Authors

Ian Johnson, Steven Hayes, and Andrew Wilson (University of Sydney)

Abstract

In this poster we will illustrate the use of an agnostic collaborative database to store and manage many different types of research record - from bibliographic entries and photographs to historical events and GIS data. By storing all these entities in a single integrated database we are able to store relationships between heterogeneous items which support functions 'out of the box' which are generally only available in specialised or bespoke applications. These include text and virtual world annotation, visualisation of networks of organisations or historical events, richly linked community blogging, interactive mapping and timeline production and the generation of sophisticated interlinked web sites such as the Dictionary of Sydney. Use of XML, XSLT and Cocoon to render database content not only allows rapid re-use and re-presentation of content, but also supports on-the-fly annotation and data entry.

In this poster we will illustrate a range of distinct applications and web site products generated from the Heurist eResearch database (HeuristScholar.org).