This document discusses the importance of developers to higher education. It summarizes several projects funded by JISC that aim to support and connect developers, including Common Repositories Interfaces Group (CRIG), Wisdom of CRIG (WOCRIG), Developer Community Supporting Innovation (DevCSI), and Developer Days (dev8D). It argues that connecting developers leads to rapid innovation, knowledge transfer, and representation of developers' needs. Challenges include sustainability, perceptions of developers' value, and ensuring diversity among participants.

1. Are developers
important (to HE)?
Paul Walk
p.walk@ukoln.ac.uk
UKOLN is supported by:
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management

2. UKOLN & JISC
• JISC = The Joint Information Systems Committee, a
‘standing committee’ funded by the Higher
Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
• UKOLN is funded by JISC as one of its Innovation
Support Centres
• UKOLN provides advisory, research &
development and outreach services to JISC
2

3. - funded by JISC
- managed by UKOLN
- started September 2009
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4. whakapapa
4

5. CRIG
• JISC commissioned the Common Repositories Interfaces
Group in 2006
• “to help identify problem spaces in the repository
landscape and suggest innovative solutions”
• define problems spaces
• prototype solutions
• establish working groups around the promising
outputs
• open innovation?
5

6. WOCRIG
• “Wisdom of CRIG”
• a support project led by David Flanders
• to facilitate interaction & collaboration by
developers
6

7. DRY barcamp
• crucial lessons learned:
• developers are not necessarily so good at pitching ideas/projects
• the barcamp format can work really well
7

8. MashedLib
• “mashed library”, started in 2008
• conceived by Owen Stephens and
sponsored by UKOLN
8

9. dev8D
• JISC Developer Days
• primarily the brain-child of Ben O’Steen (Oxford)
and David Flanders (JISC)
9

10. DevCSI
• Developer Community Supporting Innovation
• more substantial funding to take this kind of activity
further
• act as a focal point between developer community
and the JISC (Developer Focus)
• oversight for events including dev8D
• Developer Contact
10

11. So, what’s the point of
all this?
11

12. value proposition
• having local/institutional
developer resource
available is valuable
• that local resource, while
limited, can be backed-up
by a community of peers
• a well connected
community of developers
is greater than the sum
of its parts!
• developers can empower
users
12

13. responsive innovation
• ad-hoc collaborations
• opportunities for forming
teams around funding
opportunities
• training users as well as
developers in Agile
development
• building on rapid innovation
towards responsive innovation
• using willing developers to
test APIs
13

14. representation
• developers are not well represented to the sector
• Developer Focus
• Developer Contact
• JISC can set challenges to the developer
community (e.g. CRIG)
• developers have a conduit to report issues to the
JISC
14

15. knowledge transfer
• bringing users together with developers
• sector-wide ideas exchanges
• ‘computational thinking’
• transferable skills
• data-centric research will demand skills currently
held by developers
• growth of researchers choosing a career path in
software development?
15

16. barn-raising
16

17. events for developers
• also:
• paper. Big paper, small
paper
• infrastructure (Twitter,
Youtube, Flickr,RSS)
• free-form physical space
• coffee on tap
17

18. prototyping: draw & discuss
18

19. prototyping: build stuff (1)
• building stuff as
free-form R&D
• doing so in a very
open environment
• contributing ideas
19

20. prototyping: build stuff (2)
• building infrastructure to support events and
activities
• Sam Easterby Smith’s happiness meter
20

21. prototyping: ‘bounties’
• JISC - Linked Data API/Data Challenge
• EDINA - The Unlock Places API & Geo/Data Challenge
• Building the best IMS Basic LTI Tool Blackboard / Learning
Tools
• Interoperability API/Data Challenge
• Memento: Time Travel for the Web
• Internet Archive API/Data Challenge
• Mobile API/Data Challenge
• Microsoft Zentity Challenge
• EPrints 3.2 API/data challenge
• MLA Challenge 21

22. networking
22

23. building capacity
23

24. issues
24

25. perception
• developers are valuable....
• ...but not always valued
• we need to raise the profile of developers - and
demonstrate their value to the education and
research sectors
• raising awareness - showcasing
25

26. which developers?
• researchers who develop software....sometimes?
• computer scientists?
• professional developers working in institutions?
• students?
• professional developers working commercially/
independently?
• people who can manipulate spreadsheets and
online tools such as Yahoo Pipes but have no
coding skills?
26

27. where are the women?
• women are under represented in development
generally
• only 7% of dev8D participants this year were
female
• childcare is an issue for long events especially
• the nature of some of these events can be a bit
‘blokeish’
• happily, Developer Focus has excellent female
representation
27

28. challenges
28

29. sustainability
• sustainability of publicly funded innovation
• what happens to software outputs from research projects?
• sustainability of locally employed developer talent
and expertise
• typically no career path for developers in institutions
29

30. recession
30

31. progress....
31

32. is it working?
• we’ve proven that getting
developers together in the
right environment can lead
to amazing feats of rapid
innovation and prototyping
• we need to go on to prove
that this is sustainable and
can deliver lasting benefit
to education and research
32

33. value for money?
Per Day Costs (GBP) Per Hour Costs per del(GBP)
Scala
http://skillsmatter.com/course/java-jee/bject-oriented-meets-functional-an-exploaration-of-scala
697.5 87.1875
http://www.artima.com/seminars/ 325.5 40.6875
Average 63.9375
Ruby on Rails
http://pragmaticstudio.com/rails 418.83 52.35375
http://www.jbinternational.co.uk/ruby-on-rails-training-uk.html
Name of Workshop 400 No Attendees Length of Session
No Sessions 50
Value p del p/h Total
http://www.bignerdranch.com/classes/ruby_on_rails_i
Genetic Algorithms 364 30 2 6 45.5 65.26 3915.6
Cloud Computing Average 41 2 49.2845833333333180.35 14788.7
Linked Data Linked Data 75 2.5 28.05 5259.375
http://events.linkeddata.org/iswc2008tutorial/ http://iswc2009.semanticweb.org/wiki/index.php/ISWC_2009_Registration
Pipes Lab 125 39 3 15.625 65.26 7635.42
http://www.semsphere.com/en/training/courses/details/7-official-sts-course 234 29.25
Arduino Workshop Beginners 1 10 2.5 13.46 336.5
http://topquadrant.com/training/intro.html 314.125 39.265625
Arduino Workshop Beginners 2
Average 24 2.5 28.046875 13.46 807.6
Iphone Arduino Workshop Beginners 3 22 2.5 13.46 740.3
http://training.oreilly.com/introiphoneapp/Arduino Workshop Advanced 1 420 8 2.5 52.5 13.46 269.2
http://miamiiphone.eventbrite.com/ Arduino Workshop Advanced 2 326 5 2.5 40.75 13.46 168.25
Clojure 1
http://www.jbinternational.co.uk/iphone-application-development-training-course-uk.html
598 8 3 74.75 62.23 1493.52
Clojure 2 Average 25 3 56 62.23 4667.25
Multicore programming workshop Ruby on Rails Lab 34 4 49.28 6702.08
http://www.exitcertified.com/specialized-training/NCT-100.html
Zentity Lab 582.17 24 2.5 72.77125 65.26 3915.6
http://www.datasim.nl/education/CourseDetails.asp?CourseID=CPP-OMP
Google Application Engine Workshop 445.5 47 4 55.6875 66.8 12558.4
Iphone Workshop Average 38 4 64.229375 56 8512
Cloud Workshop
Scala 25 4 63.94 6394
http://www.momentumsi.com/training/courses.html 3150 393.75
Python
http://www.learningtree.com/courses/1200.htm?i=UNKNOWN&em=&f=blog_cc 581 38 2.5 72.625 65.26 6199.7
Open Social 14 1.5
http://www.jbinternational.co.uk/cloud-computing-training-software-as-service-training-virtualization-training-course-uk.html
597.5 74.6875 65.26 1370.46
Average 180.354166666667
Google App Engine workshop Total Value 85733.955
http://skillsmatter.com/course-details/cloud-grid/developing-with-google-apps-in-the-cloud
650 81.25
https://training.figleaf.com/register/index.cfm?ev_id=4491 418.83 52.35375
Average 66.801875
Arduino Workshop
http://www.creativetechnologynetwork.co.uk/events/beginners-arduino-workshop70 8.75
http://machineproject.com/events/2010/04/07/sensors-and-pattern-recognition/ 116 14.5
http://www.absolutebeginners.uk.com/ARDBEG_WShops_outline.php 137 17.125
Average 13.4583333333333 33

34. commercial interest
• our events give commercial players direct
access to developers in the HE community
• this is commercial developers talking to HE
developers, rather than commercial sales-people
talking to IT managers in HE
• some have already recognised that this is an
opportunity
• using a pool of HE developers to test and develop
against their APIs - this is really valuable and very
cheap
• Microsoft, library systems vendors (Talis, OCLC, Ex Libris....)
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35. a blueprint to be copied?
• encouraging similar activity beyond the scope of
the project
• international interest - e.g. Bradley McLean, CTO
of Duraspace
• some interest generated in NZ in the cultural
heritage sector
• linking up with ‘code4lib’ in the US
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36. the manager’s view
• "They gained a huge amount. They came back very
enthusiastic and full of good ideas. It did a great
deal for morale and motivation…. It's a very
powerful thing when your peers say that you are
doing something the best,"
• “...decided to use the momentum of Dev8D to
move forward with agile working and the List8D
project by providing the development team with
two very important assets: physical and mental
space.”
36

37. credits
Project Team: Developer Focus:
Mahendra Mahey (Project Manager) Ben Charlton
Natasha Bishop & Michelle Smith (Event Juliette Culver
Support) Jim Downing
Julian Cheal & Mark Dewey(Technical Tony Hirst
Support) Richard Jones (Chair)
Graham Klyne
Ben O’Steen
JISC Support: Mia Ridge
David Tarrant
Andrew McGregor (Programme Manager)
Jo Walsh
David Flanders
Rachel Bruce (Programme Director)
David Flanders deserves a special mention for his considerable
contribution to community building
.... and many, many other people who have contributed time, energy,
brilliance and enthusiasm!
37

38. thank you for
listening!
http://devcsi.ukoln.ac.uk/
p.walk@ukoln.ac.uk
[credits for photos on next slide] 38

39. Photo and image references
Developer Bingo, Juliette Culver http://www.flickr.com/photos/julietteculver/4386210684/
RepRap, Ben O’Steen http://dev8d.jiscinvolve.org/files/2010/02/reprapdemo.jpg
Squirrel, Steffe http://www.flickr.com/photos/steffe/2490814730/
Aspiration Bridge, King Coyote http://www.flickr.com/photos/kingcoyote/211860472/
Barbershop, ThisIsIt2 http://www.flickr.com/photos/e06158/2768449729/
Recession, Rich Anderson http://www.flickr.com/photos/memestate/3601332189/
Mash Oop North, Dave Pattern http://www.flickr.com/photos/davepattern/3331203534/
Owen Stephens, mmmmmrob http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmmmmrob/3065030935/
Tony Hirst, mmmmmrob http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmmmmrob/3065869982/in/photostream/
Laptop, mmmmmrob http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmmmmrob/3065869274/
Library Mashup Pipes, Tony Hirst http://ouseful.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/mashlib-pipes-tutorial-2d-journal-
search/
dev8D, Chris Keene http://twitpic.com/15hw2m
Postcard, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Freudenberg_ArthurOscar_02.jpg
Crig Quote, David Flanders http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Image:Quote_CRIG.png
Crig Plan, David Flanders http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/images/5/56/WorkplanOverview-
Cropped_CRIG.png
Wookie http://getwookie.org/Welcome.html
Sakai http://sakaiproject.org/sites/all/themes/basic/logo.png
Maslow's Hierarchy of Geek Needs, David Flanders http://www.flickr.com/photos/dff1978/3044660630/
WOCRIG, http://www.flickr.com/photos/wocrig/2197483920/
Maori Face, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Maori_mask.JPG
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