Event Notifications and Signposting: orchestrating research object value chains, interlinking related objects

TY - GEN

T1 - Event Notifications and Signposting: orchestrating research object value chains, interlinking related objects

AU - Van de Sompel, Herbert

PY - 2023/6/1

Y1 - 2023/6/1

N2 - This presentation reflects on a challenge regarding web-based research communication that has haunted me for over two decades: The scholarly system does not record an unambiguous trace of the value chains that a research artifact goes through. As a result, linkages between related artifacts need be reverse engineered with great pain after the facts. Existing approaches to do so require significant computational power, are heuristic-bound and error-prone, and deliver linkages with significant delays. The presentation considers two efforts that I have been involved in aimed at addressing this problem: The Pathways project (2004-2008) and the ongoing "Event Notifications in Value-Adding Networks" specification effort that is closely related to COAR Notify. Event Notifications specifies interoperability, based on Linked Data Notifications and ActivityStreams2, to allow data nodes (such as repositories) that host research outputs (such as content and code) to interact with service nodes that add value (such as reviewing, archiving) to research artifacts. Signposting allows to expose the topology of research artifacts on the web by means of typed web links that, among others, emanate from the artifacts' landing pages. Combined with Event Notifications, it allows to pass lightweight messages that merely contain resource identifiers among repositories and services. The combination of the Event Notifications and Signposting specifications supports orchestrating a wide range of value chains for scholarly artifacts among scholarly repositories and services. Moreover, it allows to establish, in real-time, bi-directional links between artifacts prior and post a value chain. As a result, none of the problems that are prominent when reverse engineering links occur.

AB - This presentation reflects on a challenge regarding web-based research communication that has haunted me for over two decades: The scholarly system does not record an unambiguous trace of the value chains that a research artifact goes through. As a result, linkages between related artifacts need be reverse engineered with great pain after the facts. Existing approaches to do so require significant computational power, are heuristic-bound and error-prone, and deliver linkages with significant delays. The presentation considers two efforts that I have been involved in aimed at addressing this problem: The Pathways project (2004-2008) and the ongoing "Event Notifications in Value-Adding Networks" specification effort that is closely related to COAR Notify. Event Notifications specifies interoperability, based on Linked Data Notifications and ActivityStreams2, to allow data nodes (such as repositories) that host research outputs (such as content and code) to interact with service nodes that add value (such as reviewing, archiving) to research artifacts. Signposting allows to expose the topology of research artifacts on the web by means of typed web links that, among others, emanate from the artifacts' landing pages. Combined with Event Notifications, it allows to pass lightweight messages that merely contain resource identifiers among repositories and services. The combination of the Event Notifications and Signposting specifications supports orchestrating a wide range of value chains for scholarly artifacts among scholarly repositories and services. Moreover, it allows to establish, in real-time, bi-directional links between artifacts prior and post a value chain. As a result, none of the problems that are prominent when reverse engineering links occur.

U2 - 10.5281/zenodo.8076843

DO - 10.5281/zenodo.8076843

M3 - Other contribution

PB - Zenodo

ER -