Last week (the 03rd. June) we had a good day with a selection of existing providers of information directories. Andy provided the context, then Derek outlined the Engine’s main technical characteristics, and suggested options for working together to test it out in practice.
At that point we dived into discussion (we didn’t need an exercise that we had anxiously concocted in advance in case people sat there silently!) and we carried on for the next two hours and more.
Some of the things we suggested for testing out together include:
- Moderation of content across distributed organisational and community networks – involving among other things support for the flagging of content, and reputation levels for sources and ‘flaggers’;
- Where the Engine can add value to existing content, including additional metadata; the display of health information associated with a particular resource or resource type (the display of Google’s ‘sponsored links’ provides one model for this); curated metadata; additional indexing layers such as geolocation, categories/synonyms/taxonomies, faceted search.
- The use of the API
- The development of widgets.
Derek outlined 5 technical options on a continuum of involvement:
- Provision of data from directory sources to ALISS (so others could re-present & point);
- Bring in data from ALISS to one’s own Directory & re-present;
- Curation of data within ALISS – adding in extra metadata etc.;
- Using the Engine as the back-end for one’s own Directory
- Using the Engine as one’s system, curating original sources there.
In a sense these 5 options also formed a sensible ‘journey’ rather than being mutually exclusive choices.
For their interest and enthusiasm, can we thank Grampian Caredata; Renfrewshire Libraries, NHS24, SHOW, NHS Forth Valley, and Start Here? And for their guidance and critical friendship, can we thank everyone else who participated!?
