UKOLN is supported by: Digital Libraries and the business process: reflections on a theme Dr Liz Lyon, Director UKOLN, University of Bath, UK BL/JISC/UKOLN Workshop, British Library March 2006. www.bath.ac.u k a centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.u k his work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence ttribution-ShareAlike 2.0
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UKOLN is supported by: Digital Libraries and the business process: reflections on a theme Dr Liz Lyon, Director UKOLN, University of Bath, UK BL/JISC/UKOLN.
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UKOLN is supported by:
Digital Libraries and the business process: reflections on a theme
Dr Liz Lyon, DirectorUKOLN, University of Bath, UK
BL/JISC/UKOLN Workshop, British Library
March 2006.
www.bath.ac.uk
a centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons LicenceAttribution-ShareAlike 2.0
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 2
Overview
1. Mapping the business process: the intricate mix of humans and machines
2. Some thoughts about workflow
3. Social networks and service development
4. Summary: take home message
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 3
What do we mean by “business process”???
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 4
“A business process is a collection of related structural activities that produce something of value to the organization, its stake holders or its customers. It is, for example, the process through which an organization realizes its services to its customers”.
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 5
“The linkage of business process with value generation leads some practitioners to view business processes as the workflows which realize an organization's use cases”.
…..Workflows???
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 6
“Workflow at its simplest is the movement of documents and/or tasks through a work process.
More specifically, workflow is the operational aspect of a work procedure: how tasks are structured, who performs them, what their relative order is, how they are synchronized, how information flows to support the tasks and how tasks are being tracked”.
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 7
“Distinction can be made between "scientific" and "business" workflow paradigms.
While the former is mostly concerned with throughput of data through various algorithms, applications and services, ….the latter concentrates on scheduling task executions, including dependencies which are not necessarily data-driven and may include human agents”.
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 8
eBusiness eScienceClosed + secure systems Extremely open (data)
• R4L Repository for the Laboratory Project (JISC-funded) automated data capture from instrumentation, deposit of results (chemistry) at Univ. Southampton
User scenario (…part of….)1. Produce strategy for synthesis (=idea)2. Submit plan to SmartTea system (incl. identifiers)3. Retrieve and follow instructions (sub-workflow?)4. Experimental synthesis metadata automatically recorded on
instruments (Smart Lab)5. Create record for synthesised sample (+ proposed chemical
identifier) in R4L laboratory data management system6. Run spectral analyses on sample capturing further analysis
7. Save spectrum in native and common formats8. Invoke R4L data capture service and deposit files +
metadata in laboratory repository….
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 16
Services for simple & rapid deposit Data manipulation toolbox Associated Metadata
Value added
Format conversion
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 17
Crystallography workflowRAW DATA DERIVED DATA RESULTS DATA
• Initialisation: mount new sample set up data collection• Collection: collect data• Processing: process and correct images• Solution: solve structures• Refinement: refine structure• CIF: produce CIF (Crystallographic Information File)• Validation: chemical & crystallographic checks• Report: generate Crystal Structure Report
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 18
A data repository entry ecrystals.chem.soton.ac.uk
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 19
Access to the underlying data
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 20
Laboratory Repositories R4L
Slide: Simon Coles,
Univ. Southampton
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 21
eBank UK Project• Aggregator service harvests metadata from institutional repository
(e-crystals archive)• eBank service embedded in PSIgate portal for 3rd party search• Service linking from data to derived research publication• Embedding eBank service in learning workflows
UKOLN (lead), University of Southampton, University of Manchester
DL workflows : a complex picture• Workflows for data capture, deposit, preservation,
citation, discovery, mining &&….• Multiple workflows interacting together• Workflows may call on each other, in a defined order• Multiple workflows may use “common” services e.g.
Assign (identifier)• Require sequential or parallel execution, have
dependencies, be time-limited, repetitive• Have an owner (control)• Include essential human interventions• ? ? ?
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 28
Workflow…the answers to Who? What? When? in a business
process.
A workflow is only as good as the business process beneath it.
Margie Virdell, IBM developerWorks
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 29
Some observations…. 1. We don’t know enough about institutional business process:
2. How to analyse, express and model processes 3. What types of models?
– At what levels of granularity: strategic (for a manager) vs detailed mathematical specifications (for a developer)
4. Which workflow tools & standards should we use?5. Learn from e-Science projects6. Which processes are best driven by machines and which by
humans?7. How do human-directed processes interact with machine-
driven ones?8. What are the digital library “touch points” in these
processes?
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 30
Service-oriented architectures for Digital Libraries
• Produce process models (DLF?)• Experience of VRE projects• Integrative Biology user scenarios• Service typology (e-Framework?)• Identify services: service definitions• Service interactions: service patterns• Orchestration of Web services • Choreography of Web services• Workflow interoperability….