[Standards] EPIC vs. Handle?

Tue Oct 29 20:35:42 CET 2013

Hi Tomaz,

In addition to the information from Menzo I hereby send some remarks
from my colleague Oliver Schonefeld:

"First of all, the underlaying technology is more or less the same.
It's the Handle persistent identifier framework by CNRI documented in
RFC3650, RFC3651 and RFC2652.
EPIC is a consortium of GWDG (DE), SARA (NL) and CSC (FI), that has
agreed to run the required services for handle resolution and handle
management for the "European Research Community".

Your choice is now: do you want to use the services provided by EPIC
or get an own handle prefix and run the required services yourself.

Here my, rather subjective list of Pros and cons.

EPIC:
- Pro:
  - services are run by someone for you
  - management services and API are available (EPIC API Version 1 and 2)
- Con:
  - shared handle prefix => you cannot take your handles and go to a
    different service (or decide to run the services yourself)
  - (still) sometimes technical issues (availability, speed)
  - unclear/undefined business model

Own handle server
- Pro:
  - own prefix => greater flexibility; you may also outsource, if you
    find a provider
- Cons:
  - you have to take care of the required technical infrastructure
    yourself (setting up and maintaining handle server)
  - you are either bound to Handle-System's management API or need to
    build your own wrapper

Theoretically, the EPIC API Version 2 foresees managing multiple
prefixes, but it's unclear to me, in how far that is available now. If
so, one could, if not happy with EPIC, take their prefix and go host
it oneself (or find a different provider).

Running the handle infrastructure within EPIC certainly costs money,
but AFAIK currently they don't charge. However, there is no clear
business model and eventually (e.g. if CLARIN [and other sources of
money] do not or cannot subsidize them anymore), they need to come up
with the required money to run, maintain and develop the EPIC
services.

The decision to acquire a handle prefix and run one's own handle
server should also not be taken lightly. It requires a certain amount
of commitment and, of course, some technical skills are required to
operate an handle server."

Best,
Andreas

2013/10/29 Menzo Windhouwer <Menzo.Windhouwer at mpi.nl>:
> Hi, Tomaz,
>
> Handles are recommended, but AKAIK also other PID systems are allowed.
> Handles is one specific PID system (see [1] for a comparison of PID
> systems from the CLARIN preparatory phase). You can run your own Handle
> server, i.e., you get a prefix from handle.net and manage your own
> suffixes (which is what some CLARIN centers, including the MPI, do), or
> you can use the EPIC API to create and manage handles (which also many
> CLARIN centers do). Notice version 2 of the EPIC API allows you to still
> have an own prefix, which is good if you handles have to move for some
> future reason.
>
> On the CLARIN developers mailing list (dev at lists.clarin.eu) you might get
> more information on the experiences of other CLARIN centers on managing
> their own handle server or using EPIC.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Menzo Windhouwer
>
> [1] http://www.clarin.eu/sites/default/files/wg2-2-pid-doc-v4.pdf
> --
> The Language Archive - tla.mpi.nl
> Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics
>
>
>
>
> On 25/10/13 11:51, "Tomaz Erjavec" <tomaz.erjavec at ijs.si> wrote:
>
>>Dear all,
>>as I've just been added to this mailing list (thanks!) I take this
>>opportunity to ask something that I've been trying to figure out just
>>yesterday: does CLARIN recommend the use of EPIC or Handles, and what are
>>the pros and cons of each choice?
>>
>>I did consult the CLARIN documentation but it is somewhat contradictory:
>>http://www.clarin.eu/sites/default/files/Standards%20for%20LRT-v6.pdf
>>says that Handles are advised and does not even mention EPIC.
>>On the other hand http://www.clarin.eu/node/3082 says that CLARIN
>>recommends EPIC.
>>Also, not sure who is to blame, but the link to the EPIC workshop does
>>not work; if it is EPIC, given that the WS materials are supposed to be
>>on their site, this does not really recommend them as a persistent URL
>>service ;)
>>
>>As regards info on standards on CLARIN pages, one more bug report:
>>http://www.clarin.eu/node/3060 (which mentions neither EPIC nor Handles)
>>more information is supposed to be given in the "CLARIN Standardization
>>Action Plan.", but that link is 404.
>>
>>Best and thanks in advance for any answers or pointers,
>>Tomaž
>>--
>>Tomaž Erjavec, http://nl.ijs.si/et/
>>Dept. of Knowledge Technologies, Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Standards mailing list
>>Standards at lists.clarin.eu
>>https://lists.clarin.eu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/standards
>
> _______________________________________________
> Standards mailing list
> Standards at lists.clarin.eu
> https://lists.clarin.eu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/standards

-- 
Andreas Witt
Programmbereichsleiter Forschungsinfrastruktur
Institut für Deutsche Sprache
R5, 6 - 13, 68161 Mannheim
+49 - (0)621- 1581-410
http://www.ids-mannheim.de/org/personal/witt.html