RE: Methodology: was Re: Issue 3 - Trust Mechanisms in OCLC Autho rity Control Service

Hi Dave 

> I think that gets to heart of my question and helps to answer 
> it. This implies
> that the goal is primarily to find specific solutions to the 
> dspace-related
> problems. Thus if a use case can be adequately solved by some 
> existing piece of
> technology then that is good, and Simile should employ that 
> technology and build
> a solution from it. Hence it is appropriate that your next 
> stage is a series of
> short prototyping activities to de-risk the technologies, 
> with the implication
> that you should use the less risky solutions.
> 
> Makes sense.
> 
> [The alternative answer, which at one time I thought might be 
> part of the
> motivation for Simile, would be to focus on researching new 
> technology inspired
> by the questions and constraints derived from the use cases. 
> With that viewpoint
> areas like "schema interoperation" or "web of trust" are 
> interesting precisely
> because they are high risk research topics - yet if they 
> could be made to work
> would have applications far outside the bounds of the initial 
> use cases. Indeed,
> from this viewpoint, if a use case is found to be solvable 
> with existing
> technology, at low risk, it would cease to be one that Simile 
> should invest in.]

Actually it is both: for the initial prototyping phase, SIMILE is following
the latter approach i.e. is focusing on researching new technologies
inspired by the questions and constraints of the use cases. I think in the
initial prototype phase we are almost certain to investigate schema
interoperation, and it would be possible to investigate web of trust as
well. I will try to draft a prototype proposal, so then it will be down to
the PIs to prioritise the prototype activities. However due to the fact
we've limited each prototyping activity to three months, if it becomes clear
during that time that a technology is not really ready for exploitation then
we can probably de-emphasise that technology when we move on to the second
integration phase, which will operate along the lines of the former
approach. 

Dr Mark H. Butler
Research Scientist                HP Labs Bristol
mark-h_butler@hp.com
Internet: http://www-uk.hpl.hp.com/people/marbut/

Received on Wednesday, 28 May 2003 05:18:06 UTC