[Fwd: OR08 Repository Developer Challenge: Invitation to Participate]

SWIG, foaf-dev,

This might be fun...

"Repository developers are invited to participate in a new "Repository 
Challenge" prize activity to produce demonstrations of novel repository 
capability during the OR08 conference. " (see attached)

Open Data, prize money, collaborative hacking ... what's not to like?

OR08 info here - http://or08.ecs.soton.ac.uk/

Repository Challenge page - http://or08.ecs.soton.ac.uk/developers.html

As it happens, yesterday in #swig IRC chat, some of us were talking 
about OAI-PMH http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2?verb=Identify and 
how 'social graph' data might be extracted, eg. by 
http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/OAI-PMH_RDFizer
Well, I was anyway :) I got stuck installing the RDFizer at the "where's 
the Sun JDK as a RedHat package" stage, but perhaps others might be more 
persistent. The OR08 ("orate?") event is in Southampton UK, 1st-4th 
April. I'm interested to see what folks come up with...

cheers,

Dan

attached mail follows:

Repository developers are invited to participate in a new "Repository  
Challenge" prize activity to produce demonstrations of novel  
repository capability during the OR08 conference.

The Open Repositories conference annually attracts developers who  
working on a wide variety of repository-oriented platforms and  
projects from across the world. As well as providing a forum for  
discussion of the cutting edge of repository R&D, this year's  
conference will run a rapid cross-platform repository integration  
challenge. The aim is to get delegates working in small teams to try  
to quickly pull together established platforms and services to  
demonstrate a glimpse of some real-life, user-relevant scenarios and  
services. The "Repository Challenge" will be based around small teams  
of developers trying to achieve goals set by the repository manager  
and user community. This all takes place in a "scrapheap-code  
challenge [UK]" / "junkyard-code wars[US]" atmosphere over the two  
days of the conference. An awards ceremony at the conference dinner  
will celebrate the achievements of the teams with cash prizes given to  
the best demos (first team prize £2,500 / $5,000 / €3.350).

The Repository Challenge is intended to provide concrete examples of  
the ideas raised at a recent Repository Unconference, an event run by  
the JISC Common Repository Interface Group (CRIG) to identify key  
issues that repositories need to address to make a genuine impact in  
Higher Education. These include bringing the repository closer to the  
researcher's working environment,  automatically generating metadata,  
running multiple interfaces and taking advantage of Web 2.0 and  
utility computing services.

To participate in the repository challenge, register for OR08 at http://or08.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ 
  and email the Repository Challenge Chair: David Flanders (d.flanders@bbk.ac.uk 
).

Comments are invited on the outputs of the Unconference (photos of the  
flipcharts) which are available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ 
wocrig . Other CRIG discussion is available via blog planet: http://feeds.feedburner.com/jisc-crig 
  . Background information on CRIG can be found at: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/CRIG 
  . For more information on the challenge, contact the Repository  
Challenge Chair: David Flanders (d.flanders@bbk.ac.uk).

--
Les Carr
Open Repositories 2008 Conference Chair

PS Although this is not an ostensibly "Open Access" technical  
challenge, the suggested improvements will improve OA provision by  
making document and metadata deposit easier. But such efforts will  
only be effective as part of balanced diet of OA policy and technical  
development!