Connect Compilations - a little glimpse of the future
Monday, October 06, 2008
Connect compilations will be introduced into ingentaconnect during the next couple of weeks, its features represent a delicious sample of the technical offering Publishing Technology is cooking up.
Connect Compilations enable publishers to assemble 'virtual' publications from their existing content on connect. Compilations are given titles, descriptions, links and logos such that they look similar to conventional publications. They may be organised in familiar serial and monograph formats. At ingentaconnect Compilations may be purchased and subscribed to in the same way as other publications. Crucially the publisher has control over the Compilation, it is available to amend and augment whenever they please.
From an end user perspective Connect Compilations will be quietly integrated into the search and browse facilities on connect. For publishers the changes are more marked, a whole set of administration tools have been introduced.
To provide powerful administration tools we've increased our adoption of client side plugins (based on Jquery) and paradigms like AJAX. Both have been on the list of 'must have' technical buzz words for a some time, but we've taken care only to employ them where there is tangible benefit. Most significant is the introduction of semantic technologies; an RDF triple store for data, SPARQL to query it, Jena and our own framework to represent data to the application.
One may well ask what immediate benefit does semantic technology bring, beyond exciting programmers and web luminaries? The first benefit we'll see on ingentaconnect is tighter integration, both inside the site and with the wider web. RDF enables us to make assertions about resources (like articles, authors and references) without imposing constraints on the assertions made, or how they will be used. Crucially we can use the assertions to draw conclusions, or inferences, to fill in gaps, and really 'understand' the data. All of this is achieved with little redundancy or repetition. The factors combine to produce a store on which services to cater for varying requirements and perspectives can readily be built.
The benefits I've mentioned thus far could of course be realised with a relational database, but we're laying our new foundations at present, and more will grow out them.
In down to earth speak, all this means ingentaconnect, and close relation pub2web, will increasingly provide accurate linking, interesting ways to splice together content and, as Connect Compilations demonstrates, put control into the hands of online Publishers.
Connect Compilations enable publishers to assemble 'virtual' publications from their existing content on connect. Compilations are given titles, descriptions, links and logos such that they look similar to conventional publications. They may be organised in familiar serial and monograph formats. At ingentaconnect Compilations may be purchased and subscribed to in the same way as other publications. Crucially the publisher has control over the Compilation, it is available to amend and augment whenever they please.
From an end user perspective Connect Compilations will be quietly integrated into the search and browse facilities on connect. For publishers the changes are more marked, a whole set of administration tools have been introduced.
To provide powerful administration tools we've increased our adoption of client side plugins (based on Jquery) and paradigms like AJAX. Both have been on the list of 'must have' technical buzz words for a some time, but we've taken care only to employ them where there is tangible benefit. Most significant is the introduction of semantic technologies; an RDF triple store for data, SPARQL to query it, Jena and our own framework to represent data to the application.
One may well ask what immediate benefit does semantic technology bring, beyond exciting programmers and web luminaries? The first benefit we'll see on ingentaconnect is tighter integration, both inside the site and with the wider web. RDF enables us to make assertions about resources (like articles, authors and references) without imposing constraints on the assertions made, or how they will be used. Crucially we can use the assertions to draw conclusions, or inferences, to fill in gaps, and really 'understand' the data. All of this is achieved with little redundancy or repetition. The factors combine to produce a store on which services to cater for varying requirements and perspectives can readily be built.
The benefits I've mentioned thus far could of course be realised with a relational database, but we're laying our new foundations at present, and more will grow out them.
In down to earth speak, all this means ingentaconnect, and close relation pub2web, will increasingly provide accurate linking, interesting ways to splice together content and, as Connect Compilations demonstrates, put control into the hands of online Publishers.
Labels: connect compilations, ingentaconnect, pub2web, publishing, publishing technology, semantic, technology
posted by John Clapham at 8:55 am
The 4+1 Architecture
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
In an earlier post on the Scrum development process, I outlined why I felt a lightweight agile process was a good choice for the IngentaConnect engineering team. This set me thinking that the way we express our architecture is similarly minimal, with many of the same desirable features, such as ease of adoption and consideration of needs outside the engineering team. However, while Scrum is very much in the public eye and receives ample press, the architectural model we use, Kruchten's 4+1 View, doesn't seem to have had its fair share of the limelight.
The 4+1 view was designed by Philippe Kruchten, and like Scrum one of its guiding principles was to address the needs not just of one specific group, in this case software architects, but all the people with a vested interest in the work. Krutchen describes these folk as stakeholders. These are the developers who will write software, the integrators who will manage servers, the project managers and the product clients. The concepts in 4+1 aren't all new, but they are a unique blend. The UML offers a smorgasbord of diagrams and documents to express an architecture, Krutchen's model distils the multiple representations into just four core models, or views, reinforced by a suite of worked examples or user scenarios.
The logical view is concerned with user features, services and functional requirements. The view illustrates key concepts, or abstractions; these become the software building blocks that will be needed to deliver features.
The development view, is focused on implementation, and the organization of the software. This includes grouping of code into easily managed units, determining functional layers and the interfaces between them.
The physical view illustrates where software components are actually deployed (in simple terms which machines they run on) and considers communications between software services. It is intended for system engineers and integrators, and is likely to present a number of variations tailored to different needs, for example test systems and production systems.
The process view takes abstractions from the logical view and considers how they will behave when executed, including issues like synchronisation and concurrency. This is achieved by breaking each process into tasks whose interactions may be more readily examined.
I've mentioned the four views, what about the +1? The plus one element is a set of user scenarios, or use cases. Although as vital as the views, they are denoted by '+1' because the model is already complete without them, there should be no new architectural information contained therein. The plus one element does however play a crucial role. It illustrates and communicates the architecture, concrete examples reinforce the modelling concepts in the views, and for those not familiar with modelling diagrams they provide an idea of what the architecture can achieve. User scenarios also serve to test and verify the model; working through a realistic set of interactions can expose new concepts, and generate confidence in those already identified.
So that’s 4+1 in a (rather small) nutshell, but what does is it bring to Ingenta’s technical products such as pub2web? The value of software architecture has parallels to the value of building architecture. It provides a vision of what is being built, defining boundaries, layout and interactions. The product shape is described even though the nuts and bolts aren’t. Despite this, the architecture provides enough detail to drive component design and implementation. The discipline of 4+1 ensures that non functional requirements such as scalability and fault tolerance are considered from the outset. In short; good architecture answers questions the architects did and, crucially didn’t, expect to be asked.
The 4+1 view was designed by Philippe Kruchten, and like Scrum one of its guiding principles was to address the needs not just of one specific group, in this case software architects, but all the people with a vested interest in the work. Krutchen describes these folk as stakeholders. These are the developers who will write software, the integrators who will manage servers, the project managers and the product clients. The concepts in 4+1 aren't all new, but they are a unique blend. The UML offers a smorgasbord of diagrams and documents to express an architecture, Krutchen's model distils the multiple representations into just four core models, or views, reinforced by a suite of worked examples or user scenarios.
The logical view is concerned with user features, services and functional requirements. The view illustrates key concepts, or abstractions; these become the software building blocks that will be needed to deliver features.
The development view, is focused on implementation, and the organization of the software. This includes grouping of code into easily managed units, determining functional layers and the interfaces between them.
The physical view illustrates where software components are actually deployed (in simple terms which machines they run on) and considers communications between software services. It is intended for system engineers and integrators, and is likely to present a number of variations tailored to different needs, for example test systems and production systems.
The process view takes abstractions from the logical view and considers how they will behave when executed, including issues like synchronisation and concurrency. This is achieved by breaking each process into tasks whose interactions may be more readily examined.
I've mentioned the four views, what about the +1? The plus one element is a set of user scenarios, or use cases. Although as vital as the views, they are denoted by '+1' because the model is already complete without them, there should be no new architectural information contained therein. The plus one element does however play a crucial role. It illustrates and communicates the architecture, concrete examples reinforce the modelling concepts in the views, and for those not familiar with modelling diagrams they provide an idea of what the architecture can achieve. User scenarios also serve to test and verify the model; working through a realistic set of interactions can expose new concepts, and generate confidence in those already identified.
So that’s 4+1 in a (rather small) nutshell, but what does is it bring to Ingenta’s technical products such as pub2web? The value of software architecture has parallels to the value of building architecture. It provides a vision of what is being built, defining boundaries, layout and interactions. The product shape is described even though the nuts and bolts aren’t. Despite this, the architecture provides enough detail to drive component design and implementation. The discipline of 4+1 ensures that non functional requirements such as scalability and fault tolerance are considered from the outset. In short; good architecture answers questions the architects did and, crucially didn’t, expect to be asked.
Labels: 4+1, architecture, ingenta, ingentaconnect, pub2web, publishing technology, software
posted by John Clapham at 2:01 pm
Once more unto the Scrum....
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The engineers behind ingenta connect are about to launch into the second iteration of the development which will deliver Connect Compilations. Connect Compilations give publishers the ability to create "virtual" online journals containing articles from any of their publications on ingentaconnect.
Connect Compilations are being developed using an agile development methodology called Scrum. Scrum is a relatively new to us, and so I wanted to share our experiences with it. Prior to the adoption of Scrum we used the best parts of XP and agile methodologies, but did not tie them together formally with an off the shelf process.
What is agile?
Agile development methods are distinguished from other methodologies by a number of traits, but unusually for the software business the name 'agile' is quite expressive. The freeDictionary defines agile thus:
“Characterized by quickness, lightness, and ease of movement; nimble.”
The lightness and nimble parts of the definition are crucial. Agile methodologies aim to provide development teams a way to react to, or even embrace, change in a rapid but controlled fashion. In other words they need to remain nimble, such that when a change occurs development does not just stop. This is achieved by a tight cycle of software releases, customer review, and revision. This cycle is termed an iteration.
Lightness is another desirable attribute of an agile process: lightness referring to the weight, or effort, needed to adopt and use a process. I wouldn’t recommend this, but if you were to print out the scrum process and rational unified process documentation and put the piles of paper side by side, you’d get a another perspective on agile’s lightness. In general engineers just want to get stuck into the technical elements of a project, and the business would rather they were doing just that, bringing a rapid return on investment, rather than spending long periods learning and interpreting process.
What is different about scrum?
Scrum uses common agile principles, such as continuous integration, short iterations and close customer liaison. It distinguishes itself through a tight integration of development and project management practice.
Scrum Terminology
Like all good paradigms Scrum is overflowing with jargon and 'in jokes', some of the key terms needed to back the concepts include:
Why is Scrum a good fit?
So why did we choose scrum from the plethora of processes available? For one thing it was close to what we were doing, or had recognised a need to do. It fits well with a rapidly changing business, and a dynamic team structure. Scrum also works well for both the engineering teams – who are able to concentrate on technical aspects - and the business who are able to closely monitor progress.
Why is the second iteration is important?
Entering the second iteration is a crucial milestone, but it was by no means guaranteed that we would reach it; to get this far scrum had to ‘make the grade’. It had to work for engineers and for their managers. The second iteration is also crucial because it represents and evolutionary step, it draws on positive and negative experiences in the first iteration, promoting the former and reducing the later. The first iteration is partly a learning exercise. The second iteration is where we start to see the true value of the process, and in turn that value should be born out when Connect Compilations are released.
Our foray into Scrum has been supported by frequent reference to the book ‘Agile Software Development With Scrum’. I’d recommend it to anyone considering Scrum. Process documentation is generally a dry subject but the authors manage to make it quite readable.
Connect Compilations are being developed using an agile development methodology called Scrum. Scrum is a relatively new to us, and so I wanted to share our experiences with it. Prior to the adoption of Scrum we used the best parts of XP and agile methodologies, but did not tie them together formally with an off the shelf process.
What is agile?
Agile development methods are distinguished from other methodologies by a number of traits, but unusually for the software business the name 'agile' is quite expressive. The freeDictionary defines agile thus:
“Characterized by quickness, lightness, and ease of movement; nimble.”
The lightness and nimble parts of the definition are crucial. Agile methodologies aim to provide development teams a way to react to, or even embrace, change in a rapid but controlled fashion. In other words they need to remain nimble, such that when a change occurs development does not just stop. This is achieved by a tight cycle of software releases, customer review, and revision. This cycle is termed an iteration.
Lightness is another desirable attribute of an agile process: lightness referring to the weight, or effort, needed to adopt and use a process. I wouldn’t recommend this, but if you were to print out the scrum process and rational unified process documentation and put the piles of paper side by side, you’d get a another perspective on agile’s lightness. In general engineers just want to get stuck into the technical elements of a project, and the business would rather they were doing just that, bringing a rapid return on investment, rather than spending long periods learning and interpreting process.
What is different about scrum?
Scrum uses common agile principles, such as continuous integration, short iterations and close customer liaison. It distinguishes itself through a tight integration of development and project management practice.
- Empirical Management – Rather than trying to steer development according to a long-term plan, progress is tracked, observations are taken and adjustments made accordingly.
- Self Organised Teams – Although teams are assembled from a selection of people who are likely to play certain roles (developer, tester, leader, architect and such like) the members are expected to organise themselves, rather like the skunkworks concept.
- Focused Teams – Scrum demands that the development team are allowed to focus on their goals almost exclusively.
- Team Buy In – The development team create the estimates, and agree the goals they can reach in the time given. This fosters commitment to the project’s goals.
- Fixed Time – The time element of the development is fixed. The team aims to deliver against its goals by an agreed date. The date cannot slip, bringing it sharply into focus.
- Prioritised Goals – The team’s goals are listed in a ‘sprint backlog’, the list is prioritised, with an estimated duration associated with each task. There is an overriding goal to create a usable product at the end of each sprint.
Scrum Terminology
Like all good paradigms Scrum is overflowing with jargon and 'in jokes', some of the key terms needed to back the concepts include:
- Scrum Master – The scrum master is responsible for ensuring the team and the clients play by the rules of Scrum. A crucial part of this role is managing demands on the development team such that they can focus exclusively on the sprint goals.
- Sprint – A sprint is the fixed time the team have to achieve their goals. As the name implies it’s a period of intense activity with a clear finish time.
- Sprint Backlog – The prioritised list of goals is termed a backlog, at the start of the project the team can see what they need to achieve in the sprint and how long they have to do so. It is detailed; no task is longer than 14 hours. The backlog is updated daily, so any interested party may accurately track progress.
- Product Backlog - The sprint backlog is derived from a larger master list – the Product Backlog, this is a continually updated list of prioritised work, in our case encompassing the whole of the ingentaconnect site.
Why is Scrum a good fit?
So why did we choose scrum from the plethora of processes available? For one thing it was close to what we were doing, or had recognised a need to do. It fits well with a rapidly changing business, and a dynamic team structure. Scrum also works well for both the engineering teams – who are able to concentrate on technical aspects - and the business who are able to closely monitor progress.
Why is the second iteration is important?
Entering the second iteration is a crucial milestone, but it was by no means guaranteed that we would reach it; to get this far scrum had to ‘make the grade’. It had to work for engineers and for their managers. The second iteration is also crucial because it represents and evolutionary step, it draws on positive and negative experiences in the first iteration, promoting the former and reducing the later. The first iteration is partly a learning exercise. The second iteration is where we start to see the true value of the process, and in turn that value should be born out when Connect Compilations are released.
Our foray into Scrum has been supported by frequent reference to the book ‘Agile Software Development With Scrum’. I’d recommend it to anyone considering Scrum. Process documentation is generally a dry subject but the authors manage to make it quite readable.
Labels: agile, development methodology, ingentaconnect, publishing technology, scrum
posted by John Clapham at 4:23 pm
Catch me, Leigh and the rest of PT, at UKSG next wee(k)
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
The PT posse will be at the UKSG annual conference next week. We've got a stand (56 - branded as Publishing Technology so look for the squares not the eye!) - halfway between the exhibition hall entrance and the lunch, so we'll be looking out for you as you queue for rations. It would be worth swinging by if you're there, if only to check out the groovy new design in the works for IngentaConnect (no blogger previews, I'm afraid - not yet, anyway).
I will once again be blogging the conference so if you can't be there, be sure to keep an eye on LiveSerials to find out what's happening ... who's happening ... where it's happening ... whether it's happening? (of course it will be!)
I will once again be blogging the conference so if you can't be there, be sure to keep an eye on LiveSerials to find out what's happening ... who's happening ... where it's happening ... whether it's happening? (of course it will be!)
.
And not that I'm blowing trumpets here, but since we're talking of what's happening, then let me quickly note that both Leigh and I are speaking at the conference. Our simultaneous briefing sessions will run on both Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning so there is no excuse for not seeing us both... Leigh will be holding forth on identifiers:
"as far as the web is concerned, if something doesn't have an identifier then it doesn't exist. Well, nearly ... This session will introduce the basic identifier schemes currently in use on the web and in publishing, and the growing need to expand the assignment of identifiers into new areas: for people, places, institutions, and data sets. Starting with a basic technology introduction, this talk will also highlight some potential impacts of assigning identifiers to new kins of 'content', and explore the possibilities for changing scholarly communication and streamlining the publishing business."While I will be on my KBART tip:
"For publishers, librarians or intermediaries who have never quite understood the methodology or value of OpenURL and link resolvers: this session will provide an entry-level explanation of these core technologies, followed by a report on the progress of a UKSG-sponsored project to improve the data supplied to knowledge bases, which are key to the efficacy of the OpenURL process."I think that's about it - see you in sunny Torquay!
Labels: identifiers, kbart, publishing technology, uksg
posted by Charlie Rapple at 2:46 pm
Have you heard the one about Moses and the subversive knitting Weebles?
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Every now and then I come across some quite silly article titles on IngentaConnect that cause me to stop and re-consider my inbuilt expectation that science is only carried out in the pursuit of high-minded noble ideals.
Some of my favourite examples over the years include Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting, Blind Ducks in Borneo, and Weeble Wobbles: Resilience Within the Psychoanalytic Situation (this one even had follow-up articles, What Is A Weeble Anyway, And What Is A Wobble, Too? and "Wobbly Weebles" and Resilience: Some Additional Thoughts). And of course we've suddenly uncovered a wealth of them since we came to host the Annals of Improbable Research ("A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown" is certainly one I'll be taking home for further study).
The one that has caught my attention today, though, doesn't have the most immediately entertaining of titles (Biblical Entheogens: a speculative hypothesis). But perhaps I would have found it more noteworthy if I had at some point learnt the definition of
It's particularly interesting to compare this to the Weeble examples I cited above. In that case, a controversial article was followed by letters to the editor, follow-up articles and the publication of "some additional thoughts" - the traditional progress of an academic debate.
In the Moses case, the discussion is already raging in the blogosphere just days after the article's publication (aided, I acknowledge, by an inflammatory TV appearance by the author in which he upgraded his 'hypothesis' to a 'probability'). Sure, a lot of the blog postings are Beavis-and-Butthead-style sniggery, but beyond them there's also a fair amount of reasoned, informed analysis (the Merkavah Vision and and BHA Science Group postings, for example).
It is in the reactions provoked by these controversial publications that we see the ongoing development of alternative scholarly communication channels - but they are also evidence of the "authority" problem with user-generated content. In having to sort the wheat (informed analysis) from the chaff (ranging from uninformed sniggery to non-scientific zealotry), I found myself frustrated by not knowing whose rhetoric to trust, and remembering m'colleague Leigh Dodds' paper at our PT Trends forum in December (Authoritative? What's that? And who says?).
Roll on wider adoption of the BPR3 initiative (which proposes that bloggers use icons to indicate when their posting is a serious discussion of a peer-reviewed work), or indeed of the embryonic kitemark for authoritative content that Leigh posited during his paper and which CrossRef are exploring further. As the boundaries between peer-reviewed publications and other fora for debate become less defined, I for one will appreciate a mechanism that defines whose analysis I can take seriously and who I should take with a pinch of salt.
Some of my favourite examples over the years include Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting, Blind Ducks in Borneo, and Weeble Wobbles: Resilience Within the Psychoanalytic Situation (this one even had follow-up articles, What Is A Weeble Anyway, And What Is A Wobble, Too? and "Wobbly Weebles" and Resilience: Some Additional Thoughts). And of course we've suddenly uncovered a wealth of them since we came to host the Annals of Improbable Research ("A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown" is certainly one I'll be taking home for further study).
The one that has caught my attention today, though, doesn't have the most immediately entertaining of titles (Biblical Entheogens: a speculative hypothesis). But perhaps I would have found it more noteworthy if I had at some point learnt the definition of
entheogen (en.THEE.oh.jun) : any substance, such as a plant or drug, taken to bring on a spiritual experiencePsychoactive substances? in the Bible? Well, yes, according to this recently-published hypothesis, which claims that Moses' vision of God and the burning bush was brought on by hallucinatory drugs. And what a stir it has caused. (It even made the British Daily Mail, but I'm afraid I'm too liberal to give them any link love).
It's particularly interesting to compare this to the Weeble examples I cited above. In that case, a controversial article was followed by letters to the editor, follow-up articles and the publication of "some additional thoughts" - the traditional progress of an academic debate.
In the Moses case, the discussion is already raging in the blogosphere just days after the article's publication (aided, I acknowledge, by an inflammatory TV appearance by the author in which he upgraded his 'hypothesis' to a 'probability'). Sure, a lot of the blog postings are Beavis-and-Butthead-style sniggery, but beyond them there's also a fair amount of reasoned, informed analysis (the Merkavah Vision and and BHA Science Group postings, for example).
It is in the reactions provoked by these controversial publications that we see the ongoing development of alternative scholarly communication channels - but they are also evidence of the "authority" problem with user-generated content. In having to sort the wheat (informed analysis) from the chaff (ranging from uninformed sniggery to non-scientific zealotry), I found myself frustrated by not knowing whose rhetoric to trust, and remembering m'colleague Leigh Dodds' paper at our PT Trends forum in December (Authoritative? What's that? And who says?).
Roll on wider adoption of the BPR3 initiative (which proposes that bloggers use icons to indicate when their posting is a serious discussion of a peer-reviewed work), or indeed of the embryonic kitemark for authoritative content that Leigh posited during his paper and which CrossRef are exploring further. As the boundaries between peer-reviewed publications and other fora for debate become less defined, I for one will appreciate a mechanism that defines whose analysis I can take seriously and who I should take with a pinch of salt.
Labels: "peer review", blogging, bpr3, publishing technology, scholarly journal, user-generated content
posted by Charlie Rapple at 4:12 pm
Library newsletter and today's news announcements
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
We're having a very communicative morning over at Ingenta Towers, with the latest issue of our eyetoeye library newsletter about to mail, and two press announcements being released to the media this morning.
Issue 21 of library eyetoeye includes
Issue 21 of library eyetoeye includes
- news that Karger Libri has joined our unique subscription activation initiative
- an update on 2007 renewals/gracing
- a report on our inaugural Library Advisory Board meeting held in November 2006
- details of a new publicity poster which librarians can download from IngentaConnect's Resource Zone
- a case study from Manchester Metropolitan University Library, which recently won a gold CILIP award for their Welcome campaign
- and much more
- the appointments of Leigh Dodds as CTO, Ingenta and Gary Bowman as Product Engineering Director, VISTA
- "Both Gary and Leigh have demonstrated an innovative approach to technological development in recent years and their unassailable expertise in our core business areas puts Publishing Technology in a strong competitive position," comments George Lossius, CEO of our parent company Publishing Technology plc.
- news that 6 more publishers have chosen Ingenta as their online publishing partner and 11 existing clients have extended the terms of their agreement with us
Labels: gracing period, publishing technology, renewals, subscription activation
posted by Charlie Rapple at 11:11 am
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