Extraction of SKEN Project Requirements
as presented in the NSF/NSDL Project Proposal

The introductory section of the SKEN Project Proposal describes the Scientific Knowledge and Education Network as a new and powerful open-source infrastructure [that] will provide a dynamic and interactive platform for knowledge dissemination, and will be useable by essentially any scientific discipline.  The Proposal goes on to discuss a number of high-level project goals and objectives that, in turn, establish both direct and indirect requirements on the content management infrastructure that must be created by the Project. The purpose of this document is to extract these requirements and present them for review.

Standard requirements gathering practice normally includes sifting through each sentence in the project  proposal, extracting requirements along the way. This is commonly done starting with the first paragraph and  following sequentially to the end of the proposal. However, the introductory sections of the SKEN Project Proposal primarily deal with statement of need and justifications.There are requirements to be found there, but they are sparse and not well organized for establishing a requirements hierarchy. A later section of Proposal, titled PROJECT DESIGN AND OBJECTIVES, presents the most organized and succinct description of the project expectations. For that reason, this document will begin by analyzing that section. Once that analysis is complete, the rest of the document will be reviewed for additional requirements and refinements to those already discovered.

Requirements are numbered in a straight forward outline style. Each level in the hierarchy indicates a new level of detail in the definition of the requirement. All requirements must contain a statement that is measurable and verifiable against a standard or by code review, function test or benchmark. The exceptions are requirements in the 0. (zero) hierarchy (which describe the underlying goals of the project) and requirements that contain a zero at any sub-level of the hierarchy (which that the associated statement is a definition of a term as used in this project).

The 99. requirements hierarchy is used to specifiy any software products that must be used.

High-Level Requirements

In the section titled PROJECT DESIGN AND OBJECTIVES, the SKEN Proposal identifies the six major objectives to make SKEN useful and effective :

...we must first develop the information architecture and online tools to allow authorized individuals to publish and edit the primary content. Second, we must develop a metadata infrastructure to publish content through existing digital library infrastructures, and allow the population of metadata frameworks for the primary content. Third, we must identify and integrate the appropriate application software for discussion forums. Fourth, we must develop Internet search routines that will seek out relevant information on predetermined topics and integrate this information with the primary content. Fifth, we must create a shareable library of digital teaching resources. Finally, we must integrate SKEN into the NSDL framework and provide a seamless connection between all of its information resources.

Following shortly after is the statement ... We are focusing our attention on Plone (plone.org), a mature open-source CMS built on an open-source content-management framework called Zope (www.zope.org).

By extrapolation, the Proposal's list of objectives provides the significant high-level requirements for SKEN and it's Content Management Framework (CMF) as summarized below :

0.	SKEN shall create a Content Management Framework (CMF) for dissemination of scientific knowledge. 0.1. SKEN CMF shall provide a framework for managing scientific content for any discipline. 0.2. SKEN CMF shall provide a framework for developing interactive content delivery applications.
1.	SKEN CMF shall provide an information architecture that enables online management of scientific content. 1.0. Content is defined as any informational object that is pertinent to the purpose or intention of an application. 1.0.1. Primary content is defined as that content that provides the key information to be presented by an application. 1.0.2. Complementary content is defined as content that provides information that supplements or extends the primary content. 1.0.3. Published content is defined as any content that has been made publicly available within the application. 1.0.4. Unpublished content is defined as content that has been created but has not been made publicly available. 1.1. SKEN CMF shall provide an content management infrastructure that enables the construction and maintenance of scientific content. 1.1.1. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for creating new content. 1.1.2. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for editing of existing content. 1.2. SKEN CMF shall provide an content management infrastructure that enables online publishing of scientific content. 1.3. SKEN CMF shall provide an authorization infrastructure for identification and authorization of individual users. 1.3.1. The authorization infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for registration of users of the content. 1.3.2. The authorization infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to assign and manage content access privileges on a per user basis. 1.4. SKEN CMF shall provide an access control infrastructure to protect content and prevent unauthorized access. 1.4.1. The access control infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to prevent publishing of new content by unauthorized users. 1.4.2. The access control infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to prevent changing of existing content by unauthorized users. 1.5. SKEN CMF shall provide a metadata management infrastructure. 1.5.1. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for collection of content metadata. 1.5.2. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to query collected metadata. 1.5.3. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for exploration of collected metadata. 1.5.4. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for the exchange of collected metadata.
2.	SKEN CMF shall provide an information architecture that supports online discussion forums.
3.	SKEN CMF shall provide an information architecture that facilitates the integration of content from complementary sources with published primary content. 3.1. SKEN CMF shall provide an infrastructure for integrating content from external sources with primary content.
4.	SKEN CMF shall provide an information search infrastructure. 4.1. SKEN CMF shall provide an infrastructure for locating complementary information on the Internet.
5.	SKEN CMF shall provide an information architecture that permits published primary content to be repurposed. 5.1 SKEN CMF shall provide an infrastructure for repurposing primary content as educational material..
6.	SKEN CMF shall provide a digital library infrastructure. 6.1 The digital library infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for close integration with elements of the NSDL. 6.2 The digital library infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for sharing educational content.
99.	SKEN CMF shall be built using open-source software products. 99.1. SKEN CMF shall use Plone as the base Content Management System. 99.2. SKEN CMF shall use Zope as the base Application Development Framework. 99.3. SKEN CMF shall use Python as the primary programming language.

At this level, requirements 1, 2, and 3 address the fundamental features of a robust content management framework. However, they present requirements for little beyond the standard Plone/Zope capabilities. Requirements 4 thru 6 begin to address the special needs of the Scientific Knowledge and Education Network.

Detailed Requirements - Publishing and Editing Primary Content

In the topic titled Publishing and Editing Primary Content, tthe Proposal sets more detailed requirements for creating, editing and managing SKEN content.

The first sentence in this section of the Proposal states that The foundation of SKEN will be ... peer reviewed information resources ... Later in the same paragraph, the Proposal states that the infrastructure must allow authors to create content or to edit existing primary content, and allows editors to ensure that changes conform to prescribed publication standards. This infrastructure will have appropriate rights management functionality to control misuse of assets.

These few statements are the basis for the following extensions to requirement 1. :

1.

... 1.1.  ... 1.1.3. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for peer review of changed content. 1.1.3.1. The peer review mechanism shall provide a method to specify which content is to be reviewed. 1.1.3.2. The peer review mechanism shall provide a method to assign content to a reviewer. 1.1.4. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to validate new content or content changes against publication standards. 1.1.4.1. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to accept valid content for publication. 1.1.4.2. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to prevent invalid content from being published. 1.3.  ... 1.3.2. ...   1.3.2.1. The authorization infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to define and verify access privileges for Authors. 1.3.2.2. The authorization infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to define and verify access privileges for Editors. 1.3.2.3. The authorization infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to define and verify access privileges for Reviewers. 1.4.  ...   1.4.1. ... 1.4.1.1 Users that are registered and authorized as Authors shall have sufficient privileges to create new content. 1.4.2. ... 1.4.2.1. Users that are registered and authorized as Authors shall have sufficient privileges to change published content. 1.4.2.2. Users that are registered and authorized as Editors shall have sufficient privileges to change published content. 1.4.3. The access control infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to restrict peer review to authorized users. 1.4.3.1. Users that are registered and authorized as Reviewers shall have sufficient privileges to review changed content. 1.4.3.2. Users that are registered and authorized as Editors shall have sufficient privileges to review changed content. 1.4.4. The access control infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to restrict publication activities to authorized users. 1.4.4.1. Users that are registered and authorized as Editors shall have sufficient privileges to publish valid content. 1.4.4.2. Users that are registered and authorized as Editors shall have sufficient privileges to reject invalid content.

In the next paragraph, the Proposal suggests a content publication and update process and several other distinct requirements ... Authors will be able to access their accounts, add information, edit accounts with web-enabled tools, and release updates to editors. Editors will then be able to approve changes, make their own changes, or discuss editorial suggestions with authors. New account versions will become available when an editor approves updates. This process will use many standard features of a content management system (CMS) including:

• separation of content and presentation so that authors deal strictly with content
• integration of multiple authors and editors to prevent conflicting content changes
• management of tables, graphs, bibliographic data, and rich media
• no requirement for users to have knowledge of HTML or XML
• document versioning and automatic comparison of differences
• flexible workflow to accommodate interactions among authors and editorial staff
• security to protect content and audit trails to record change

Many of these items have been previously addressed, but the following new requirements are found :

1.

...  ...   1.1. ... 1.1.1. ... 1.1.1.2. The content creation mechanism shall not require creators of content to be familiar with XML. 1.1.1.3. The content creation mechanism shall not require creators of content to be familiar with HTML. 1.1.2. ... 1.1.2.1. The content editing mechanism shall not require creators of content to be familiar with XML. 1.1.2.2. The content editing mechanism shall not require creators of content to be familiar with HTML. 1.1.2.3. The content editing mechanism shall maintain previous versions of content. 1.1.2.4. The content editing mechanism shall provide a method to compare differences between content versions. 1.1.2.5. The content editing mechanism shall provide a transaction log of all changes. 1.1.2.6. The content editing mechanism shall provide a method to audit change transactions. 1.1.3. ... 1.1.4. ... 1.1.5. The content management infrastructure shall support multiple content types.   1.1.5.1. The content management infrastructure shall support textual content.   1.1.5.2. The content management infrastructure shall support digital image content.   1.1.5.3. The content management infrastructure  shall support content consisting of figures and their captions.   1.1.5.4. The content management infrastructure shall support table-style content.   1.1.5.5. The content management infrastructure shall support digitial video content.   1.1.5.6. The content management infrastructure shall support digital audio content. 1.1.5.7. The content management infrastructure shall support bibliographic content. 1.2. ... 1.2.1. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for separation of content and presentation. 1.2.1.1. The content managment infrastructure shall support alternative presentation templates for content. 1.2.2. The infrastructure shall support integration of multiple content types in a single presentation. 1.3. ... 1.4. ... 1.4.1. The access control infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to prevent conflicting content changes in situations where there are multiple users working on the same document. 1.5. ... 1.6. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for the enforcing a workflow in the publication process. 1.6.1. The workflow mechanism shall provide flexibility in specifying workflow. 1.6.2. The workflow mechanism shall be able to handle complex interactions among authors, reviewers and editors. 1.6.3. As a minimum, the workflow mechanism shall support the following steps :   1.6.2.1. Author screates new new content of changes existing content.   1.6.2.2. Author submits new/changed content for validation.   1.6.2.3. Editor reviews new/changed content.   1.6.2.3.a. Editor makes changes to content before publishing.   1.6.2.4. Editor publishes content.   1.6.2.4.a. Alternatively, Editor  rejects content and returns to Author rework.

Detailed Requirements - Metadata Infrastructure

In the topic titled Developing a Metadata Infrastructure,  the Proposal sets the basic requirements for the collection and exchange of content metadata.

In the first paragraph of this section, the Proposal states :Information extraction is easiest when content is organized by predefined data types and/or coded in a way that enables a user to locate, modify, and retrieve particular text components. Most digitized scientific content has technical metadata attributes that define its resource location, version, ownership, and provenance information. To ensure maximal interoperability with external portals and information harvesting mechanisms, our technical metadata will conform to standards established by the NSDL (metamanagement.comm.nsdlib.org/outline.html) ... create a Plone/Zope module that will implement a service to publish the metadata for the content of a Plone/Zope installation conforming to OAI-PMH. (www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html)

The further discussion of contextual metadata attributes, which specify how to represent objects, concepts, and other entities within a discipline ... we will develop the necessary infrastructure to allow the creation of contextual metadata within primary content. The purpose for collecting this metadata is established in the statement : Contextual metadata can then be used as criteria in searches or included in results that searches produce. Editors, authors, and experts will use a web interface to view primary content as they create or edit contextual metadata for their area of expertise ... which, itself, imposes new requirements.

In summary the requirements for the metadata infrastructure are :

1.

...     1.5 ... 1.5.1. ...   1.5.1.1. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to collect technical metadata. 1.5.1.1.0. Technical metadata is defined as information that describes the location, version, ownership, and provenance of managed content. 1.5.1.1.1. Technical metadata shall be collected in a form that is compatible with metadata standards established by NSDL in metamanagement.comm.nsdlib.org/outline.html 1.5.1.1.2. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to collect technical metadata from all primary content. 1.5.1.2. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a flexible mechanism for defining contextual metadata. 1.5.1.2.0. Contextual metadata is defined as discipline-specific information that is intrinsic to the objects, entities and concepts  specified in the primary content. 1.5.1.2.1. The metadata management infrastructure shall allow for definition of different types of contextual metadata in each installation or application of SKEN. 1.5.1.2.2. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a browser-based mechanism to collect contextual metadata. 1.5.2. ... 1.5.3. ... 1.5.3.1. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to explore primary content for the purpose of extracting contextual metadata. 1.5.4. ... 1.5.4.1. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a publication mechanism that conforms to the Open Archives Initiative-Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH; www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html) 1.5.4.2. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for publishing technical metadata. 1.5.4.2.1 The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a method to publish technical metadata that conforms to metadata standards established by NSDL in metamanagement.comm.nsdlib.org/outline.html 1.5.4.3. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for publishing contextual metadata. 1.5.4.4. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for importing technical metadata. 1.5.4.4.1. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a method to import technical metadata that conforms to metadata standards established by NSDL in metamanagement.comm.nsdlib.org/outline.html 1.5.4.5. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for importing contextual metadata.

4.

...     4.2. SKEN CMF shall provide a search infrastructure based on content metadata. 4.2.1. The metadata search infrastructure shall provide an interface to technical meatadata. 4.2.1.1. The metadata search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to use technical metadata as criteria in searches. 4.2.1.2. The metadata search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to include technical metadata in search results. 4.2.2. The metadata search infrastructure shall provide an interface to contextual meatadata. 4.2.2.1. The metadata search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to use contextual metadata as criteria in searches. 4.2.2.2. The metadata search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to include contextual metadata in search results.

NOTE : Requirement 4.2.1. and it's descendents are not as explicitly stated as one would like, but the intent of the first citation is clear to those familiar with the project.

Detailed Requirements -  Discussion Forums

In the topic titled Developing Discussion Forums, the Proposal suggests that discussion forums will facilitate communication and build a user community around primary scientific content ... and ... be a key access node to information that might not make it into the primary literature ...

This section also explicitly sets some moderately detailed requirements for presenting and managing discussions : Discussion forums will address topics that cut across the organization of the primary content ... All community members, whether author, editor, educator, or student, will be able to initiate discussions and be full participants in discussions. The forums will be unmoderated, but authors or editors will be able to remove inappropriate posts.

In summary, the requirements for implementing discussion forums are :

2.

...     2.1. The discussion forum infrastructure shall support open participation by members of the ???? community. 2.1.1. By default, all members of the ???? community shall be authorized to participate in discussions. 2.1.2. By default, all members of the ???? community shall be authorized to initiate discussions. 2.2. The discussion forum infrastructure shall support unmoderated discussions. 2.2.1. Authors shall be authorized to remove inappropriate discussion postings. 2.2.2. Editors shall be authorized to remove inappropriate discussion postings. 2.3. The discussion forum infrastructure shall support discussions that cross the organizational structure of the primary content.

3.

...     3.2. SKEN CMF shall provide an infrastructure for integration of discussion forums with primary content.

Detailed Requirements - Content Harvesting

In the topic titled Releasing Content Harvesters, the Proposal states that For anyone interested in a topic, the capability to monitor new research and collect references is crucial ... and that ... Bibliographies are a key resource for any discipline. It further mandates that ... a key component of SKEN will be automatic harvesting of information from other online repositories ... Content harvesting will become part of the auxiliary material associated with the primary content, until the author incorporates it. Since the harvesting is very focused, little mediation of the content will be necessary.

And it continues with : We will harvest bibliography entries using OAI-PMH. Harvesting will target journals of interest ... Once bibliographic metadata are harvested they will be stored locally and offsite links to web-accessible versions of the material will be created. Bibliographic data and links will be available in species-specific contexts. Integration of OAI harvesters with Plone/Zope ... specifically harvest the technical metadata of new content, and not the primary content itself.

From this material, we get the following requirements for content harvesting :

1.	1.5 ... 1.5.1. ... 1.5.1.1. ... 1.5.1.1.3. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to collect technical metadata for harvested content. 1.5.2. ... 1.5.2.3. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to query metadata from harvested content. 1.5.3. ... 1.5.3.1. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to explore metadata from harvested content.
3.	...   . 3.1. ... 3.1.1. The content integration infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for integrating harvested metadata with primary content. 3.1.1.1. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to integrate metadata for bibliographic references with primary content.
4.	...   4.1. ... 4.1.1. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to search online digital repositories. 4.1.1.1. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to specifiy target repositories. 4.1.1.2. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to search for bibliographic references that are related to primary content. 4.1.2. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to harvest metadata from digital repositories. 4.2.1.1. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to harvest metadata for bibliographic references. 4.1.3. The internet search infrastructure shall conform to the Open Archives Initiative-Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH; www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html) 4.1.4. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to automate searches.

Detailed Requirements - Digital Library and Repurposing Content

In the topic titled Creating a Shareable Digital Library of Teaching Resources, the Proposal states that one of the primary goals is to provide a platform of content and services that dramatically improves the ability of educators to create and exchange educational materials based on the primary content. SKEN will accomplish this ... through the contextual metadata that the community develops for its primary content, and the digital library services. Following this main theme, this section establishes general requirements for two major components of SKEN: content repurposing for Education and the Digital Library. Additionally, this section provides greater detail for existing requirements on the content management, metadata management, access control and search infrastructures.

Due to the great detail presented in this part of the Proposal, requirements will be extracted for one or two paragraphs at a time.

The second paragraph contains these important phrases : digital library services will include tools for annotating the primary content, comparing and contrasting relationships across resources, and abridging text across [documents] to create new content representations ... SKEN tools to create an abridging template that selects ... and filters [primary content], retrieving only the[appropriate] sections ... save the template and make it public ...

The third paragraph begins with the statement We will develop our digital library services using the Plone CMS. This reinforces requirement 0. but adds no new information. However, the remainder of the paragraph contains these important phrases :... gives authors and editors the option to allow comments and annotations to be added to specific sections of primary content. This capability allows readers to directly annotate and discuss the primary content, in context ... and also as a way for editors and reviewers to provide feedback to authors updating their primary content...

These two paragraphs present the following requirements :

1.

... 1.4. ... 1.4.5. The access control infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to restrict attachment of complementary content to published content. 1.4.5.1. The access control infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to restrict attachment of annotations. 1.4.5.2. The access control infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to restrict attachment of comments. 1.5. ... 1.6. .... 1.7. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to create complementary content. 1.7.1. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to attach annotation to content. 1.7.2. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to attach comments to content. 1.7.3. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to abridge (abstract) content. 1.7.3.1. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to create an abridging template. 1.8. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to explore published content. 1.8.1. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to compare content.

4.

... 4.3. SKEN CMF shall provide an infrastructure for searching primary content. 4.3.1. The content search infrastructure must provide a mechanism to retrieve a subset of  primary content. 4.3.2. The content search infrastructure must provide a mechanism to retrieve an atom??? of a published document

The fourth paragraph begins with a significant expansion of user capabilities in the statement provide each user with tools and a workspace to create their own content or to abstract existing content.The remainder of the paragraph explains how this new "feature" will work ...Educators will be able to upload course documents and additional materials that tie into primary content. Researchers will be able to share datasets and preliminary results, and students can share research papers. Both educators and researchers will be able to search the primary content and select pertinent information that can be formatted into new information presentations. These content abstractions can then be made generally available. Also, if editors feel that new “secondary” content is of general interest and provides additional value to the primary content, they can link the secondary content to the primary content. The following requirements are presented :

1.

... 1.9. The content management infrastructure shall provide a private workspace for each authorized site member. 1.9.1. The workspace infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for each member to create original content. 1.9.2. The workspace infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for each member to create abstracts of primary content. 1.9.3. The workspace infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for each member to create alternative presentations of primary content. 1.9.4. The workspace infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for each member to publish their complementary content.

3.

...   .  3.3. The content integration infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for integrating private complementary content with primary content.

The fifth paragraph makes two significant statements. The first :we will integrate the Connexions project module concept and its XML specification for educational content CNXML (cnx.rice.edu/technology/cnxml/0.5/spec/) with the iLumina Digital Library project (www.ilumina-dlib.org) method of sharing materials created by educators. ... establishes the mechanism for sharing educational content. The second :SKEN will integrate the education tools directly into primary resource materials, thus providing the means to create materials, a central repository to store them, the tools to find them, and the context for those materials (i.e., the primary content)... presents a summary of the capabilities of the education services. Together they suggest the following requirements :

3.	... 3.4. The content integration infrastructure provide an mechanism for integrating derived educational content with primary content.
4.	... 4.4. SKEN CMF shall provide an infrastructure for searching derived educational content.
5.	...   . 5.1. ... 5.1.1. ... 5.1.1.X SKEN shall investigate the feasibility of providing a mechanism to restructure primary content into CNXML course modules. 5.1.2. The education infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to publish derived educational material. 5.1.2.1. SKEN shall investigate the feasibility of publishing derived educational material using CNXML (cnx.rice.edu/technology/cnxml/0.5/spec/) 5.1.2.2. SKEN shall investigate the feasibility of publishing derived educational material using the the iLumina Digital Library project (www.ilumina-dlib.org) method of sharing materials.

The last three paragraphs concentrate on search criteria. The discussion starts with ... we will develop search routines to enhance access to the primary content. We will provide key word searches and will use heuristics and other rules to provide relevancy rankings of search results. Most importantly, we will expand the built-in search capabilities of Plone to be aware of the contextual metadata content and to allow search utilities to be developed around the mining of metadata content...Users also will be able to search for [content] that match criteria applied against specific primary contextual metadata ... Followed by ...contextual metadata will allow users to specify exactly what they want to see as the results of their search...instead of the entire content of matching accounts, users could specify subsets of metadata from matching accounts ... users will be able to save searches (e.g., search criteria and specifications for results markup) and share them with others in SKEN. And finally :One of SKEN’s significant contributions will be to enhance [Plone/Zope] standard search capability, and to handle searches of specific metadata fields beyond text matching and Dublin Core. In this way searches could be made on numerical or date comparisons. This gives a very good set of requirements for the search infrastructure :

1.

... 1.5. ... 1.5.1. ... 1.5.1.2.  ... 1.5.1.2.3. The metadata management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to select keywords from primary content for inclusion in contextual metadata.

4.

...     4.2. ... 4.2.1. ... 4.2.1.3. The metadata search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to use technical metadata to filter search results. 4.2.2. ... 4.2.2.3. The metadata search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to use contextual metadata to filter search results. 4.3. ... 4.4. The search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for ranking the relevancy of search results. 4.4.1. The search infrastructure shall provide a rule-based mechanism for ranking the relevancy of search results. 4.4.2. The search infrastructure shall provide a heuristic mechanism for ranking the relevancy of search results. 4.5. The search infrastructure shall support context sensitive data comparison mechanisms. 4.5.1. The search infrastructure shall support a text comparison mechanism. 4.5.2. The search infrastructure shall support a numeric comparison mechanism. 4.5.3. The search infrastructure shall support a date comparison mechanism. 4.6. The search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for saving search criteria.

Detailed Requirements - NSDL

The final topic contains one single sentance : Qualified Dublin Core metadata and contextual metadata for BNA/SKEN content will be made available to NSDL and other harvesters via implementation of OAI-PMH as described above. ... which enhances the NSDL requirement as follows :

6.

...   . 6.3. The digital library infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to publish metadata according to standards established in the Open Archives Initiative-Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH; www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html). 6.3.1. The digital library infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to publish technical metadata in the format specified by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. 6.3.2. The digital library infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to publish contextual metadata in a format compatible with OAI-PMH.

Detailed Requirements - The Rest of the Proposal

Now that the major elements of the requirements hierarchy have been established, it is time to scan through the remaining sections of the Proposal for additions. The intent is to extract only those statements that provide new requirements or provide significant extensions to existing requirements. Citations from the document will be followed immediately by the new/enhanced requirements that are attributable to them.

... create a new open-source infrastructure for scientific and educational collaboration that will be available at no charge.
...SKEN software that we develop will be available at no cost under an open-source license..

0.	...   0.3. The SKEN software platform and documentation shall be delivered as an open-source product. 0.3.1 The SKEN software platform and documentation shall be available at no charge.

As proof of concept, we will use the SKEN infrastructure to create new digital communities around 3 primary scientific references: Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of North America and Home Study Course in Bird Biology, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Encyclopedia of Life.
...The SKEN concept will be tested by building a collaborative, online version of BNA.

0.

...   0.4. SKEN shall have three demonstration cases. 0.4.1. SKEN shall use Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Birds of North America as it's primary demonstration case (proof of concept). 0.4.2. SKEN may use Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Home Study Course in Bird Biology as its secondary demonstration case. 0.4.3. SKEN may use the Smithsonian Institution's Encyclopedia of life as its tertiary demonstration case.

Web-based review management tools will provide an online forum where authors, editors, and reviewers can simultaneously access common material to discuss changes, additions, the relevancy of new material, and more.

1.

...     1.1. ... 1.1.6. The content management infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to facilitate online, realtime collaboration among multiple contributors. 1.1.6.0. Contributor shall be defined as any user whose role entitles them access to unpublished content. For example, the author(s), reviewers and editor(s) of a particular document are all contributors to that document. 1.1.6.1. The content collaboration mechanism shall provide a forum for interaction among authorized contributors.

... rapid access to current literature, sorted in categories that aid synthesis and writing. Our applications will comb existing literature, archive information by taxonomy and subject, and post findings to a common site where authors can access the information quickly and easily, and where editors can view the same material when critiquing an author’s work... The SKEN search engine will focus only on the best of the current literature, and will provide a more focused review of that material.

4.

...     4.1. ... 4.1.5. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to organize collected information. 4.1.5.1. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to organize collected information by taxonomy. 4.1.5.2. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to organize collected information by subject. 4.1.6. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to browse collected information. 4.1.6.1. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to browse collected information by taxonomy. 4.1.6.2. The internet search infrastructure shall provide a mechanism to browse collected information by subject.

...will provide access to information not yet published in refereed literature, including data that might not ever be published. Such information could include new findings from established researchers and their students, data from organized citizen science projects, or information from interested members of the public....SKEN will thus help with the current problem that many solid and useful research findings are never published, because the scientist making the findings judges them irrelevant to a focused study, or because the scientist decides that other findings take precedence for publication, or because the findings occur outside the science mainstream.

1.	...     1.9. ... 1.9.1. ... 1.9.1.1. The workspace infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for a member to post experimental or observational data. 1.9.1.2. The workspace infrastructure shall provide a mechanism for a member to create preliminary or provisional documents.