the Names Project. This was not possible to achieve because (1) we weren't able to complete the procedure requested by the University to obtain the authorisation from each member of the staff to deposit their names and email addresses on an external database (Names) and (2) the Names Project didn't have a proper exchange format or a web application to communicate with our API. The manager of the Names Project suggested us to upload data from WattNames to Names via FTP. This suggestion was not accepted by the University as our initial request was that the project prototype would feed Names using an agreed standard exchange format. Uploading academics' metadata on an external FTP server was not considered to be part of the project.
Basically the Case Study has exposed two issues:
1. An institution is likely to be concerned with the uploading of staff metadata on the Names Project database, even if this metadata is already available on the web, and
2. The Names Project needs to have a proper web application to enable institutions to keep control of their metadata stored in the Names database.