Last week Savas Parastatidis blogged about two repository-related outputs  from Microsoft Research that have just reached beta – one of which, OfficeSWORD, is open source and the other, their research-output repository, is free for non-commercial use.

Please note the following is not based on using these applications, but on what they describe themselves as doing – trying to use these is something I’ll explore when the opportunity arises.

OfficeSWORD

This is a downloadable plugin for Office2007 to support submission via SWORD to a repository. It currently supports deposit from Word2007 and PowerPoint2007.

It still appears very much in beta and is not yet extensively tested/ documented, but the code is available as open source at Codeplex  http://www.codeplex.com/OfficeSWORD.

It will be interesting to see how this plugin develops  but even as it stands,  it is another example of the growing number of projects developing desktop deposit tools.

I’m not yet in a position to compare the  functionality of this too with other desktop deposit tools but… I can’t help thinking this particular tool has the potential to be very useful to repository managers wanting to enable desktop deposit by academics. As the project originates  from Microsoft Research, and is integrated into the desktop applications used to create many simple digital assets it could be much easier to sell to staff who aren’t interested in installing and learning yet another programme.

Research-output repository codename ‘famulus’

this is a first beta release so I’m not sure how much of the below functionality is included yet. UPDATE: savas has commented below that all of the listed functionality is in this release. He also points out what they’re working on next.

“MSR’s Research Output Repository Platform (codename “Famulus”) aims to provide the necessary building blocks, tools, and services for developers who are tasked with creating and maintaining an organization’s repository ecosystem. Furthermore, it provides an easy-to-install and maintain experience for those who want to quickly set up a research output repository for their project, team, or organization. The platform is based on Microsoft’s technologies (SQL Server 2008 and .NET Framework version 3.5 SP1)  […] New applications on top of the platform can be developed using any .NET language and the Visual Studio 2008 SP1 environment. The platform focuses on the management of research assets—such as people, papers, lectures, workflows, data, and tags — as well as the semantic relationships between them. Support for various services such as full-text search, OAI-PMH, RSS and Atom Syndication, BibTeX import and export, SWORD, AtomPub, and OAI-ORE are included as part of the distribution.” http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/Details/48e60ac1-a95a-4163-a23d-28a914007743/Details.aspx .

Everything I’d heard thus far about Microsoft’s initiative in this area (of which these are only 2) had focused on scholarly articles, publishing journals, and research data. Seeing lectures on this list of supported assets is a welcome surprise that begins many more questions than it answers.

More details

More about both of these can be found on Savas’ blog and in a podcast interview by Tallis. I’ll listen to the podcast soon-ish and add anything more about lectures or other learning materials as a comment.

Tallis podcast http://blogs.talis.com/xiphos/2008/10/15/savas-parastatidis-and-alex-wade-talk-with-talis-about-microsoft-research-famulus-scholarly-communication-and-semantic-computing/ or http://tinyurl.com/528dm3

OfficeSWORD

SWORD plugin for Word2007

http://savas.parastatidis.name/2008/10/07/86c8cc56-d3e4-49d9-985f-2cfd011f6d54.aspx

SWORD plugin binary release

http://savas.parastatidis.name/2008/10/10/adabe247-f9f7-4328-9298-99fe9ef0727f.aspx

Famulus

http://savas.parastatidis.name/2008/10/08/0a59c3e1-0fb7-4c11-9dcc-89db3c8db17d.aspx