21 April 20151

Enhancing life-long learning, teaching and research through information resources and services

21 April 20152

Open information in need of liberation: Aspire and the conundrum of linked data

Richard Cross, Nottingham Trent University

Talis Aspire User Group – Talis Insights 2015 - Birmingham

21 April 20153

Abstract

Talis Aspire's applications are built on the foundation of open linked data (a widely

heralded 'public good' in the information realm) and cloud hosted SaaS (the increasing

norm in the information industry sector). But the ability to open up, share, link and

compare resource list information on the open web is far less well reflected when it comes

to the needs of librarians attempting to 'resource the resource lists'. The ability to

repurpose list data outside of the Aspire interfaces is limited; and independent reporting

access to item information is even more constrained. This presentation will outline some

of issues raised by the difficulty of extracting tailored management information from

Aspire; explain some of the steps which Nottingham Trent University's library service

have introduced in response; and suggest other developments which might extend the

availability of enticingly inaccessible (but hugely powerful) resource list information which

currently exists just beyond the librarian's reach.

21 April 20154

Agenda

• Talis, linked data and open data

• Talis Aspire: the openness conundrum

• Open information: lists and items on the web

• Accessing Aspire information through APIs

• Tracking activity and usage within Aspire

• Leveraging reportable data from Aspire

• The data beyond the library’s easy reach

• What might be done to improve things?

21 April 20155

Talis: linked data and openness

• Talis Aspire as ground-breaking, sector leading design, especially in

terms of HE software development

• Built on principles of openness and linked data

• Prescient, in many respects – ahead of the curve

• Advocacy and projection of openness and linked data as clear ‘public

goods’

• Focus on the ability to compare, identify patterns, traverse

relationships between entities, build recommendation trails: an eco-

system which supports cross-organisational comparison and which

opens up resource list data on the open web

21 April 20156

Linked data

• But if linked open data is the language of the semantic web…

21 April 20157

Resource lists

• … resource list services are primarily institutional service offers

21 April 20158

Talis: linked data and openness

• Key challenge remains that linked data enthusiasm has not yet

become popularised – or commonly understood

• Aspire customers have not necessarily recognised intrinsic value in

linked data for an institutionally-focused service

• Talis have yet to identify a irrefutable use case to demonstrate the

utility of Aspire linked-data

• Talis has made some organisational and strategy changes as a

result of the lack of widespread take-up

21 April 20159

Talis Aspire: open data

• If the linked data

component of Talis Aspire

is less visible and less

strongly projected – the

openness of Aspire data

remains decisive

• Although opt-outs exist

(and some academic

anxieties about IP retain

their currency), openness

of item and list data

remains the Aspire

default

21 April 201510

Talis Aspire: openness

• Aspire made available through software-as-a-service (SaaS)

• Not built upon a traditional relational database; but upon a linked

data triple store

21 April 201511

Talis Aspire: the openness conundrum

• So Aspire data is held remotely (in the cloud) and Aspire data is

structured and stored in a way (while completely standards-

based) remains atypical amongst library applications and services

• The openness, the permeability, of the data of list data available in

the Aspire user interface is not matched by and equal degree

accessibility ‘in the back-end’ for the library

21 April 201512Open information in need of liberation: Aspire and the conundrum of linked data

Open information: lists and items on the web

21 April 201513

Talis Aspire: tenancy openness

• Guest visitors can view list data in an open Talis Aspire tenancy

21 April 201514

Talis Aspire: tenancy openness

• Guest visitors can view a history of list changes in an open Talis

Aspire tenancy

21 April 201515

Talis Aspire: tenancy openness

• Guest visitors can

review, in detail, list item

changes

• Guests an grab (and

manipulate) an RSS feed

21 April 201516

Talis Aspire: cross-tenancy openness

• Guest visitors can export list and item data from an Aspire Tenancy

21 April 201517

Talis Aspire: cross-tenancy openness

• Guest visitors can export list and item data from an Aspire Tenancy

21 April 201518

Talis Aspire: Google

21 April 201519

Talis Aspire: Google

21 April 201520Open information in need of liberation: Aspire and the conundrum of linked data

Accessing Aspire information through APIs

21 April 201521

Using the Aspire APIs

• Possible to use the limited Aspire APIs (Application Programming

Interfaces) to request data outside of the main Aspire interface

• This allows Aspire data to be requested and mixed-in or merged

with other data streams or services – most obviously on a single-

item, single-request basis

21 April 201522

Talis Aspire: local tools

• Relic as a single item look-up

21 April 201523

Talis Aspire: local tools

• Relic as a single item look-up – returns items specific information

21 April 201524

Talis Aspire: local tools

• Experiments with multi-value look-ups, but process does not scale

• Nature of the linked data structure makes it hard to carry out look-

ups in bulk

• APIs remain read-only: no facility to make data changes

21 April 201525Open information in need of liberation: Aspire and the conundrum of linked data

Tracking activity and usage within Aspire

21 April 201526

Usage and management information

• No expectation that usage and management information in Aspire

should be open data – or freely published on the web

• Issue is that it is data which is fragmented, not easily accessible

and not easy to interrogate

• So while list content is freely accessible, information to help

libraries support and resource lists is not

21 April 201527

Talis Aspire: Google Analytics

• Wealth of information about access to, navigation through, and

views of lists

21 April 201528

Talis Aspire: Dashboard

• List and item access figures, viewable by academic and librarian

21 April 201529

Talis Aspire: Reports

• Report information – access managed by Aspire permissions

21 April 201530

Talis Aspire: Reports

• All item report: the most wide-ranging and re-purposable

21 April 201531Open information in need of liberation: Aspire and the conundrum of linked data

Leveraging reportable data from Aspire

21 April 201532

What questions might the library want to be able to answer?

• We’ve completed a small stock review – can we confirm that none

of the 1200 books we’re about to discard are on resource lists?

• We’ve got data on several hundred high reservation stock items –

can we correlate these items with current resource lists in Education

and in Art & Design

• If I can extract the LCNs from Aspire for my target lists, can I track

the circulation figures for the matching items

• I’ve got the ISBNs of 10,000 eBooks in a PDA package. Can I find

out which of these are on which current lists?

• Can I get a comprehensive feed of all new items added to Science

lists this semester?

21 April 201533

Adding an Aspire flag to the LMS

• Based on a bespoke report from Talis; uploaded by LMS batch update

21 April 201534

What it is not possible for the library to do?

• Create original reports (no report writing functionality exists)

• Construct and run queries on the Aspire dataset (‘Let me have all

ISBNs added to Art & Design lists since…’)

• Schedule reporting events (‘Each Tuesday morning, circulate the

following)

• Upload a file of values for batch matching of items (‘Which of these

ISBNs are on which lists’)

• Use APIs to pull item data streams into other services (‘Into our

tracking application load the following Aspire data…’)

• Merge Dashboard and Item reporting information (to augment item

data with click-through counts)

21 April 201535

Clear reasons why these restrictions exist

• Hosted tenancies offered through SaaS –

normal for direct data access to be

constrained

• Aspire is based on a triple-store, not a

traditional relational database –

significant structural and technical

challenges

21 April 201536

Consequences clear as well

• Libraries lack access to management

information, reporting and tracking

metrics which would enable them to better

leverage Aspire data

• Libraries are compelled to use

workarounds and local inventions to

accommodate for (and to try to patch) the

gaps

• A great deal of the rich information that

Aspire holds is unfree

• Libraries’ Aspire data needs to be secure

(where necessary), but the Aspire data

store needs fewer locked gates and far

more helpful gatekeepers

21 April 201537

What is to be done?

Assumptions and expectations

• Talis Aspire will remain a linked-data, open-on-the-web application

• Direct access to the data-store will not be enabled for customers

• Current levels of accessibility to list data is insufficient; and does

not meet the needs of libraries wanting to resource the resource

lists; and to validate their fulfilment practices

• The tension between the openness of linked-data list information on

the web; and the relatively inaccessibility of list data for

management is recognised and acknowledged

21 April 201538

What is to be done?

One approach – extend the permeability of data in Aspire

• Enable APIs for batch data requests

• Extend the ability of librarians to interrogate data in Aspire and to

ask customisable questions

Positioning Aspire as a library reporting engine; expecting to develop functionality to track evolving management information needs

21 April 201539

What is to be done?

Another approach – integrate with a reporting dashboard

• Develop (or integrate a third party) reporting layer, mapping the

Aspire triples to data tables

Positioning Aspire as a data source; outsourcing reporting to a single, supported cloud-based dashboard accessed by all customers

21 April 201540

What is to be done?

Another approach – improve the capability of routine export

• Provide customers with access to a structured data export

• Support the customer community in developing local reporting and

management applications, based on the exported dataset

Positioning Aspire as a source of library reporting information; developing exporting capabilities to match evolving Aspire functionality

21 April 201541

Questions and comments?

Open information in need of liberation:

Aspire and the conundrum of linked data

Richard Cross, Resource Discovery and Innovation Manager

Libraries and Learning Resources, Nottingham Trent University

+44(0)115 848 4878 | richard.cross@ntu.ac.uk