The reference model describes the concepts and relations of social sciences and/or humanities data infrastructures. The primary audience of the reference model are the architects of these data- or research infrastructures. The secondary audience are all other stakeholders that want to understand the concepts and relations of these data infrastructures.
This work has been conducted as part of the DASISH project (FP7, Grant Agreement 283646). This work reused the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing as well as earlier work by ENVRI. The current version is an early draft for the reference model, based on the experience of the contributors in european research infrastructures. The current version will be the basis for further engagement and analysis of the existing research infrastructures.
The current reference model focuses three of five RM-ODP viewpoints:
Enterprise Viewpoint, where research infrastructures have been decomposed into virtual communities of stakeholders with similar objectives and behaviour.
Computational Viewpoint, where the communities' systems are defined and decomposed systems with specific computations.
Information Viewpoint, which provides an overview of the different types of information that are used by the communities.
Two other viewpoints of RM-ODP are not part of this reference model:
Engineering Viewpoint, which describes mechanisms and functions to support the distributed interactions between objects of the system. This viewpoint is particularly interesting as it should cover typical data infrastructure components like resolvers of persistent identifiers, aggregators of metadata of federated authentication systems. The current reference model only identifies this viewpoint as a placeholder for these typical mechanisms.
Technology viewpoint, which focuses on the chosen technology to implement the processing, functionality and presentation of information. This reference model will not cover details about implementation.