IESR Use Case 3: Use of a Local Registry by a Portal
| Creator |
Ann Apps, Mimas, The University of Manchester, UK |
| Date |
2006-11-09 |
| Identifier |
http://iesr.ac.uk/use/uses-cases/usecase3.html |
| Rights |
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Licence:
Attribution Required;
Non-Commercial;
Share-Alike.
|
| Change History |
|
| 2006-11-09 |
This is the first version |
Use Scenarios
These scenarios illustrate various ways in which IESR might be used according to the Use Case detailed in the next section.
If a portal builds and maintains its local registry by OAI-PMH collection from IESR, use scenarios in this section are effectively a dynamic use of IESR, and use scenarios from Use Case 1 could also be applied in this section. Effectively dynamic use of IESR means that there is no dependency on the portal builder's knowledge of available resources and, potentially, an end-user may find useful resources of which they were unaware. Also it is possible that if they perform a similar search in the future, more resources may be discovered as IESR contributions from resource providers increase.
3.1 Judy is a social scientist who wants to find datasets about `gross domestic product' (GDP). She is using a personalised institutional portal, i.e. her view onto the portal is social science based, and enters `GDP' as a search term. The portal keeps its own local copy of IESR data, which it gathers from IESR's harvest (OAI-PMH) service on a regular basis, and caches into its own database. The portal searches its local instance of IESR to discover collections of social datasets that include potentially those about GDP (i.e. in the economics field), and provide a Web interface. Ideally Jenny wants to see only those resources that contain information about GDP, rather than other economics areas. Thus the portal refines the list of discovered collections by selecting only those that have `GDP' as a subject term according to the HASSET social science thesaurus. The portal then provides to Jenny the list of discovered collections with hyperlinks to their website, each item in the list being accompanied by a short description and details of access requirements. Jenny chooses from this list resources that are potentially of interest and clicks on the provided hyperlinks to make use of them in the usual way.
Use Case
Use Case Summary
A researcher uses a portal to discover resources about a chosen topic.
Primary Actor (and goals)
| Researcher |
To discover resources about a particular topic |
Secondary Actors (and goals)
| Portal |
To provide a single search interface to an amalgamated set of resources |
| IESR |
To assist discovery and use of registered resources |
| Terminology Service |
To assist in determining search terms in a suitable vocabulary and of suitable granularity |
Stakeholders and Interests
| IESR Contributors |
Increased use of resources |
Main Success Scenario
| Step |
Action |
Analysis |
|---|
| 1 |
Researcher enters chosen topic as search term in portal |
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| 2 |
Portal uses terminology service to translate natural language search term into a broader term suitable for collection discovery and then into a Dewey term |
This is a terminology service use case, not an IESR one. An alternative to a terminology service could be terminology knowledge built into the portal |
| 3 |
Portal searches its local registry for resources which match the Dewey subject term |
Portal builds its local registry using Use Case 2 |
| 4 |
Portal processes retrieved records to extract information to display to researcher |
|
| 5 |
Researcher views results returned by metasearch and selects any of interest via their web links |
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Extensions
[A possible extension to step n of the 'main success scenario' is labelled nx, steps involved in its execution being labelled nxm, etc.]
[Many of the extensions of Use Case 1 could also apply.]
| Step |
Extension |
Analysis |
|---|
| 3a |
No suitable records found |
|
| 3a1 |
Portal will not use IESR |
This is failure scenario. IESR must contain a large and comprehensive variety of resources |
| | | |
| 4a |
Portal is able to provide subject searching at a finer granularity using a discipline-specific vocabulary |
Scenario 3.1 |
| 4a1 |
Portal selects resources for display that include the researcher's topic according to the particular vocabulary |
IESR collection descriptions need to include subject terms at an appropriate granularity in a domain-specific vocabulary |
| 4b |
Portal provides to the user the result of a cross-search over the discovered resources |
|
| 4b1 |
Portal uses only those resources that have a Z39.50 (or SRU) service |
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| 4b2 |
Portal reads Z39.50 (or SRU) service address details from selected records |
Portal has to parse out elements of z3950s:// address |
| 4b3 |
Portal performs Z39.50 (or SRU) metasearch over discovered collections, using the researcher's original topic as a search term within item titles |
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