Enhanced ePrints: a practical exemplar with global application for the visualisation and interaction with archival data systems using the Lifelines interface

Abstract

Background: the Stacked and Synchronised Timeline and Iconographic Interface (“Lifelines”) is a significant practical advance in the efficient overview, visualisation, navigation and interrogation of complex, heterogenous and time-structured data sets. The Southampton ePrints system has been a repository for the outputs and open publication of all members of staff, Departments and Faculties of the University of Southampton (UoS) since 2004. Versions are used by some 400 institutions worldwide. ePrints was optimised for internet searches on individual documents rather than for the visualisation of the global outputs of individuals or departments.

Methods: we used as a template for this data visualisation project the unique University Hospital Southampton (UHS) Lifelines interface, which has been created and adapted as a central element of the UHS Electronic Patient record (EPR). We created an external application programming interface (API) to the UoS ePrints server to extract the content on demand to populate an “ePrints Lifelines” API , using the ePrints taxonomy of output types, (eg papers, theses) to designate our content taxonomy and related timelines.

Results: in 3 months, using an agile methodology, a team for four undergraduate students created a working API which reliably accesses all content in UoS ePrints in real time. Specifically, it populates a timeline framework which permits direct visualisation and navigation to the source outputs of any individual, department or Faculty whose material is posted on ePrints. Citation metrics are also displayable for each output.

Conclusions: our “ePrints Lifelines” interface demonstrates a transformative interface for the navigation and interrogation of heterogenous archival content in a fast and intuitive way, and which can be engineered with modest coding resources. It introduces a new approach for libraries, institutional, corporate, personal and national archives, ancestry record systems, bibliometric databases, and engineering systems substantially to enhance the value of their information holdings.

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Identifiers

ORCID for David Rew: orcid.org/0000-0002-4518-2667

ORCID for Leslie Carr: orcid.org/0000-0002-2113-9680

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