OR2010 Madrid

The 5^th International Conference on Open Repositories was recently held in Madrid this year, and as part of our dissemination programme, the I-WIRE team (Scott, myself, Repository Manager Tracey and Technical Lead Jim) attended. We contributed a poster on ‘Integrating the Institutional Repository with a Portal Environment’, and Scott and Jim gave a presentation on the technical challenge of building a portlet version of the institutional repository ORCA. We were pleased with the reception of both, and the team made valuable contacts with other developers and projects. We all very much enjoyed Madrid – a beautiful city which we wished we could have explored more of (although we did make it to the Prado and to the Bernabeu stadium on the night of the World Cup semi-final!)

I-WIRE Updates

Just a quick update today. MePrints, an offshoot of EPrints, has just been brought to our attention. This is something we are interested in exploring as it is a more user-friendly version of the EPrints system, and gives users details of their recent publications and number of hits. These user-centred portal features are what the I-WIRE Project is setting out to achieve, so this is of great interest to us.

In other news, we are still ploughing through the requirements captured, focusing on what is achievable within the timescale and scope of the project. We've had three analysis sessions, and have two more scheduled for this week. Our requirements report is due at the end of January, and we also have a visit from Andy McGregor, our JISC project manager, tomorrow - a very busy week for us! Andy's visit is well-timed howver as we are wrapping up our requirements phase and moving into design and development.

MWE Integration

One crucial issue that has reared its head is how the interface between EPrints and the MWE will work. Part of the I-WIRE concept and brief is to establish a direct, real-time link between the MWE research portal and EPrints, but when Jim recently went to a developer's meeting at Southampton University, he discovered that EPrints does not at present have the functionality to interface with the planned research portal. This is obviously a concern as integration with the MWE is an essential feature of this project! Jim is currently evaluating our options, and he aims to present a recommended solution at the next Project Management Group meeting on 11th November.