email me at: richard [at] oneoverzero [dot] com
Richard D. Jones
Software Engineer and Small Business Leader
Throughout my career I worked in a variety of Higher Education or Higher Education related businesses, before setting up my own business. My interests have always been around Open Source, Open Access, and Open Science, and I have focused my career on supporting those ideals. Working in universities I helped set up one of the earliest Digital Repositories in a UK University, then went on to be an active contributor to the Open Source community around it. That led to my involvement in a large number of associated efforts including Open Standards, integrations between local, national and international infrastructure, and the development of international level Open Access infrastructure itself. When I set up my own business it was because I wanted to be involved in even more interesting projects, and to date we have successfully delivered over 100 projects to clients, who range from businesses to research organisations, funders and publishers. I continue to drive forward Open Access in my day-to-day work while also investing effort into what it means to operate a socially conscious business in that sector.Experience
- Business and Financial Management
- I am the Founder and Senior Partner of a successful and long-running small business (Cottage Labs) specialising in Information Systems and data analytics. My role in that involves all aspecs of business and financial management from day-to-day operations, through to long-term planning and projections and staff management.
- Business Development and Client Relations
- In my business I am specifically responsible for Business Development and Client Relations, which means I pro-actively seek new work in suitable domains for the business, and am responsible for writing complex tenders and managing tender negotiations. I'm also usually the first person you'll speak to at the business, and I take responsibility for ensuring clients are well cared for throughout their engagement with us.
- Project Leadership and Management
- On projects my role is usually to lead the project and manage - or put in place - the project management. I work with clients to determine their requirements and use cases, and take them from initial project inception through design and then delivery. I also facilitate long-term maintenance and service management support.
- Web Development
- As a Software Engineer I have designed and developed a very large number of web-based systems to support clients. I am experienced in all areas of web systems, from operational architecture, to back-end data management systems, to user front-ends. I'm familiar with all relevant modern technology, approaches and standards in this area.
- Information Systems
- A large amount of my work involves helping clients identify, capture, manage, analyse and use their data. This is done through designing and implementing end-to-end information systems and the associated processes which support it. Most of this is web-based, though some systems have offline components supported by code.
- Data Visualisation and Analytics
- As part of my work on Information Systems, I'm often required to perform detailed analytics and provide visualisations over data. I'm familiar with the key web technologies for producing and publishing this data, the user experience issues with data presentation, and the essential statistical/data science concepts to make sense of data. As part of this work I have developed general tools in JavaScript to make producing such visualisations easily and cost-effectively.
- Open Source Community and Development
- I have worked on a number of large Open Source projects, including DSpace, Samvera and Invenio, where I have driven both development of the software and encouraged growth of the community. I also apply good practice open source development to all my areas of work, including good code/version management, good documentation, and community friendly licences.
- Standards Development
- I am technical lead for the SWORD standard, and have sat on many standards committees, including OAI-ORE and ResourceSync.
- Writing and Speaking
- Over the years I have written numerous journal articles, blog posts and even a book. I present fairly regularly at meetings, workshops and conferences.
Skills
- Domain expertise in: Digital Repositories, Research Management, Publishing
- Extensive programming experience with: Python, JavaScript, Java, HTML, CSS
- Extensive experience with spreadsheets and their advanced features
- Some experience with: Perl, PHP, C, Ruby
- Databases: MySQL, Postgres
- Enterprise scale infrastructure: Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, SOLR, Redis
- Software development tool sets: version control, integrated development environments, etc.
- Software Design Patterns and System Architecture, and use of UML
- Linux system administration
- Technical and end user documentation
- Public speaking and communication with both technical and non-technical audiences
- Business financial management
- Business development and client relations
- Project management and use of Kanban
- Requirements capture and analysis
Roles
| April 2011 - present | Cottage Labs Founder and Senior Partner |
| March 2009 - April 2011 | Symplectic Ltd Head of Repository Systems Reason for leaving: To set up own business |
| November 2007 - November 2008 | Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Research Engineer Reason for leaving: Fixed-term contract |
| June 2006 - November 2007 | Imperial College London Web and Database Technology Specialist Reason for leaving: Job offer from Hewlett-Packard Laboratories |
| May 2005 - May 2006 | Bergen University Library Senior Engineer Reason for leaving: Fixed-term contract |
| March 2002 - April 2005 | Edinburgh University Library Information Systems Developer Reason for leaving: Job offer from the University of Bergen |