nicnames: an overviewnames roundtable, 18 june 2010

rebecca parkerresearch services librarianswinburne university of technology

subject matter expertnicnames project

NicNames: the project

Collaborative project:> Swinburne> University of Newcastle> University of New South Wales

Funded by the ARROW Project (arrow.edu.au):

> Focused on (but not limited to) repositories

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Names: the problem

Author name = 20% of academiclibrary catalogue searches

Neither consistent nor unique: problem>all published works by a single author>specific papers by known authors

How about institutional repositories?

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Names: the status quoBrowse menus for 3 Australian institutional repositories

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

NicNames: the process

Phase 1: Analysis> Data analysis> Repository manager survey> User research project

Phase 2: Development

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

No one cares what you do untilyou get it wrong

> Swinburne examples:1. Standard version (controlled)2. Preferred version3. Published version

NicNames: the discoveries (1)

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

NicNames: the discoveries (2)Name variants can have meaning> Journal house style> Citation formats> Transliteration, transcription, translation> Patronymics and other inherited names> Changes in personal circumstances> Desired distance from previous publications> Different identities for different contexts

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Authority control doesn’t work for IRs> ‘Missing’ information> ‘Different’ information

NicNames: the discoveries (3)

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Publications actually tell us a lot about researchers

> Field of research (FOR) classifications> Frequent source titles, conferences> Frequent publishers> Publication type

> Affiliation> Coauthorship

NicNames: the discoveries (4)

ARDC:Projects, grants,research data

An obvious solution?

Libraries

Web

University

Research

(A) unique identifier(s)> People Australia party identifier> LCCN; ISNI; ISADN

> Scopus ID> Thomson ResearcherID> GAMS ID

> OpenID> Staff ID or email address

Or one to rule them all … ?

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

NicNames: the decisions

A local approach is appropriate:> Local knowledge> Local systems: repositories, HR

A national approach can be coordinated

Artificial intelligence can help:> Multiple sources of data are the key

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

NicNames: the software> Assigns unique IDs> Exports to XML, OAI-PMH (new)> Stores known information about researchers> Makes use of data universities already have> Simple Web application with API (PHP)> Can control which data is exported

https://launchpad.net/nicnames

ARROW NicNames Project

ARROW NicNames Project

ARROW NicNames Project

ARROW NicNames Project

ARROW NicNames Project

• Chris Smith Chris Smith

ARROW NicNames Project

• Ralph = Tim (sometimes)

ARROW NicNames Project

Questions?

Questions?

Questions?

ARROW NicNames Project

NicNames and privacy

Only public data should be used

A ‘no surprises’ approach

Configurable export for data elements

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

NicNames and ARDCPIP

Now OAI-PMH compliant

Considering future EAC support

Can store party IDs where these exist

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Questions?

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Acknowledgements

ARROW Project for funding

Thomas Rutter for software screencapture

Dr Peter Sefton, ADFI, for help, adviceand support throughout the Project

For more information on this presentation, please contact:

Rebecca ParkerResearch Services LibrarianSwinburne University of Technology

rparker@swin.edu.au

or visit http://nicnamesproject.blogspot.com/

For software questions, please contact Thomas Rutter, Swinburne Librarytrutter@swin.edu.au