Presentation on VREs/MREs

Thanks to Rachel for pointing this out: Interesting presentation from the Eduserv Symposium...by David Harrison of Cardiff Uni...
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/symposium/2008/presentations/davidharrison

myExperiment in Nature

Thanks to Judy for pointing this out - myExperiment gets a mention in Nature. Shame it doesn't mention it's funded by JISC but hey, we can't have everything!

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2008/080221/full/nj7181-1024a.html

"MyExperiment.org, funded by the UK government, lets users share workflows: the customary protocols for standardizing data, running simulations or conducting statistical analysis on large data sets. Standardized protocols for manipulating large data sets can be tweaked for specific purposes. Users can comment on their usefulness and link to other work-flows of interest. Bioinformaticians and geneticists are among those who stand to benefit most. For example, sharing a workflow for identifying biological pathways implicated in Trypanosomiasis resistance in cattle allowed another investigator to find pathways involved in sex dependence in the mouse model, says myExperiment project leader David De Roure, a computer scientist at the University of Southampton, UK. Done independently, this type of study could take two years. Such streamlining allows scientists to focus on discovery rather than drudgery, he says."

New JISC briefing papers

Two new briefing papers:

• Research in the social sciences: an overview of JISC activities
  http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/socialsciencesresearchv1.aspx
• Research in the biomedical sciences: an overview of JISC activities
  http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/bioscienceresearchv1.aspx

This adds to the collection of briefing papers aimed at researchers:

• Research in the physical sciences: an overview of JISC activities http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/physicalsciencesresearchv1.aspx
• Research in the arts and humanities: an overview of JISC activities http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/artshumanitiesresearchv1.aspx

VRE 1 - lessons learned

Just found my notes from the JISC Conference 2007 and rather than lose them again thought they might be more useful here:

The session on VREs raised a number of questions:

• is a VRE a warehouse or a federated repository?


• should it be a social space or an organised rich space?


• what is the right level of granularity?


• should content be open or protected?


• what about desktop integration?


• how can we enable added value by researchers?


• how is software evolving? how can we make it sustainable?

Roger Slack talked about users:

• requirements gathering is not a one-off - it is longitudinal


• need active involvement of all partners


• enfranchisement - spell out benefits to users


• ensure funding to support championing