There are many areas of overlap both within the Humanities, and
between the Humanities and other disciplines, particularly but not
exclusively the Social Sciences. The disciplines most involved would
include History, Political Studies, Linguistics, Anthropology,
Archaeology, and Geography. In terms of the kind of services under
discussion therefore, the question of service overlap (and
collaboration) must be addressed, especially with respect to services
already funded by the various scientific research councils. For example,
ESRC funds the ESRC Data Archive at Essex,
MIDAS at Manchester, and NOMIS at Durham.
Similar services in other disciplines are funded by the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (
As well as a richness and variety of disciplines, resources of
interest to the Humanities are characterized by richness and variety of
data types. At least the following may be identified:
Some disciplines are primarily text-based, and others artefact-
image-, or sound-based; all, however, typically combine resources of
all kinds. The need to share expertise in the management of different
data types across disciplines is correspondingly important.
Although the emphasis must be on creating an infrastructure to
serve the needs of this community, this can be done effectively only by
collaborating actively with projects and institutions in wider Europe,
North America and beyond. At a practical level this will have
implications for the Catalogue and Gateway services of
In the same way, it is important to ensure that the community served
by the
The infrastructure will consist of a Management Committee,
an Executive and a Service Providers Forum.
The
It is envisaged that initially the infrastructure will support a
small number of Service Providers, each offering a wide
range of services, and managing a number of data sets.
The flexibility of the proposed structure means that in due course
these may be joined by further full Service Providers and/or more
specialized ``Affiliated'' Service Providers. The latter will
typically provide services in relation to a single activity or data
set, e.g. a specialist collection. It is anticipated
that central funding will be made available to establish the service
initially, but the proposed structure does not depend on any particular
funding model.
The
As outlined in Section 3.3 Organization of the ahds above, the
The
The basis of funding proposed for the
The Management Committee will be responsible to
The Management Committee will normally meet twice a year, to
receive reports and policy proposals from the
For practical reasons, the Executive should be established within
some suitable host institution. The relationship of the Executive to
its host institution will need to be specified, but the host would be
expected to provide considerable institutional support.
The functions of the Executive will be:
We distinguish between full service providers and
specialist service providers: the former will generally
provide the full range of
As part of its contract each Service Provider will be required to
establish a Specialist Advisory Committee to provide
independent guidance and advice. This Committee would normally contain
representatives from the relevant academic, library and computing
fields.
The primary function of the
To this end the
The
One of the primary functions will be to formulate
long-term strategic policy with respect to the following fundamental
requirements:
An essential component of the strategic role will be
the development of a framework within which standardized codes of
practice may be developed and articulated. Such codes of practice are
needed in all the following areas:
At this strategic level the concern will be with the developments
of guidelines within which specific standards will be
adopted or implemented at the operational level, as further discussed
in section 4 Standardization . These guidelines should incorporate a
considerable degree of flexibility to allow for different types of data
or service, and differing local institutional structures. A ``layered''
approach to the issue of conformance will be taken, for at least the
short term, in which suppliers can elect to conform at a specific
level. Again, the definition of the exact nature of conformance at a
specific level is an operational matter; the principle of layered
conformance, and the extent to which it will be supported, is a
strategic one.
In line with
In the development of its strategic policy the
European and international dimensions will also be important in
strategy development. In Europe, one particularly relevant project is
InfoServices, a joint initiative in the Netherlands
between the National Research Network Service and the National Library
to develop a national information service. This project will be
addressing many of the same strategic issues, in relation to
documentation, standards and resource discovery which are being
addressed by
From the USA, the progress of the Humanities and Arts on
the Information Highways: A National Initiative [See note 36] is likely to have a significant impact on the
way humanities resources can be interchanged between European and North
American institutions.
All aspects of
We list below a number of key operational functions for the
It is likely that the central catalogue would replicate the
catalogues at Service Provider or local institutional level, or would be
regularly updated from these sources. However, it would be important to
have a single agency within the
The Catalogue service provider would naturally have the role of
liaison with the library and networking bodies involved in developing
standards for resource identification and resource description, and of
co-ordinating the
Going outwards, the primary links from the Gateway would be to
other gateway services. In this context the Gateway service provider
would have the role of liaison with other gateway providers in the UK,
Europe, and elsewhere, and of monitoring developments in this rapidly
developing field.
The Gateway service provider should also be very involved in the
national and international work to develop resource discovery tools and
common user interfaces, and should co-ordinate
An
It may be that the expertise required in the area of long-term
archiving of data has more to do with technical and preservation issues
than with data type or discipline, and that there would be significant
economies of scale in establishing a single archival operation for the
purposes of the long-term preservation of data sets. The project which
the ESRC Data Archive has with the University of
London Computing Centre (
Where new data sets are being created, the principles on which they
are selected and processed should be specified, and some indication
given of the methods of quality assurance to be applied. In particular,
individual Service Providers will seek to liaise closely with resource
creators to ensure that relevant
Once acquired, data sets must be catalogued locally, and then
incorporated within the central catalogue. Again, this should be carried
out according to
As with cataloguing, long-term storage may be regarded as a
specialized task contracted out to specialist agencies. All service
providers must however take full responsibility for ensuring that the
relevant standards are implemented to
Monitoring and control of access is also essential, for contractual
and performance reasons alike. Service providers will be required to
produce regular statistics on the use made of their facilities which
will feed into the
Because of the variation in user communities, and the corresponding
importance of subject-specific knowledge, it is probable that these
facilities will be best organized in close collaboration with specialist
subject centres such as those offered by existing
In the long term, we suggest that there should be calls for
proposals for service provision in specified subject areas, to enable
the service to respond easily to changes within the field. These calls
should invite bids which will be assessed by peer review, paying
particular attention to the following criteria:
Bids may request funding for additional equipment or support staff
required to provide access to the service from outside the host
institution; in principle the host institution will be expected to bear
all costs of providing internal access. Funding may also be requested
for additional work needed to bring an existing service into line with
specified
Because it is assumed that infrastructure costs will be largely
borne by the host institution, bids should also demonstrate that an
appropriate level of computing, library, and other relevant support
will be available from their host institutions.
We propose that contracts should be awarded for a minimum period of
not less than three years, but should be subject to regular review.
Full details of the funding model are, however, beyond the scope of the
present report.
3.1 Disciplines and data types
The subject areas constituting the Humanities are potentially very
large and diverse. They include the study of all languages, both
individually and as linguistic systems, from all periods (modern,
medieval and classical); they also include the study of an equally wide
spread of literatures, as well as many other art forms, visual and
plastic, performing and creative. The Historical disciplines are at
least as wide-ranging in their scope as the literary or linguistic
ones, including all forms of historical text, data set, artefact and
social structure. Any workable definition of the Humanities must also
include such topics as theology, philosophy, religious studies,
archaeology, art history, anthropology, social and political studies.
Eventually, even purely scientific data sets become of interest to the
historian of science.
3.2 The
The primary community served by the 3.3 Organization of the
The proposed Arts and Humanities Data Service comprises a
centralized infrastructure, which acts as a framework within which a
number of Service Providers support a wide range of
Services. 3.4
This section proposes an outline Constitution and set of Working
Procedures for the
3.4.1
The Management Committee will be nominated (by the
3.4.2
The Executive will consist of a full-time
3.4.3 Service Providers
Each Service Provider will be established on the basis of a
contract from the 3.4.4
The Service Providers Forum (3.4.5 Additional Resources
There are likely to be some non-affiliated institutions wishing to
make resources available to the 3.5 Strategic Functions of the Infrastructure
The strategic functions of the
3.6 Operational Functions of the Infrastructure
The operational functions of the
3.7 Centrally provided services
Certain services are strategically important to the 3.7.1
A major
3.7.2
The functions of the Gateway would be to provide a convenient point
of access to registered 3.7.3
Consideration should be given to the question of whether it would
be more beneficial to have a single ``Arts and Humanities Data Vault'',
rather than distributed preservation activities, carried out by each of
the Service Providers. 3.8 Distributed Data Services
In this section, we discuss in more detail the functions common to
3.8.1 Accession of data sets
Under this heading we group such functions as the creation of new
data sets and the acquisition of existing but unsupported data sets. In
each case this may involve negotiation with IPR holders and other
contractual arrangements with data depositors, which should be carried
out according to norms defined by current 3.8.2 Maintenance and development of data sets
Under this heading we class a number of functions applicable to
electronic resources in general, but of particular importance to shared
data sets:
These functions apply equally to data resources and their
documentation. Service providers will need to specify the level at
which the resources provided will conform to 3.8.3 Data access facilities
Service providers may elect to provide one or more of a range of
access facilities, ranging from simple file transfer only to fully
interactive on-line browsing and manipulation. In the latter case,
adequate documentation and support facilities (discussed in the next
section) are particularly important. 3.8.4 Support facilities
Under this heading, Service Providers will be expected to specify
the degree of user training and support provided. This is likely to
range widely for different kinds of data and different user
communities. Telephone or email queries should be promptly and
helpfully answered within defined norms. Introductory guides and
tutorials, and specialist workshops or conferences as appropriate,
should be organized. In each case, minimal service level agreements
must be observed, and quality assurance measures enforced. Evaluation
of take-up of the services offered is also a necessary part of service
provision. 3.9 Service Provision Contracts
Service provision should be defined by contracts between the
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