M. Wolpers et al. (Eds.): EC-TEL 2010, LNCS 6383, pp. 590–595, 2010.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010
Components of a Research 2.0 Infrastructure
Thomas Daniel Ullmann1, Fridolin Wild1, Peter Scott1, Erik Duval2,
Bram Vandeputte2, Gonzalo Parra2, Wolfgang Reinhardt3, Nina Heinze4,
Peter Kraker5, Angela Fessl5, Stefanie Lindstaedt5, Till Nagel6, and Denis Gillet7
1
KMi, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
{f.wild,t.ullmann,peter.scott}@open.ac.uk
2
Departement Computerwetenschappen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
{erik.duval,bram.vandeputte,gonzalo.parra}@cs.kuleuven.be
3
University of Paderborn, Fürstenallee 11, Computer Science Education Group,
33102 Paderborn, Germany
wolle@upb.de
4
Knowledge Media Research Center, Konrad-Adenauer-Straße 40, Tuebingen, Germany
n.heinze@iwm-kmrc.de
5
Know-Center and Graz University of Technology, Knowledge Management Institute, Austria
{pkraker,slind,afessl}@know-center.at
6
Fachhochschule Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
nagel@fh-potsdam.de
7
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
denis.gillet@epfl.ch
Abstract. In this paper, we investigate the components of a Research 2.0 infra-
structure. We propose building blocks and their concrete implementation to
leverage Research 2.0 practice and technologies in our field, including a publi-
cation feed format for exchanging publication data, a RESTful API to retrieve
publication and Web 2.0 data, and a publisher suit for refining and aggregating
data. We illustrate the use of this infrastructure with Research 2.0 application
examples ranging from a Mash-Up environment, a mobile and multitouch ap-
plication, thereby demonstrating the strength of this infrastructure.
Keywords: research 2.0, infrastructure, mash-ups, #Res2TEL.
1 Research 2.0
In technology-enhanced learning (TEL), the use of Web 2.0 technologies is now ac-
tively researched under banners such as “Learning 2.0” [1], "Personal Learning Envi-
ronments" [2] or "Open Learning Environments" [3] and the like. In our Research 2.0
work, we aim to leverage the same opportunities for research on TEL. Research 2.0
can be defined as the application of new practices that focus on opening up the re-
search process to broaden participation and collaboration with the help of new tech-
nologies that are able to foster continuous engagement and further development.

Components of a Research 2.0 Infrastructure 591

The basic idea is that, as researchers in technology-enhanced learning, we already
know how to make use of for example blogs, wikis and forums to enhance collaborative
work, but a full Research 2.0 framework might provide us with a much more powerful
structure to make our research more effective.
The proposed components of a research infrastructure build upon the ideas of
Research 2.0. By now, the focus is on individual practice and especially on the infor-
mation management of publication and social media data. Based on this foundation,
future extension will strengthen collaborative and community practice for a full “Re-
search 2.0” framework.
The paper is organized as follows. We first outline the tree main components of the
research information infrastructure. It follows an outline of a publication format, of
services for publication and Web 2.0 data, and a publisher suit. The interplay
between these components is shown with three applications, which are build on top of
the infrastructure. Finally, we conclude and give a forecast about the next develop-
ment steps.
2 Components of a TEL Researcher Information Infrastructure
The architecture of the infrastructure foresees three cornerstones [4]. (1) On the server
side, services provide the backing data for the tools and widgets. The data are retriev-
able through a RESTful API. (2) On the client-side, widgets are combined into a
coherent user experience with the help of a mash-up environment. Mobile and multi-
touch applications use their own environment. (3) Widgets are administered in a di-
rectory, thereby subjecting the management of the portfolio to conscious maintenance
and development. The fundament of the infrastructure tying these three pillars to-
gether is a set of interoperability formats.
Based on these cornerstones of Research 2.0 architectures we implemented data
services, tools and widgets, using interoperability formats. We begin with the descrip-
tion of a publication exchange format. This defines a minimum set of guidelines eas-
ing the usage across different systems and partner infrastructures. It follows two data
services approaches, one for research data including publication data and Web 2.0
data, and a publisher suit. These services are accessible for the use in tools and wid-
gets. We outline three of them, which especially show the strength of the Research 2.0
mash-up architecture for the use in different application fields, including desktop,
multitouch and mobile applications. We begin with the interoperability format.
Publication feeds: In order to facilitate the exchange of bibliographic data across the
TEL community we use the concept of publication feeds. They are used for a light-
weight exchange of publication metadata in a format commonly readable by existing
Web 2.0 infrastructure. Hence, they can easily be combined, aggregated, visualized
and re-released. This allows for inclusion of external parties who can expose their
publication data trough publication feeds as well. An institution only needs to export
its publication metadata once to automatically update all the subscribers to this feed