Shared Repositories

I chose to take a look at Shared Repositories (SRs) for our group, and it seems that they are generally digital libraries. They are usually websites, although they can be network drives, which store data, be it documents, videos, images, music etc. These SRs allow people to view, add or alter the data stored in them.

The most known example of a SR would be youtube, where people upload and share videos.
There are many other public SRs such as:

• Google 3D Warehouse (holds models to be viewed with Google Earth)


• Flickr (images)


• FileFront, FilePlanet & Download.com (files, game demos & reviews)


• Del.icio.us (bookmarks, go figure)

Beyond these public web SRs there are many private SRs which are used by companies to store data for their company and projects etc. There are also institutional and national SRs which store academic material such as journals, reviews and dissertations like a digital library.
A SR has many advantages, some of which include:

• No Physical boundaries. You can access the SR from anywhere (IE international projects)


• They are available at any time


• Multiple users can access the same file at the same time


• The stored data is structured and people have started using transaction files to record each change made to a file


• Copies can be made from the SR without losing quality

But with all technology there is also a few complex disadvantages:

• Deciding who is allowed access to what data and the privacy authors and their data


• It requires some network/internet infrastructure


• Copyright is an issue with people publishing other peoples work (common thing on youtube)


• Standards need to be maintained

In a group based environment a SR would work well because the communication between people can break down as people forget to advise other team members of what they have added/modified. With SRs lack of communication doesn't affect the project as much as everyone has access to all the current data.

One main problem with SRs though is standards. Rules and regulations have to be set to make things run smoothly but there are always examples where the regulations are hard to follow. IE when people classify things differently from one another. If this happens 2 related pieces of data might not be related in the SR. A good example of this is youtube: People add keywords to their videos and as you move through related videos, you get further from what you started watching. These differences are small but with an ever expanding user-base it becomes a big problem and data can be lost in the confusion.

I think a SR would be very important in a project like our own, so we could store map files, sounds and sounds effects, images and textures, ideas and concepts. Any one in the group would be able to access these pieces and add/alter them when they have the time, rather than having to meet up constantly with each change in the project to make sure everyone has the most current versions.

Related links:
bierdoctor.com
Wikipedia: Digital Library