Some resource discovery thoughts
Some thoughts on what various interested parties might think about a resource discovery solution that uses personal profiles, collaborative tagging, descriptions of data sources, search integration, and other stuff.
As a user…
- How do I find a source that has a broad coverage of the subject area that I’m interested in?
- Do I know how to broaden or narrow my search?
- Do I know that Google isn’t the only place to look?
- When I have found a useful resource, can a tag it for others to see?
- Will others actually be able to make use of the search?
- Do they know the correct URL?
- Do they need a password?
- Can I get access through athens?
- Does my university/place of work/local library/school subscribe to it?
- Can I search from here, and include some other databases in my favourite list at the same time?
- Can someone on my course suggest a database to me that they found?
- Can I get an alert when something changes in my favourite databases?
- Can I save a profile that I can use when I am at home/work/college, and that will stay with me as I move through an education system, or progress through my career?
- Can I get a citation for a database to go in my bibliography?
- Can I export my data in a format of my choosing?
- Can I easily delete my account, and be confident that my private information is not retained?
As a developer…
- Is there an API/webservice/etc… that I can use to search this database?
- Are there any webservices that might be of interest for the website I am developing for Company A?
- Can I get some documentation?
- Do I need a developers token?
- Is there a cost involved?
- Is the cost prohibitive?
- Can I do trial testing of my software?
As a content publisher/creator…
- Can I make my database more visibile?
- How do I get more people to use/pay for my data?
- Is there a way to automatically notify/update people about a URL change, without causing undue bad feeling when we have to go live with a new server, and having to email anybody and everybody? (which we probably don’t do anyway)
- Is there a way to see how many people value our service and say constructive things about it?
- Can I identify new market segments that I wasn’t aware existed?
- Can I provide teaser-data to entice people into buying an article or subscribing to a full service?
- Does my perception of our product and it’s coverage match the perceptions of the users?
- How are our users using this product?
Would you like to add anything?