The Big Digital Machine (BDM) is the name for a concept that aggregates and integrates a set of capabilities to provide universities the ability to manage their scholarly output. In particular, the BDM aims to provide for the production, distribution, management, and preservation of the full range of scholarly products, including pre-prints and post-prints, working papers, conference proceedings, journals, monographs, and textbooks. To date there have been a number of good systems developed to do parts of this work, but these developments are separate, small-scale and not integrated.
The BDM project is attempting to:
• Design a high-level technical architecture based on integrations of existing systems to create an open, enterprise-scale capacity
• Identify gaps and/or system enhancements to move toward this architecture
• Identify the priority developments that would be the best way to expend the available funds
• Demonstrate connections between existing systems
The BDM project has received some seed funding from the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and is initially working with DuraSpace, the Public Knowledge Project, and Connexions. This session will present the BDM vision and progress to date and invite discussion of the concept and how it might be advanced.