A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

Jonathan M. Borwein, Mason S. Macklem and Jaehyun Paek,Dalhousie University,

Halifax, Canada

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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International Mathematical Union (IMU)

Non-governmental, non-profit ICSU organization

Focused on promoting and developing math research internationally

Organizes the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) every four years

Awards the Fields Medals Publishes the World Directory of

Mathematicians to coincide with the ICM

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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World Directory of Mathematicians

Data collection is not performed directly by the IMU

Member nations provide their membership lists for inclusion in WDM

66 Member Nations Goal: Design electronic

version of WDM to replace physical version

WDM

Members Members

Members

Members

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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Committee on Electronic Information and Communication

1998: IMU asked CEIC about feasibility of electronic version of WDM

Conclusion: A centralized database would be subject to intellectual property and privacy laws

Different laws for different nations

WDM

Members Members

Members

Members

Internet

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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Federated World Directory of Mathematicians

Goal: Simulate electronic version of WDM without creating a centralized database

Federated search: any system that provides a common user interface for searching and retrieving information across heterogeneous datasets via the internet

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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FWDM: Structure User requests information

from FWDM interface FWDM sends separate

requests to search engines for member nations

FWDM merges separate responses into single set of results

Returns merged results to user

No centralized database!

FWDMUser Interface

Members

Members

Members

Members

User

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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FWDM Prototype Two versions: simple

advanced search Simple: First and Last

Name, University, Country

Includes: AMS Combined Membership List, and membership lists for Australia, Canada, France, and Germany

http://www.cs.dal.ca/ddrive/fwdm

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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Sample approach: CMS

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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Merging Results: CML and CMS

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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NCMS, DMV, SMF

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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Adding Search Engines

First and Last Name searchable and separable

A Prototype for the Federated World Directory of Mathematicians (FWDM)

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Next Steps Two goals for prototype:

Add more search engines for national societies Support increased number of users

Requirements for new search engines: First and Last Name are searchable fields

Interested in working with national societies

http://www.cs.dal.ca/ddrive/fwdm

(includes documentation on history and future of FWDM)