HTML

tool: Google Docs

Purpose:

Google Docs is a free, web-based service provided by Google for word processing and the creation of spreadsheets, presentations, forms and drawings. The cloud-computing application allows users to create, edit, upload, share and store data online in a variety of file formats similar to any office suite.

Features:

Shared folders and multiple file uploads with an individual file storage limit of 1GB.
Allows multiple users to create and update live documents in collaboration.
Translation and detection of up to 40 languages online and offline as well as dictionary definitions.
Supported on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and mobile browsers.
Available in 48 languages.
Automatic saving of open documents with revision history.
Insertion and editing of mathematical equations and symbols in documents.
Snap-to grid guides for automatic object alignment.
A choice of 70 themes to add colour to surveys and questionnaires created with forms.
Improved find-and-replace toolbar.
Strict and lenient levels of validation in spreadsheets for controlled project collaboration.
New version will include a chat function as well as drag-and-drop columns and editable formula bars in spreadsheets.

A&H use case 1 description:

The project provides free MP3 streaming and downloadable recordings of performances by British and Irish musicians made between 1900 and 1950, accessible through an online search interface. Around 2000 recordings from King's College archives were digitised and made accessible alongside almost 3000 digitised recordings from the CHARM project (Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music).

Creator:

Google Inc

Data capture:

Manual input and transcription

Communication and collaboration:

Textual interaction (asynchronous)

Specifications:

Portable Document Format (PDF)

XML

HTML

Excel Document (.xsl)

Powerpoint Document (.ppt)

Rich Text Format (RT)

Image Documents (.jpg) (.gif) (.png) (.tiff) (.bmp) Open Office

Word Document (.doc)

lifecycleStage:

creation

structuring

Data publishing and dissemination:

Collaborative publishing

Alternate tool(s):

Buzzword, Zoho, ThinkFree

Tags:

Platform:

JavaScript enabled browser

Licence:

Free

Software/programming languages used:

Google Docs

By danafarra at Tue, 08/06/2010 - 11:33

Read more about Google Docs

tool: Solr

Purpose:

Solr is an open source enterprise search platform from the Apache Lucene project. It operates as a standalone full-text search server within an appropriate servlet container, such as Tomcat. Solr uses the Lucene Java search library at its core for full-text indexing and search, and has REST-like HTTP/XML and JSON APIs that make it easy to use from virtually any programming language.

Features:

• May be tailored to many types of application with minimal programming knowledge
• Extensive plug-in support
• Full-text indexing and search

A&H use case 1 description:

The “British Cartoon Archive Digitisation (BCAD)” project has used Solr to deliver the search results and metadata.

Creator:

CNET Networks

Publisher:

Apache Software Foundation

Data analysis:

Searching and querying

Topic Detection and Tracking

Specifications:

Software/programming languages used:

Solr

Apache SOLR

Suite:

Apache

Data structuring and enhancement:

Cataloguing and indexing

Alternate tool(s):

Sphynx

Tags:

Licence:

lifecycleStage:

Platform:

By Valentina Asciutti at Mon, 19/04/2010 - 10:40

Read more about Solr

tool: Lucene

Purpose:

Apache Lucene is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform.

Features:

• Scalable, high-performance indexing
• Powerful, accurate and efficient search algorithms
• Cross-platform solution

A&H use case 1 description:

The “Freeze Frame – Historic Polar Images 1845-1960” project has used Lucene for advanced search of photographs from both Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.

Creator:

Doug Cutting

Publisher:

Apache Software Foundation

Data analysis:

Topic Detection and Tracking

Specifications:

Software/programming languages used:

Lucene

Apache Lucene

Suite:

Apache

Data structuring and enhancement:

Cataloguing and indexing

Alternate tool(s):

InQuira, Verity, dtSearch, ISYS

Tags:

Licence:

lifecycleStage:

Platform:

By Valentina Asciutti at Mon, 19/04/2010 - 10:27

Read more about Lucene

tool: ABBYY Fine Reader

Purpose:

A highly intelligent OCR (optical character recognition) software for creating editable and searchable electronic files from scanned paper documents, PDFs and digital photographs.

Features:

• recognition of Digital Camera and Mobile Phone Camera Images
• comprehensive Language Support
• complete Integration with Popular Office Applications
• PDF conversion, archiving and security

A&H use case 1 description:

The “Digital Library of Core e-Resource on Ireland” project has used ABBYY Fine Reader to digitise collections of Irish journals, monographs, manuscripts and pamphlets.

Publisher:

ABBYY

Data capture:

2d scanning and photography

Specifications:

Software/programming languages used:

ABBYY FineReader

Suite:

ABBYY

Practice-led research:

Tags:

Alternate tool(s):

OmniPage Professional

Licence:

lifecycleStage:

Platform:

By Valentina Asciutti at Fri, 26/03/2010 - 16:40

Read more about ABBYY Fine Reader

tool: MantisBT

Purpose:

MantisBT is a free popular web-based bugtracking system written in the PHP scripting language.

The most common use of MantisBT is to track software defects. However, MantisBT is often configured by users to serve as a more generic issue tracking system and project management tool.

Features:

• event-driven-plug-in system
• works with MySQL, MS SQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle and IBM DB2 databases
• RSS Feeds
• Customisable workflow
• Wiki integration
• Chat integration

A&H use case 1 description:

The “First World War Poetry Digital Archive” project has used MantisBT to track development and the use cases developed were used as reference points for successful development prior to user testing.

Creator:

Kenzaburo Ito and Victor Boctor

Publisher:

Futureware Pty Ltd

Strategy and project management:

Accessibility analysis

General project management

System quality assurance and code testing

Data analysis:

Topic Detection and Tracking

lifecycleStage:

Specifications:

Tags:

HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

PHP

scripting language

MySQL

Alternate tool(s):

JIRA, Trac, Bugzilla

Platform:

All major operating systems

Licence:

GNU General Public License

Software/programming languages used:

Mantis

MantisBT

By Valentina Asciutti at Fri, 26/03/2010 - 14:20

tool: Ruby on Rails

Purpose:

Ruby on Rails, often shortened to Rails or RoR, is a web development framework written in the Ruby language.
It is intended to be used with an Agile development methodology that is used by web developers for rapid development.

Ruby on Rails is separated into various packages, namely ActiveRecord (an object-relational mapping system for database access), ActiveResource (provides web services), ActionPack, ActiveSupport and ActionMailer.

Features:

• uses the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture pattern to organise application programming
• MySQL, SQLite, and Postgres support
• opinionated software
• RESTful architecture
• Convention over Configuration (CoC) principle
• Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle

A&H use case 1 description:

The “First World War Poetry Digital Archive” project has used Ruby on Rails to embed browse and search functionality to the website.

Creator:

David Heinemeier Hansson

Publisher:

Rails Core Team

Data publishing and dissemination:

Web browser scripting

General website development

Specifications:

XML

HTML