External Interconnectivity Use Case

This is part of the submitted UseCaseList.

Scenario

A description of the scenario that you have in mind.

The data provided by the four Bernstein databases should be machine accessible from outside the Bernstein workspace. That is:

1. by other databases with paper collections (Fabriano, Basel, IPCL, Vienna BxArts^?, etc.)
2. by databases with content other than paper (incunabula, manuscripts, philology, economy, etc.)
3. by various data processing tools (statistics, image processing, cartography, etc.)

The idea is to make the intgration in such a way that information can be pulled by databases and tools outside the consortium.
See also: DoiUse.

Importance

How important do you see this use case as?

• Must Support

Dependencies

What other use cases are affected by the implementation of this one?

• Databases usability, db integration, dating, authentication, cartography, bibliography, Bernstein workspace input/output

Input

Things that the user must/might supply to the system.

• Mandatory: Types of information the user wants pulled from the DBs. Currently these are:
  1. dates
  2. places
  3. WM motif
  4. WM sub-element
  5. WM attributes (relative position, orientation, size of WM elements)
  6. laid lines density (with units)
  7. document type
  8. images

Output

Things that the user will recieve in response to their request.

• The workspace returns the information requested by the external machines

Difficulties

Areas in which you foresee problems/issues arising.

• The implementation is not difficult to code if the connectivity to the DBs is based on unique digital object identifiers.

Example

An example supporting this use case.

1. The Basel paper DB is expected to be brought online during the lifespan of Bernstein. We want it to be connected through the worksapce to the other 4 DBs (NIKI, POL, WILC, WZMA). It will enlarge the pool of data that supports dating, authentication and cartography. These three components should be able to access the 4 DBs (as planned), as well as the Basel DB (as hoped). Also, users that want to look for specific WM in the 4 DBs should be able to search in the Basel DB too.
2. Suppose somebody working at ECAI wants to represent data about papers as provided by Bernstein in his own maps on Renaissance economical history. He selects selects the fields he needs, say dates and laid lines density, and plots that data over his own set of economical developpment in Renaissance Europe. Then he might observe a correlation between the textile and the paper making industry (papers were made from rags, so if there is poverty and nobody sells his garments tehre is less paper that can be produced).

Other Information

Any other information that you think is important to include.

• Copyrights:

1. Insofar as the information in the Bernstein DBs are pulled from outside the consortium by machines and not by humans, the copyrights issue is not the same than if a user would make copies of parts of the Bernstein databases.
2. In fact the various user communities would be deprived of much usability of the Bernstein DBs if they would be restriced to just reading the DBs on their screens. They would not be able to process the information in any other way than enabled by the Bernstein workspace and would not be able to use the data in conjonction with data from other DBs.

Comments

Comment from other partner regarding the use case.

• ...

-- VladAtanasiu - 18 Oct 2006