Introduction to bX recommendation services

1. bX: Scholarly Recommender
Services (and more…)
SUAleph
SVK HK, 8.4.2009
Jiří Pavlík, Jenny Walker

2. New paradigm for search
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3. New paradigm for search
“The Web, they say, is leaving the era of
search and entering one of discovery.
What's the difference? Search is what you
do when you're looking for something.
Discovery is when something wonderful
that you didn't know existed, or didn't
know how to ask for, finds you.“
Jeffrey M. O’Brien, "The race to create a 'smart' Google",
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/
fortune_archive/2006/11/27/8394347/
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4. Introducing bX
• A new service that taps into the power of the
networked scholarly community to generate
recommendations based on article usage.
• Based on data mining and structural analysis
of aggregated usage data, across libraries
and scholarly information environments
• Derives from research done at Los Alamos
National Laboratory by Johan Bollen and
Herbert Van de Sompel
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5. bX Research
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6. bX Research
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7. bX Research
http://public.lanl.gov/herbertv/
papers/jcdl06_accepted_version.pdf
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8. bX is built on the OpenURL Framework
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9. bX is built on the OpenURL Framework
• Harvesting usage log files from link resolvers (SFX)
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10. bX is built on the OpenURL Framework
• Harvesting usage log files from link resolvers (SFX)
Using OpenURL context-object format
Using OAI-PMH protocol for harvesting
• Building a (very large) aggregate of usage data
• Mining the aggregate to derive scholarly
recommender services
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11. Linking – An Overlay Service
Resource
Layer
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12. Linking – An Overlay Service
SFX
Resource
Layer
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13. Linking – An Overlay Service
SFX
L
UR
en
Op
Resource
Layer
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14. Linking – An Overlay Service
SFX
L
UR
en
Op
Resource
Layer
6

15. Linking – An Overlay Service
SFX
Op
en
U
L
RL
UR
en
Op
Resource
Layer
6

16. Linking – An Overlay Service
SFX
Op
en
U
L
RL
UR
en
Op
Resource
Layer
6

17. Linking – An Overlay Service
Open URL
Linking Layer
SFX
Op
en
U
L
RL
UR
en
Op
Resource
Layer
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18. The OpenURL framework
• 2001: first link resolver deployed commercially
– SFX from Ex Libris
• 2009: wide participation from the scholarly
world:
• Estimated 3000+ link resolvers around the
world (~1700 SFX sites alone)
• All major information providers (A&I, online
journal providers, Google and more) participate
as a source of OpenURL links and/or as a target
for linking
• Link resolvers are a key hub of activity across
a distributed set of resources
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19. The OpenURL framework
• 2001: first link resolver deployed commercially
– SFX from Ex Libris
• 2009: wide participation from the scholarly
world:
• Estimated 3000+ link resolvers around the
world (~1700 SFX sites alone)
• All major information providers (A&I, online
journal providers, Google and more) participate
as a source of OpenURL links and/or as a target
for linking
• Link resolvers are a key hub of activity across
a distributed set of resources
• bX builds on this architecture
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20. Recommender – A New Overlay Service
OpenURL
Linking Layer
SFX
Resource
Layer
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21. Recommender – A New Overlay Service
SFX SFX OpenURL
SFX Linking Layer
SFX SFX
SFX
SFX
SFX SFX
SFX
Resource
Layer
8

22. Recommender – A New Overlay Service
bX
SFX SFX OpenURL
SFX Linking Layer
SFX SFX
SFX
SFX
SFX SFX
SFX
Resource
Layer
8

23. Recommender – A New Overlay Service
bX
SFX SFX OpenURL
SFX Linking Layer
SFX SFX
SFX
SFX
SFX SFX
SFX
Resource
Layer
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24. Recommender – A New Overlay Service
bX
OA
H
I-PM
I-P
M
OA
H
SFX SFX OpenURL
SFX Linking Layer
SFX SFX
SFX
SFX
SFX SFX
SFX
Resource
Layer
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25. Recommender – A New Overlay Service
Recommender
Service Layer
bX
OA
H
I-PM
I-P
M
OA
H
SFX SFX OpenURL
SFX Linking Layer
SFX SFX
SFX
SFX
SFX SFX
SFX
Resource
Layer
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50. The bX Service – open interface
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51. The bX Service – open interface
• Embedded in SFX
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52. The bX Service – open interface
• Embedded in SFX
• Accessible through:
• OpenURL/XML
• OpenURL/RSS
• OpenURL/ATOM
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55. bX Partners
• Tsinghua University, China
• Boston College, USA
• University of Alberta, Canada
• British Library, UK
• University of Amsterdam,
• California State University
Consortium, USA Netherlands
• Catholic University of • University of Chicago, USA
Leuven, Belgium • University College London
• Charles University, Prague (UCL), UK
• ETH, Zurich, Switzerland • University of Manchester, UK
• FineLib, Finland • University of Texas at Austin,
• Imperial College, UK USA
• Karolinska Institute, • University of Leiden,
Sweden Netherlands
• Monash University, • University of Stellenbosch,
Australia South Africa
• Princeton University, USA
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56. bX Partners
• Tsinghua University, China
• Boston College, USA
• University of Alberta, Canada
• British Library, UK
• University of Amsterdam,
• California State University
Consortium, USA Netherlands
• Catholic University of • University of Chicago, USA
Leuven, Belgium • University College London
• Charles University, Prague (UCL), UK
• ETH, Zurich, Switzerland • University of Manchester, UK
• FineLib, Finland • University of Texas at Austin,
• Imperial College, UK USA
• Karolinska Institute, • University of Leiden,
Sweden Netherlands
• Monash University, • University of Stellenbosch,
Australia South Africa
• Princeton University, USA
Los Alamos as Development Partner
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57. bX Summary
• A valuable tool that meets user expectations
for up-to-date, Web 2.0-type services
• First-of-its-kind service providing
recommendations that are:
• Relevant:
• based on the analysis of tens of millions of
information requests from hundreds of thousands
of users and across multiple distributed resources
• Offered at an article-level
• Up-to-Date: includes current scholarly material
• Easily Accessible: tightly integrated into
scholarly search results
• Standards-based and interoperable
• A SaaS offering - nothing to install or maintain
on your network
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58. A Scholarly Article Recommender Service
Questions?

59. Thank You!
jiri.pavlik@multidata.cz