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of architecture, tools and services for scholarly research <strong>in</strong> a digital environment (Benardou et
al. 2010a).
As a basis for their model, Benardou et al. used the cultural-historical activity theory of Leont’ev,
which has as its key concept, activity, or purposeful <strong>in</strong>teractions of a subject with the world. Us<strong>in</strong>g the
activity theory framework, they def<strong>in</strong>ed scholarly research as a “purposeful process” that is carried out
by actors (whether <strong>in</strong>dividuals or groups) us<strong>in</strong>g specific methods. Research processes were broken <strong>in</strong>to
simpler tasks, each of which could then be operationalized <strong>in</strong>to specific procedures. Benardou et al.
(2010a) cautioned, however, that these research processes and their correspond<strong>in</strong>g procedures should
be considered to have a normative character and “convey what is believed by a community of
practitioners to be good practice at any given time.”
The CIDOC-CRM ontology was chosen to formalize their model of the research process, and three key
entities were def<strong>in</strong>ed, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g physical objects (i.e., objects that are found, stored, and analyzed),
conceptual objects (e.g., concepts that have been created, logical propositions), and <strong>in</strong>formation objects
(e.g., conceptual objects that have “correspond<strong>in</strong>g physical <strong>in</strong>formation carriers”). In sum, Benardou et
al. expla<strong>in</strong>ed that “the <strong>in</strong>formation objects are the contents of digital repositories; the physical objects
are the orig<strong>in</strong>al doma<strong>in</strong> material; and the conceptual objects are the content of scientific theories.”
Their current research, however, focused exclusively on the relationship between <strong>in</strong>formation and
conceptual objects. Another major entity that was def<strong>in</strong>ed was Research Activity, and this was used as
the basic “construct for represent<strong>in</strong>g research processes.” This entity is typically associated with other
entities, such as Procedure, which is <strong>in</strong> turn related to the Methods that are employed and the Tools or
Services it requires. A special Proposition entity was also created that represents all hypotheses that are
formulated or arguments that are made.
As discussed earlier <strong>in</strong> this report, services are a key component of cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure, and <strong>in</strong>deed
Benardou et al. reported that services formed an essential part of their ontological model of scholarly
research. “Services thus become an important mediator between methods, procedures and <strong>in</strong>formation
repositories,” they expla<strong>in</strong>ed, “From a functional perspective, affordances of digital scholarship are
embodied <strong>in</strong> services available. From a teleological and methodological perspective, services evolve to
better meet requirements” (Benardou et al. 2010a). The authors concluded that both their own
empirical study plus those <strong>in</strong> their extensive literature review have provided the “necessary
substantiation on primitives” that, along with an “elaboration of research goals,” enable the
development of a research model that is specific enough to develop appropriate digital services. The
next stages of their research will be to operationalize this model and to tag all of the scholarly
<strong>in</strong>terview transcripts <strong>in</strong> terms of this model to validate its soundness. 686
While the majority of research considered <strong>in</strong> this review stressed that developers should conduct needs
assessment before design<strong>in</strong>g tools and should carry out user test<strong>in</strong>g of prototypes or f<strong>in</strong>al products,
Cohen et al. (2009) have po<strong>in</strong>ted out that such test<strong>in</strong>g might not always necessarily yield the desired
results. They suggested that it rema<strong>in</strong>ed an open question whether “researchers or content communities
can accurately assess what they need ahead of time, or whether they are biased toward repeat<strong>in</strong>g modes
and <strong>in</strong>terfaces they have already seen but which will be less effective at digital scholarship than more
<strong>in</strong>novative software.” The ways <strong>in</strong> which scholars’ current understand<strong>in</strong>g of technology and comfort
levels with certa<strong>in</strong> types of <strong>in</strong>terfaces may predispose them aga<strong>in</strong>st new methodologies is a po<strong>in</strong>t worth
consider<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the design of any <strong>in</strong>frastructure.
686 The <strong>in</strong>itial results of this work <strong>in</strong>terview<strong>in</strong>g scholars and tagg<strong>in</strong>g transcripts have recently been published (Benardou et al. 2010b).