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Introduction</a> <ul> <li><a href="#section1-1">1.1 Mission Statement</a></li> <li><a href="#section1-2">1.2 Aims</a></li> <li><a href="#section1-3">1.3 Objectives</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#section2">2. EDINA national services during the Academic Year 2002 / 2003</a></li> <li><a href="#section3">3. Service availability</a></li> <li><a href="#section4">4. Service funding</a></li> <li><a href="#section5">5. Service strategy</a> <ul> <li><a href="#section5-1">5.1 Specialist support</a></li> <li><a href="#section5-2">5.2 Information management</a></li> <li><a href="#section5-3">5.3 Technology</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#section6">6. Help to users - documentation and help facilities</a> <ul> <li><a href="#section6-1">6.1 Documentation & Web presence</a></li> <li><a href="#section6-2">6.2 Help facilities</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#section7">7. Relationships with Users</a> <ul> <li><a href="#section7-1">7.1 Training and Tutorials</a></li> <li><a href="#section7-2">7.2 User relationships, interest groups and user feedback</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#section8">8. Promotion and marketing</a></li> <li><a href="#section9">9. User Registration and Authentication</a></li> <li><a href="#section10">10. Usage statistics</a></li> <li><a href="#section11">11. Events, projects and activities</a></li> <li><a href="#section12">12. Publications, papers and exhibitions</a></li> <li><a href="#section13">13. International work</a> <ul> <li><a href="#section13-1">13.1 E-BioSci</a></li> <li><a href="#section13-2">13.2 IASSIST</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#section14">14. EDINA Steering Committee</a></li> <li><a href="#section15">15. EDINA Management Group</a></li> <li><a href="#section16">16. Summary of accounts</a></li> <li><a href="#section17">17. Future plans</a></li> <li><a href="appendix1.html">Appendix 1 - EDINA Services</a></li> <li><a href="appendix2.html">Appendix 2 - Number of Log-Ins and Number of Courses</a></li> <li><a href="appendix3.html">Appendix 3 - Registered Institutions</a></li> <li><a href="appendix5.html">Appendix 5 - Staff at EDINA and Data Library</a></li> <li><a href="appendix6.html">Appendix 6 - Conferences, Courses and Presentations</a></li> </ul> <hr/> <h2><a id="section1" name="section1">1. Introduction</a></h2> <p> Designated a JISC National Data Centre in 1995, Edinburgh University Data Library launched the EDINA national service in January 1996. EDINA is now a successful National Data Centre playing its part to support the emerging electronic library for higher and further education, offering relevant and reliable data services to staff and students in an increasingly wide range of disciplines. </p> <p> This Annual Report reviews EDINA's service and project activity in the financial year 1st August 2002 to 31st July 2003. The structure of the report is in accordance with the JISC National Datacentres Memorandum of Understanding with the JISC, with initial specification of EDINA's Mission Statement, Aims and Objectives. Future plans, based on appraising present activities, are reported in Section 17. </p> <h3><a id="section1-1" name="section1-1">1.1 Mission Statement</a></h3> <p> EDINA seeks to enhance the productivity of research, learning and teaching in UK further and higher education as a JISC designated National Data Centre delivering specialist data services. </p> <h3><a id="section1-2" name="section1-2">1.2 Aims</a></h3> <ol> <li>To provide staff and students with access to key information resources, as part of the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER).</li> <li>To increase the value of information and data through access and to reduce costs through the provision of common services, thereby enhancing productivity.</li> <li>To offer an additional range of services applicable to data and information on and about the land and people of Scotland.</li> <li>To ensure that EDINA has command of sufficient and appropriate resources to act as a cost-effective and well regarded JISC-Designated, University-based national data centre.</li> </ol> <h3><a id="section1-3" name="section1-3">1.3 Objectives</a></h3> <h4>Collection, Content and Services</h4> <p> To manage and present a portfolio of data services relevant to need. </p> <p> To sustain leadership in the provision of specialist data services, e.g. bibliographic reference services, digital map resources and moving pictures and sound. </p> <p> To offer a significant part of the DNER, by achieving critical mass, market presence and effective service delivery. </p> <h4>Accessibility, Outreach and Interoperability</h4> <p> To increase the overall utility and relevance of EDINA services, by </p> <ul> <li>listening to and assisting scholars and their support staff</li> <li>engaging in collaborative inter-working with specialists and other organisations, including national service providers, local support staff and commercial vendors </li> <li>improving the usability and functionality of EDINA services</li> <li>demonstrating to HE and FE staff the value of using electronic information services in learning and teaching, and the means by which this can be done.</li> </ul> <p> To widen access to on-line services, by </p> <ul> <li>increasing awareness of EDINA services among potential subscribers and end-users</li> <li>using accessibility principles in Web pages and by adherence to design guidelines for users with disabilities</li> <li>providing a choice of views (access points, or portals) onto the information landscape</li> <li>making registration and authentication straightforward, while ensuring necessary levels of security</li> <li>minimising access restrictions, while having respect for intellectual property rights.</li> </ul> <p> To continue to move to an open technological and service environment, by </p> <ul> <li>assisting progress from discovery of relevant resources to access and use of to those resources</li> <li>collaborating in the implementation of an information architecture suited to the effective delivery of JISC-sponsored services</li> <li>integrating the means of access to bibliographic information and research datasets.</li> </ul> <h4>Data Centre Development</h4> <h5>Business Activity</h5> <p> To sustain and develop a healthy and well-found UK national data centre, by </p> <ul> <li>commanding sufficient understanding of the information service economy for Higher and Further Education, and of the wider information economy</li> <li>securing sustainable income streams to fund operational and development requirements</li> <li>entering advantageous partnerships with funding bodies, educational institutions and other participants in the information service economy </li> <li>having particular regard to the appropriate role of national data centres in supporting the research, learning and teaching needs of students and academic staff.</li> </ul> <h5>Staff Resources</h5> <p> To sustain an effective blend of service orientation and development capability, by </p> <ul> <li>recruiting, retaining and developing a flexible complement of able, skilled and well-motivated staff by providing staff development opportunities and attractive and appropriate terms and conditions.</li> </ul> <h5>Technical Development</h5> <p> To develop and maintain an exceptional IT capability, by </p> <ul> <li>commanding sufficient resources, in terms of human skills, software and hardware, for planning and deployment</li> <li>engaging in 'technology watch', and thereby continuing to understand the IT requirements of a UK national data centre</li> <li>obtaining leverage for our client community from the world class computing and networking infrastructure developed and maintained by the University of Edinburgh's computing services.</li> </ul> <p> <a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a> </p> <hr/> <h2><a name="section2" id="section2">2. EDINA national services during the Academic Year 2002 / 2003</a></h2> <p> In 2002/2003 EDINA hosted the following national services, a detailed list and description of which is given in <a href="appendix1.html">Appendix 1</a>.: </p> <ul> <li>AGDEX</li> <li>Art Abstracts</li> <li>Art Index Retrospective</li> <li>BIOSIS</li> <li>CAB Abstracts</li> <li>Digimap</li> <li>EconLit</li> <li>Education Media OnLine </li> <li>Ei Compendex(r)</li> <li>The Index to The Times, 1790-1980 </li> <li>Inspec</li> <li>MLA International Bibliography</li> <li>PAIS International</li> <li>Palmer's Index to The Times</li> <li>SALSER</li> <li>Statistical Accounts for Scotland</li> <li>UKBORDERS</li> <li>UPDATE </li> </ul> <p> <a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a> </p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section3" name="section3">3. Service availability</a></h2> <p> Throughout the period the aim was that EDINA services be available 24 hour a day, 7 day a week and our target of 99% uptime was surpassed. The EDINA Helpdesk was staffed during normal office hour. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section4" name="section4">4. Service funding</a></h2> <p> The national services included as part of EDINA were funded from several sources, JISC (via SHEFC), but also by the University of Edinburgh, and by subscription from UK Higher and Further Education Institutions (HEIs and FEIs). A list of subscribing institutions is in <a href="appendix3.html">Appendix 3</a>. </p> <p> JISC funded the provision of services for Art Abstracts, Art Index Retrospective, Education Media OnLine, Digimap, Compendex, The Index to The Times and UPDATE; UKBORDERS was funded jointly by ESRC and JISC. All other services were funded by direct subscription. All online services were available free at the point of use by staff and students at subscribing institutions for UK academic purposes. The University of Edinburgh provides necessary infrastructure, thereby assisting cost-effective delivery of service. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section5" name="section5">5. Service strategy</a></h2> <p> The various aspects involved in the operation of EDINA national services was undertaken by the appropriate Team identified in the Data Library structure of management and operation: </p> <table border="1" cellpadding="5" summary="The different sections of EDINA/Data Library, and what they do."> <caption>EDINA / Data Library Team Structure</caption> <tr> <th>User Support Team</th> <td>Responsible for support to users and their support staff; for promoting the EDINA services; for providing a Helpdesk and allied activities; for learning from, and addressing the needs of, academic support staff and end users through the provision of high quality training events, documentation and attendance at relevant conferences; and feedback to the service delivery teams.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Service Delivery Team,( including Bibliographic & Multimedia Services Group and Geo-data Services Group)</th> <td>Responsible for delivery of on-line data services; developing, implementing and maintaining effective on-line data services, including the design and implementation of customised clients, server functionality and databases, and ensuring regular data updates. </td> </tr> <tr> <th>IT Technical Infrastructure Team</th> <td>Responsible for the reliability of the platform to support the on-line services; for planning and maintaining the underlying software and hardware platforms; for effective liaison with Infrastructure Services of the University's Computing Services (EUCS), and for specialist programming support as required.</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Administration and Business Development Team</th> <td>Responsible for co-ordination, facilitation and provision of administrative support; for seeking out and evaluating new opportunities for collection development, and for provision an overview of related project work.</td> </tr> </table> <p> The Infrastructure Services of EUCS provided EDINA with support in the installation, operation and maintenance of the hardware and operating system components of multiple SUN servers, the UNIX computing platforms used to host the service, and the connection to the Internet. </p> <h3><a id="section5-1" name="section5-1">5.1 Specialist support</a></h3> <p> EDINA services covered a range of academic disciplines resulting in a heterogeneous user community and target audiences with different user requirements. Each service a Service Co-ordinator was charged with ensuring the 'long term health' of that service and carrying out a monitoring role on service performance. As EDINA did not have staff with specialist knowledge in all subjects covered by its databases, some specialist support was sought from appropriate experts, such as the data vendors, relevant University departments and the subject-based Information Gateways (e.g. Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library (EEVL), Organising Medical Networked Information (OMNI, part of BIOME). We continued to have good working relationships with subject-based data organisations, such as the Arts & Humanities Data Service (AHDS) - particularly the AHDS Visual Arts (previously Visual Arts Data Service) and the History Data Service (HDS) - and with other non-JISC organisations in the electronic library, such as the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN). </p> <h3><a id="section5-2" name="section5-2">5.2 Information management</a></h3> <p> During the year EDINA launched a new look to its Web Site with services and associated Edinburgh University Data Library activities organised into a series of web rooms: </p> <table summary=""> <tr> <td>Reading and Reference Room</td> <td>Subject View</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Map and Data Place</td> <td>Scottish Gathering</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sound and Picture Studio</td> <td>Learning and Skills Centre</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Projects Workshop</td> <td>Digital Conservatory</td> </tr> </table> <p> The purpose of the web room representation used in the EDINA website was to allow the end-user (staff or student) to view the EDINA services within the perspective of a larger 'information landscape'. This alerted the actual or prospective user of the national services provided by EDINA, through hot-link pointers, to the existence of other services and facilities of relevance, including other JISC-sponsored services and the subject-based resource discovery facilities, as well as other related services. </p> <p> Where appropriate, services were also grouped by subject: </p> <ul> <li>Health, Agricultural, and Life Sciences</li> <li>Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences</li> <li>Engineering, Informatics and Physical Sciences</li> <li>General Reference Services</li> </ul> <h3><a id="section5-3" name="section5-3">5.3 Technology</a></h3> <p> The principal software used for service delivery were commercially-proven products: OpenText BASIS, OCLC SiteSearch, OVID Web Gateway, Laser-Scan, ESRI ARC/INFO and Ingres. The first two software products have specialist use as database management systems for the bibliographic datasets: BASIS has relational and transactional functionality; OCLC SiteSearch is particularly suited for use within the distributed environment, supporting web access and Z39.50 v3 interoperability. The OVID software similarly provides web and Z39.50 access to bibliographic databases. Laser-Scan and ARC/INFO were used for geographic information systems (GIS) applications. Ingres is a relational database management system.. </p> <p> EDINA increased its use of selected open source products such as Indexdata's Zebra, MySQL, Apache::ASP. In many instances the reliability and support offered for these products exceeded that of similar commercial products. Zebra is a database engine accessed only via the Z39.50 protocol whilst MySQL is a relational database using SQL as its main interface. Apache::ASP is a module for the Apache web server and provides a scripting environment for developing web interfaces to the underlying technology. </p> <p> Open URL has been adopted as linking technology for bibliographic services. </p> <p> Web Services using the SOAP mechanism have been used during project development as a solution for interoperability requirements. </p> <p> Apache was used as the World Wide Web server sometimes in combination with Jakarta Tomcat. Perl and Java (mainly server side) are used extensively for data processing and in the implementation of user interfaces. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section6" name="section6">6. Help to users - documentation and help facilities</a></h2> <p> EDINA's policy on provision of documentation and help facilities were as outlined in EDINA's Service Level Definition available from the JISC's Monitoring and Advisory Unit (MAU). </p> <h3><a id="section6-1" name="section6-1">6.1 Documentation & Web presence</a></h3> <p> As described in section 5.2 EDINA services were organised into "web rooms" on the web site, a combination of data types and subject areas. Links to other information services in the UK Electronic Library were included to alert users to the existence of other services and facilities of relevance. </p> <p> The new EDINA web site was again designed with accessibility in mind to help all users to navigate the site and to identify the services of particular interest to them and to help users with visual impairments. To this end, EDINA commissioned an independent accessibility audit by the Digital Media Access Group (University of Dundee). The audit reviewed the general EDINA web site and the Education Media OnLine and Statistical Accounts of Scotland services. The audit found that the general EDINA web site had achieved a high level of accessibility. EDINA acted on recommendations of the audit to improve the quality of service it provides on the web. (The audit followed up the previous JISC-sponsored audit mentioned in the last annual report). An addition aim was to offer attractive web pages without excluding those with relatively low-tech equipment. </p> <p> Publicity material in the form of the well-established EDINA A5 flyers and A3 posters were produced and distributed. As with our existing services, new services were documented by means of A4 gatefold "Quick Reference Guides", and with support material on the EDINA web site. In addition, individual posters were produced for exhibitions and to supplement the standard range of materials. </p> <p> Screencams were developed to act as service demonstrations for new services. These will eventually supersede the PowerPoint presentations used previously for training purposes, and now being phased out. Initially using Lotus Screencam software, we are migrating to using Camtasia to produce the screencams in a wider variety of formats. </p> <p> EDINA's quarterly newsletter, Newsline, continued to play an important role in helping academic support staff and others with an interest in our services to keep abreast of developments at EDINA. We also from time to time included articles from individuals in UK academia, to gain a wider perspective on trends in the community and EDINA's role within it. </p> <h3><a id="section6-2" name="section6-2">6.2 Help facilities</a></h3> <p> The EDINA Helpdesk continued to act as the primary point of contact for all enquiries concerning EDINA services and responded to enquiries from both end users and support staff. Helpdesk staff categorised queries, and entered them into a call-logging system, noting those to be included as an intrinsic part of our user feedback system for the purpose of future developments. Calls were mostly solved directly by the helpdesk staff or referred to 'experts' inside and outside EDINA as appropriate. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section7" name="section7">7. Relationships with Users</a></h2> <h3><a id="section7-1" name="section7-1">7.1 Training and Tutorials</a></h3> <p> During the reporting period, EDINA offered a number of formal workshops and seminars, mainly covering new services. Four UPDATE sessions, five Education Media OnLine and two Digimap sessions were run. Lower demand for Digimap courses, coupled with difficulties in finding suitable venues has led to a drop in the provision of Digimap training. The introduction of the new interface and the addition of two new venues will mean a marked increase in training sessions over the coming year. It is planned to run many more half-day "taster" sessions on using specific parts of the service as well as the standard two-day courses. </p> <p> Education Media OnLine courses have been run throughout the country. As Education Media OnLine is a very different type of service, with more technical requirements than others, it was important to convey a variety of information to users. Downloadable materials are available on the EDINA web site, including extensive FAQs and a training manual. Initial training sessions were a full day, giving participants plenty of opportunity to comment on the service and its future development. Future sessions will be shorter and it is planned to run them along side sessions for the Education Image Gallery, giving attendees the opportunity to attend either session or both. </p> <p> A different approach to inviting attendees has been taken with some of the more specialised services such as UPDATE (The Agriculture and Countryside Index) and Education Media OnLine. Some training courses for these services have been run on a request basis, rather than EDINA setting up sessions and inviting site representatives to attend. This has proved to be very successful with drop-out rates for requested courses being low, usually zero. It is planned to run more requested sessions in the future. </p> <p> See <a href="appendix2.html">Appendix 2</a> for a summary of courses run by EDINA during 2002/2003. </p> <p> In addition to EDINA organised sessions, EDINA took part in 3 Arts and Humanities Online workshops. These are detailed in <a href="appendix6.html">Appendix 6</a>. EDINA also supplied materials to Inspec for use in training sessions held at universities throughout the country. It is expected in the future that such collaboration and training slots at major events (such as FERL) will increasingly be taken advantage of as they are a cost-effective way of raising awareness and providing training. </p> <p> Evaluation forms for all courses continued to be very positive; all sessions were given an average overall rating of "good" or "excellent". Some comments from evaluation forms included: </p> <p> "Thankfully, a good balance of practical sessions without too much assumed technical knowledge." "Pitched at the right level for non-technical staff" </p> <p> "Presentations were superb." </p> <p> "Informative, friendly and useful session." </p> <p> Full evaluation reports are available from EDINA on request. </p> <h3><a id="section7-2" name="section7-2">7.2 User relationships, interest groups and user feedback</a></h3> <p> We continued to work with the JIBS User Group as an appropriate forum for input from users of EDINA bibliographic and multimedia services. The Group's JISCmail list was used in addition to communication directly with EDINA's site reps to keep users informed of service news. During 2002/2003, EDINA staff attended meetings of the JIBS User Group and presented reports, when invited to do so. </p> <p> The Digimap Advisory Group met for the first time on 27 September 2002. The Group comprises representatives of the various Digimap user communities, although EDINA are still seeking a representative for the Further Education community to join the Group. </p> <p> UKBORDERS users receive information directly from EDINA via e-mail and continue to be represented through the ESRC Census Advisory Committee that comprises a broad cross-section of relevant groups within the academic community. </p> <p> EDINA makes use of JISCmail to keep Digimap users informed of service changes, and to encourage discussion about Digimap between users in different institutions and disciplines. EDINA also uses JISCmail lists to contact a small group of site representatives and technical support staff who assist in the provision of local support for the Digimap service. </p> <p> Throughout the year EDINA consulted with User Support staff for a range of services, as well as other representatives of the user community, e.g. on issues surrounding interface changes for the BIOSIS and Digimap services and the ending of the EDINA Art Abstracts service. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section8" name="section8">8. Promotion and marketing</a></h2> <p> We continued our efforts to market our services to the academic staff and students at subscribing institutions. As in previous years, we did this by assisting site representatives and other support staff in their local promotional activity, by providing copies of posters, flyers and other informative material, either free or on a cost-recovery basis. We also continued our co-operation with the data vendors in promoting our services e.g. EI and IEE for Compendex and Inspec respectively. </p> <p> Although no Geo-forum was held this year, the intention is to repeat the event in future and planning for that is already underway. We did however continue to collaborate with other related providers in promoting and marketing our services e.g. the Census Registration Service (CRS) for UKBORDERS. </p> <p> In that vein we also worked with the BUFVC regarding publicising the Education Media OnLine (EMOL) service. </p> <p> A further area of expansion was the closer links with the JISC Regional Support Centres (RSCs). During the period, we started arrangements with RSC London for an EMOL training session. We also participated at the RSC North West's conference in Bolton. Finally we attended the overall RSC conference in Birmingham in February. </p> <p> During the year EDINA identified a number of relevant specialist conferences at which attendance was appropriate, e.g. Cofhe, CHART and ALLCU. A full list of conference presentations and exhibitions attended is given in <a href="appendix6.html">Appendix 6</a>. </p> <p> Highlights in EDINA's calendar included: </p> <ul> <li>FERL 2002, Hinckley, 25-26th November 2002</li> <li>Online Information, Olympia, London, 3-5th December 2002</li> <li>Total Library Solutions, NEC 26-27th March 2003</li> <li>UKSG, Heriot-Watt 7-9th April 2003</li> </ul> <p> Flyers and posters were distributed at a number of other events. </p> <p> The following means were used to promote EDINA services and to keep users informed of developments: </p> <ul> <li>The EDINA Web server (http://edina.ac.uk)</li> <li>Newsline, EDINA's quarterly newsletter, distributed in print to all site representatives and other interested parties, and available on the EDINA Webserver</li> <li>Articles and advertisements in other newsletters and publications.</li> <li>EDINA's JISCmail lists: edina-all@jiscmail.ac.uk, edina-sitereps@jiscmail.ac.uk</li> <li>JIBS user group mailbase list: lis-jibs-user@jiscmail.ac.uk</li> <li>Other JISCmail lists as appropriate</li> <li>Information stands and product presentations at conferences and meetings</li> <li>Presentations at other awareness-raising events.</li> </ul> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section9" name="section9">9. User Registration and Authentication</a></h2> <p> Registration and authentication for most EDINA Services is carried out using ATHENS. </p> <p> EDINA continued to advocate the use of personal ATHENS user accounts to allow us to offer user-level options. However, EDINA offered access to bibliographic Web services from individual and group ATHENS accounts. This proved popular with those users who did not require the increased functionality offered through personal accounts. Authentication procedures for EDINA services have been modified to ensure compatibility with ATHENS single-sign-on (SSO). Access to Digimap via AthensDA is not currently possible. This is expected to be available in early 2004 when a change to the Athens API is to be implemented. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section10" name="section10">10. Usage statistics</a></h2> <p> The numbers of institutions subscribing to JISC supported services in 2002/2003 were: </p> <table border="1" cellpadding="5" summary="Services and the number of institutions subscribing to each"> <tr> <td>Art Abstracts</td> <td>51</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Art Index Retrospective</td> <td>9</td> </tr> <tr> <td>BIOSIS Previews</td> <td>27</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Digimap</td> <td>76</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ei Compendex</td> <td>73</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Education Media OnLine</td> <td>126</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Index to The Times</td> <td>20</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Inspec</td> <td>35</td> </tr> <tr> <td>UPDATE</td> <td>34</td> </tr> </table> <p> Log-in statistics are given in <a href="appendix2.html">Appendix 2</a>. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section11" name="section11">11. Events, projects and activities</a></h2> <p> The JISC Information Environment (JISC IE) has become the centrepiece of the JISC's collections policy. The overall aim of the JISC IE has been described thus: "to develop a framework that will support the creation of an easily accessible, comprehensive information resource that can be used by teachers, learners and researchers within and beyond the UK Higher Education community". EDINA has continued its efforts to contribute to the development of the JISC IE through its project and service development work and to comply with the JISC IE policy. </p> <h3>Services</h3> <h4>Bibliographic Services</h4> <h5>Art Abstracts and Art Index Retrospective</h5> <p> The agreements for EDINA to run these two services expired on 31st July 2003. </p> <h5>Palmer's Index The Times</h5> <p> Palmer's Index to The Times (covering 1790 to 1905) ceased to be offered as a separate service in June 2003. It continues to be available through The Index to The Times service. </p> <h5>UPDATE</h5> <p> The UPDATE service was launched in August 2002 and currently has 34 subscribing institutions, 20 of which are from FE. It has provided EDINA with experience of the support required by FE colleges in contrast to HE institutions, specifically technical support and difficulties with Athens access. From October 2003 UPDATE will include literature on Garden Design, and Author information will be indexed for the first time. </p> <h5>Provision of Filters and Connection Files for Bibliographic Management Software</h5> <p> EDINA maintained and developed existing filters and connection files for bibliographic management software. Work was started on connectivity with new web-based bibliographic tools, WriteNote and RefWorks, in collaboration with CSA and ISI ResearchSoft, respectively. </p> <h4>Multimedia services</h4> <h5>Education Media OnLine (previously JISC Moving Pictures Collections)</h5> <p> Delivery of the films and videos that make up the ten collections in the Education Media OnLine (EMOL) service has been a gradual, rolling process since August 2002. Two phases of field-testing of the service were carried out in October and November 2002. The films are of high quality, are fully downloadable and cover a broad range of subjects from medicine to 20th century history. The service was launched to the academic community in early January 2003, offering material from five of the ten collections. By the end of July 2003, the service had 122 subscribing institutions and comprised material from nine of the ten collections. </p> <h5>Education Image Gallery</h5> <p> In July 2003 EDINA was successful in its tender to develop and host a pilot service offering 50,000 images licensed from Getty Images until 31 July 2004. The service will initially offer only 40,000 images, the subsequent 10,000 being chosen in consultation with the academic community. The collection covers a diverse range of subject areas such as sport, fashion, major events, buildings, politics, social history, key personalities, transport, industry, work, leisure and music. </p> <h4>Geo-spatial services</h4> <h5>Digimap</h5> <p> The past year has continued to see new developments in the Digimap service. Subscriptions continued to rise and now stand at 78, 4 of these being FE colleges. The number of active users has continued to grow, 10,242 as compared to 7,800 in 2002-03. The total number of registered users has increased from around 11,000 to 17,500. Usage of the service has risen reflecting the increase in users with some 68,000 sessions, 96,000 maps produced for printing locally and over 156,500 data files downloaded. </p> <p> In the spring, Ordnance Survey (OS) agreed to allow registered Digimap users access to their Developer Programme via the Digimap service. This provides sample data for all OS products (including OS MasterMap (see below)) for a limited number of areas. Although the Developer Programme is a commercial operation offered by OS, use of data by Digimap users is subject to the same Terms of Use as data obtained directly from EDINA through Digimap. </p> <p> During the summer of 2003, and in response to user feedback, work began to re-design the Digimap interface. This was done to improve the navigation, and to raise the profile of facilities that feedback indicated some users were unaware of, such as the Postcode Query tool. The functionality within Digimap remains unchanged, but links between facilities and to help pages were made more accessible. Gazetteer services have been re-named, and there is a new simple place name search called Gazetteer Query. The new interface will become available to user in September 2003. The new and old interfaces will both be available for the Autumn term, to allow for updating of local documentation and teaching materials. While making these changes, Digimap was also modified to use Athens Single Sign-On (SSO). This enables users to log in once to access a range of SSO authenticated services from EDINA and other Athens-authenticated service providers. At the same time, and with the agreement of the Ordnance Survey, the registration process was streamlined. Users and site representatives no longer need to sign registration forms in order to register to use the service. Registration is now an entirely on-line process. </p> <p> During discussions between OS and EDINA in early 1999 regarding the terms of use for OS data, OS expressed unhappiness about copies of data sets or large amounts of OS data being held on computers in subscribing institutions. OS were also concerned about such data being used by staff in those institutions in web-based services. OS thus made it a condition of use of the OS data that maps and data could not be served up 'live' to the web. However, it was recognised that for certain services within the JISC DNER (as it was then known), significant benefits might be gained if such services could make use of OS maps and data and that it was likely to be technically possible to do this in the future. Since then EDINA has had a number of service providers express a wish to have access to OS maps for use in their services. Negotiations have taken place with OS over the last year which has resulted in a modification to the current JISC/OS license agreement so that other academic services can use OS data. By service is meant an on-line electronic facility that </p> <ul> <li>provides a resource or resources for research, teaching and/or educational purposes to the UK post 16 education community </li> <li>is funded via the HE & FE funding bodies (HEFCE, WFC, DENI, SFC, LSC) or research councils (NERC, ESRC, EPSRC, MRC, AHRB, BBSRC, CLRC and PPARC), and </li> <li>is hosted by an academic institution.</li> </ul> <p> As a result, OS digital maps and data may now be provided, through web services provided by the EDINA Digimap service. EDINA has implemented a series of OpenGIS web map servers on top of the Digimap map server, one server for each OS digital map product. As well as map servers, EDINA has also implemented an OpenGIS web coverage server and a basic implementation of an OpenGIS web feature server. The former serves up digital elevation model (DEM) data, while the latter OS Strategi data. </p> <p> Further progress requires funding of a structured programme of work with specific deliverables targeted at meeting the needs of the JISC IE and discussions with the JISC on increasing EDINA's machine capacity to handle the number of additional requests for maps and data likely to be generated by third party services. </p> <p> In November 2002, EDINA reported to JISC its findings from the MasterMap scoping project. OS MasterMap is designed to, among other things, replace OS largest-scale product Land-Line. While visually similar to Land-Line data, MasterMap is 'object-oriented': it is organised and structured in a very different way and is provided in a different format. This represents a fundamental change in the way in which OS geospatial data are available. The project investigated the requirements of the HE community, undertook discussions with Ordnance Survey and other interested parties and looked at possible delivery models particularly as far as delivery of MasterMap data was concerned. For a variety of reasons, e.g. immaturity of thinking in the GI sector, EDINA was unable to recommend a particular delivery model and a number of issues e.g. how frequently users wanted the data updated, remained unresolved. To answer these questions, JISC has funded a second scoping project (March 1 2003 - 19 December 2003). This study involves the following activities: </p> <ul> <li>Further consultation with users specifically with regard to demand for an annual snap shot and which of a range of potential download options they desire. </li> <li>Further examination of the alternative supply models. Work will include meetings with the OS and OS partners/third party OS data suppliers who have established OS MasterMap databases to see if any might act as data servers for delivery of the OS MasterMap data to FHE.</li> <li>Further consideration and investigation of processing of MasterMap data and data management at EDINA. </li> </ul> <p> The deliverable will be a report setting out the findings of these investigations including a specification of the requirements for the MasterMap services required, a recommendation as to the delivery model to be adopted given these requirements, associated costs and time-scale. </p> <p> As stated in the last annual report, MasterMap will bring significant benefits to users but will create challenges for EDINA, JISC and OS with regard to its delivery and the support of users. </p> <h5>UKBORDERS</h5> <p> Over the last year a new UKBORDERS service offering a wider range of facilities has been under development The first Phase of a staged release to the new service went live in September 2003 as the EasyDownload service. This provides a simple route for staff and students to download the most popular digital boundary datasets in a variety of popular GIS formats. The next Phase, referred to as BoundarySelector is undergoing final testing and will be released to run in parallel with the pre-existing UKBORDERS service for a grace bedding in period and to allow staff and students to familiarise themselves with the new interface. EasyDownload provides datasets at a national scale while the BoundarySelector service will allow users to 'drill down' to local level and take geographic subsets of the data (similar to the existing UKBORDERS service but with a more intuitive interface, comprehensive help system to assist novice users and a map preview capability showing the boundaries on an OS backdrop map). </p> <p> Over the summer receipt has been taken of the 2001 census boundary data and this has been loaded for onward delivery to users pending the finalisation of the ESRC/JISC ONS agreement and attendant redistribution agreements. </p> <p> A major undertaking has been the production of detailed and comprehensive metadata for each of the datasets. In later Phases of the release, tools for searching/browsing this metadata will be released and the relevant metadata records bundled with each extraction. This will add value to the data by providing details on: </p> <ul> <li>What? - including a description of the dataset; related datasets; level of spatial detail </li> <li>Where? - the datasets spatial extent in OS National Grid</li> <li>When? - data capture dates; time periods covered; update frequency</li> <li>Access restrictions - usage constraints; contact details</li> <li>Citation details - what to cite when referencing the dataset in publications</li> <li>Creator - contact details for dataset creator</li> </ul> <p> Note that the metadata will conform initially to an extension of the National Geospatial Digital Frameworks (NGDFs) Discovery Metadata guidelines for spatial data. As the metadata collection forms part of a broader spatial data collections strategy at EDINA and its dissemination via the academic node (Go-Geo! www.gogeo.ac.uk) of the national GIgateway service (under the auspices of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and hosted at EDINA), this means that the data about census holdings will be more readily available and accessible to a wider audience than has previously been the case. </p> <dl> <dt>Usage</dt> <dd>there are currently over 7,300 users registered with the Census Registration Service eligible to use UKBORDERS - approximately 3% (and growing) come from the Further Education sector. Average numbers of dataset extractions has increased and is currently around 900 per month with peak periods (heavy class use) supporting almost double that.</dd> <dt>Interoperability</dt> <dd>as one of its key objectives, EDINA is moving towards a more open technological/service environment. EDINA is a major component of the JISC Information Environment (JISC IE). The JISC IE strategy is to develop a framework that will support the creation of an easily accessible, comprehensive information resource that will be used by members of the UK higher education community. It intends to do this by developing services, standards and protocols that will enable users to identify and access information, and to move seamlessly from one database or service to another. EDINA has a commitment to use software and protocols to support such interoperability. To date this has been employed mainly in the areas of bibliographic databases. </dd> </dl> <p> As the number of spatial data sets available to higher education increases, consideration is being given to how these data become part of the JISC IE. There is also a growing demand from users for information services, as opposed to data delivery services, which, through a single user interface, retrieve spatial data from remote spatial databases, and then integrate the data for display to the user. For example, the capability to view, using a web browser, a map of car ownership for postcode areas by retrieving Census data, held by MIMAS and integrating it with boundary data from UKBORDERS. A number of organisations responsible for the dissemination of geo-spatial data within the higher education community have contacted EDINA regarding the establishment of services that interoperate with UKBORDERS. </p> <p> In the wider geospatial community, the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) are at the forefront of developing and promoting open standards for the exchange, discovery and exploitation of geographic information. EDINA have been associate members of the OGC for several years and have been actively engaged in implementing OGC interoperability standards. </p> <p> Crucially, the new UKBORDERS service utilises a range of Web Map Servers (WMS) developed and supported by the EDINA Geo Services team for the purposes of allowing contextual mapping of the census boundaries. A public interface via a Web Feature Server (WFS) is also supported which will allow 3rd party clients to develop their own extraction clients for subsets of the UKBORDERS data holdings. Significantly, under a memorandum of understanding with the Ordnance Survey, EDINA are permitted to deploy WMS capabilities to provide mapping services to other services within the HE/FE environment, thus permitting the production of OS backdrops within UKBORDERS without the need for users to also be registered Digimap users. </p> <p> Subsequent phased developments to the service will see the inclusion of the core 2001 census datasets, derived higher level geography boundary datasets, generalised variants of same and pertinent metadata. </p> <h3>Projects</h3> <h4>Geo-spatial Development</h4> <h5>Geo-Crosswalk (geoXwalk)</h5> <p> The geoXwalk Phase II project was a JISC funded one year development project aimed at developing a demonstrator gazetteer server and service for the purposes of enhancing geographic searching within the JISC Information Environment. It followed on from a successful Phase I scoping study which outlined the requirements and stakeholders for such a service. The project was a joint one between EDINA, University of Edinburgh and the History Data Service, University of Essex. </p> <p> The principal purpose of geoXwalk is to provide a shared service within the JISC Information Environment (IE) that can underpin geographic searching. The rationale behind the project is that there is currently no unified entry point to assist in geographic searching within the existing academic network as each information provider/service adopts different geographic coding conventions (some use postcodes, others place names, some grid references etc.). geoXwalk is designed to make geographic searching transparent by 'crosswalking' these different geographies and is analogous to a shared terminology service. </p> <p> geoXwalk provides more than just a simple lookup facility however as every geographic feature stored in the gazetteer has its detailed geometry stored with it (i.e. a city would be stored as a polygonal footprint (co-ordinate list), a river as a linear footprint etc.). Holding the geometry as an integral attribute of the feature enables complex spatial searching based on relationships between features e.g. is feature A within a distance of feature B?; what features are contained within feature C?; what features does feature D intersect? and so on. </p> <p> The ability to derive the relationships between features implicitly by geometric computation is significant and provides more flexibility in the results than can be ascertained by simple lookups based on hierarchical thesauri methods, as is traditional in gazetteers. Furthermore, geography in the UK is very complex and geographic boundaries in particular do not always nest, for example, postcode geography does not nest with census geography. </p> <p> geoXwalk obviates the problem of variable geographic naming by coding geographic features based on a persistent and consistent coding convention - national grid references. Again, by use of the implicit relationships that can be inferred from their geometries, it is possible to 'crosswalk' place names to: postcodes ...or electoral wards... or health authorities etc... </p> <p> As part of the project, the need for a geoparser was identified. That is, software that can take a document/resource that contains place names and automatically identify their occurrence. Having identified a place name as such, the next logical step is to compare that against entries in the gazetteer which provides a means to access its 'alternate' geographies. For example, the place name 'Knowsley' could be resolved as parish code 'BX003' or grid reference 340900, 392300 - 347217, 397660. This methodology provides a means to explicitly georeference (i.e. attach a grid reference) implicitly georeferenced material (such as 'Knowsley'). The result is that more powerful geographical based search strategies can be applied e.g. find me all documents about Gaelic songs that do not reference the Western Isles or, find me images of towns along the river Tweed etc. </p> <p> geoXwalk Phase II, has produced: </p> <ul> <li>A functioning proof of concept demonstrator service capable of underpinning geographic searching by machine to machine interactions</li> <li>A web driven reference interface to the gazetteer illustrating its functionality</li> <li>Demonstration reference use in the Go-Geo! (www.gogeo.ac.uk) project and in the Common Information Environment demonstrator (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/cfm/heirport/)</li> <li>Engagement with stakeholders and discussions with data providers</li> <li>A series of reports covering technical and evaluative aspects of the project</li> </ul> <p> For more information see: www.geoXwalk.ac.uk </p> <h5>Go-Geo! Portal Project</h5> <p> The goal of the Go-Geo! portal is to provide access to and promote the existence of geo-spatial data and related resources within the UK academic community. The portal will allow users to find out what data exist; to ascertain their quality and suitability for use; and how to gain access the data. The focus is on the 'where' is a resource and less on the 'what' is it about, which is the focus of other JISC portals. It is envisaged that the portal will form the academic node of the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) portal, GIgateway. </p> <p> Phase 1 of the project (1st August 2000- 31st May 2001) included a feasibility study to investigate user needs and requirements. Phase 2 (1 June 2002 - 30 June 2003) saw the development and evaluation of a demonstrator portal. The central aims of the phase II project were: </p> <ul> <li>to develop a geo-spatial portal suitable for extension to a full service,</li> <li>to promote the possibilities of a fully functioning service and act as a proof of concept,</li> <li>to consider how the portal can be integrated into the JISC Information Environment.</li> </ul> <p> Using Z39.50, the portal undertakes simultaneous searching across many resources by cross searching of a number of databases, including GIgateway and its directory services. A key feature is the ability for users to find other related resources, such as books, photographs, learning resources and articles, for their geographic area of interest. These resources are discovered by searching the JISC Information Environment and other online information services. </p> <p> An important part of the portal is the resources section, which provides comprehensive information about geographic information resources. This includes links to information about training courses, learning materials and software which may be of interest to the user. </p> <p> Geo-spatial data are described using the Go-Geo! HE/FE metadata application profile. This is a profile based on one developed by the UK National Geographic Data Framework (NGDF). The 42 elements in the NGDF standard have been supplemented by an additional 28 elements in order to meet the needs of the UK further and higher education community. The project also investigated the suitability of various thesauri to provide a controlled subject vocabulary for indexing and searching. </p> <p> Part of the project involved investigating further technology and functionality, such as the use of OAI to disclose metadata as an output from the portal and the means by which a comprehensive service would include search and browse, visualisation, exploitation and analysis of geospatial data. One outcome of the latter was the finding that contributions of metadata by researchers within UK tertiary education might be limited without some mechanism by which they could publish their data. </p> <p> Involvement of stakeholders was an important aspect of the project. A rigorous process of consultation and formative evaluation was conducted with potential end users, including a 1-day workshop, and this provided useful feedback to the project team about the portal and the direction it should take. Critical for the future of the project was the acknowledgement from stakeholders of the utility of Go-Geo! and its potential. </p> <p> The JISC have recently awarded further funding to EDINA, Edinburgh University and UKDA, University of Essex, to continue the development of a geo-spatial data portal service. This third phase, transition to full service will enable further development of the portal, building upon the evaluation findings from phase 2. The central aims of the phase 3 project are: </p> <ul> <li>to develop the geo-spatial portal to a point where it is suitable for roll out as a full service; </li> <li>to trial the service such that issues relating to performance and usability may be measured; </li> <li>to promote within the HE and FE communities the benefits of the ability to process material at a geographical level. </li> </ul> <p> The phase III project is a joint one with the UK Data Archive and runs from August 2003 to June 2004. </p> <p> In June of this year EDINA was awarded the contract to host the GIGateway service on behalf of the AGI. </p> <h4>Learning and Teaching</h4> <p> There is growing recognition within the tertiary education sectors in the UK of the potential pedagogical benefits arising from the incorporation of e-learning into the curriculum. The Government's recent Education Consultation Document states that, "e-Learning has the potential to revolutionise the way we teach ... and to bring high quality, accessible learning to everyone - so that every learner can achieve his or her full potential."<a href="#footnote1">[1]</a> </p> <p> Developments in e-learning include the emergence of reusable learning objects, which allow lecturers to share and re-purpose digital resources to be used in learning and teaching. While high quality e-learning has high development costs, the costs of developing learning objects can be offset against the opportunities that appear in terms of sharing, customising and re-purposing materials so that they can be used efficiently by a number of different people. Learning object repositories can provide access to a wide range of learning materials for lecturers to use in teaching and also minimize the need to reinvent the wheel across different institutions or subject areas. </p> <p> During the course of 2002/3, EDINA has been working in these areas within three high profile JISC projects, JORUM+, the National Learning Network Materials Delivery Project and e-MapScholar. </p> <h5>JORUM+</h5> <p> The JORUM+ project commenced in October 2002. It has two main strands: </p> <ul> <li>A requirements analysis with the FE/HE community to establish the needs of the community for a UK national learning objects repository service. A report will be made to the JISC in December 2003 and it is hoped that the JISC will procure a system available to the whole of FE and HE in 2004.</li> <li>The project also provides access and practical support for content-producing projects funded by the X4L Programme to two trial repository software systems that are being tested and developed to meet user needs. This research is feeding in to the first strand of the project in that it is providing a real-life example of teaching staff able to deposit, search, locate and retrieve learning objects from repositories. These facilities will be available to X4L content-producing projects until the end of the X4L Programme in 2005.</li> </ul> <p> The partners in the JORUM+ project are EDINA<a href="#footnote2">[2]</a> and MIMAS<a href="#footnote3">[3]</a>, the two JISC-funded National Data Centres, working in close collaboration with the Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS)<a href="#footnote4">[4]</a>. Intrallect<a href="#footnote5">[5]</a> and Xtensis e-Learning Ltd<a href="#footnote6"></a> are supplying the learning object repository database software systems used as working tools in the project. </p> <h5>National Learning Network (NLN) Learning Materials Delivery Project</h5> <p> The NLN Learning Materials Delivery project was funded by the JISC to provide the infrastructure for delivery of the NLN online interactive learning materials, which have been commissioned by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) from a number of consortia of commercial suppliers and FE colleges. </p> <p> The materials are currently available in a Content Access Tool (CAT), which was commissioned by Becta from Granada Learning. MIMAS, the Manchester University based UK national data centre, hosts the CAT and a back-up service is also provided by EDINA. The CAT provides a download facility for identified users in each college, whose names are provided by the RSCs to the data centres. EDINA provides helpdesk support to the Regional Support Centres (RSCs), which in turn support FE college staff. </p> <p> From August 2003, the work undertaken by the project has been transferred to service footing and is now called the NLN Learning Materials Hosting Service. </p> <h5>e-MapScholar</h5> <p> The e-MapScholar project commenced in January 2001 and ended in April 2003. This project has developed infrastructure and tools, and online interactive learning materials, to enhance and support the use of geo-spatial data in L&T, including digital map data available from the EDINA Digimap service. The project has designed and developed an online Learning Resource Centre (LRC) that houses the learning materials, and an online learning Content Management System (CMS) that allows tutors to customise content, geographic extent and tools to their own needs. The map measuring tool and data integration tools appear to be of particular interest to the FE community. </p> <p> A novel aspect of the learning resources is the way maps are rendered within the units. The maps are being delivered live from the EDINA Digimap service using the OpenGIS Consortium Web map server interface specification. Digital map data, formatted in GML (Geography Markup Language), can also be streamed from Digimap directly to interactive tools or to the e-MapScholar server for processing and thence to an interactive tool. This mechanism will permit the customisation of the geographic examples given in the units to those areas the tutors think most suitable for their students. </p> <p> The project has also developed a Virtual Placement (VP), a problem-based learning system, using a real-life work-based case study through which students can work, receiving emails from their tutors that appear to come from a virtual workplace. The tutor can set the timing of the emails and customise some of the content of the case study. The VP could be used as a preparation or substitute for a real-life work placement, or as a student project. </p> <p> At the time of writing, e-MapScholar provides a number of Teaching Case Studies, which are available at: http://edina.ac.uk/projects/mapscholar/casestudies/ </p> <p> However, the LRC, CMS and VP are not available, because the JISC has funded a follow-up study to undertake market research and examine the viability of making these products available to the JISC community. Eventually, they may be made available as a service alongside Digimap. </p> <h5>Development of learning and teaching materials</h5> <p> EDINA also undertakes work to develop learning and teaching materials in support of other work areas. Examples include the Xgrain project and the Educational Media Online service. </p> <h6>Xgrain</h6> <p> Xgrain has both infrastructure to support learning and teaching, and online learning and teaching materials. A broker has been developed that offers 'shallow' cross-searching of Abstracting & Indexing databases across the JISC Information Environment (using the Z39.50 protocol among others), with the facility to be transferred into native user interfaces for in-depth searching. A number of Learning and Teaching Associate Sites have undertaken a requirements analysis for, and participated in the development of, learning and teaching materials to support the use of the cross-searching facility in the classroom, and other learning environments. </p> <h6>Education Media On Line (EMOL)</h6> <p> Education Media OnLine is a JISC-funded set of ten collections of film and video, hosted by EDINA and cleared and digitised through the JISC's MAAS (Managing Agent and Advisory Service). One component of the JISC funding to EDINA is development of appropriate learning and teaching materials or case studies to support and encourage the use of this type of media. Work has started in this area. </p> <p> EDINA works closely with other groups active in various aspects of Learning and Teaching. These include: </p> <ol> <li>The Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Specifications (CETIS)</li> <li>The Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) and Subject Centres</li> <li>The JISC Regional Support Centres for FE</li> <li>The Open University Institute of Educational Technology</li> <li>University of Northumbria Information Management Research Institute</li> </ol> <p> EDINA's Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator is a member of the Round Table of the JISC Plagiarism Advisory Service, which is based at IMRI. The Round Table acts in an advisory capacity to the service. </p> <h4>Infrastructure</h4> <h5>Technology for Information Environment Security (TIES)</h5> <p> The TIES project was funded by JISC, as part of the JISC Authentication, Authorisation and Accounting (AAA) Programme. Its remit was to investigate the technical, managerial and practical issues relating to the deployment of X.509 digital certificates within a Public Key Infrastructure to be developed for the UK academic community. The project was funded for one year, starting September 2002. It was successfully completed and the report delivered to JISC in Oct 2003. </p> <h4>Serial Titles and Articles Infrastructure</h4> <p> EDINA is responsible for three projects in the JISC IE infrastructure for serials at both title and article level. These include the project to develop SUNCAT, the UK National Union Catalogue of serials and two of four projects in the JOIN-UP Programme. JOIN-UP is a cluster of projects funded under the infrastructure part of the JISC DNER Programme. These four individual projects have been combined with a view to each contributing separate but compatible, and interoperable, component parts to the four-part DNER structure of Discover/Locate/Request/Access. Thus JOIN-UP addresses the linkage between references found in discovery databases (such as Abstracting and Indexing (A & I) databases and Table of Contents databases) and the services that provide the full-text material (typically journal articles), in printed or electronic form. The three lead partners in the JOIN-UP Programme are EDINA; Docusend (led by King's College, London, in partnership with the LAMDA electronic document delivery service); and the British Library. </p> <h5>SUNCAT</h5> <p> The project to build SUNCAT, the UK National Catalogue of Serials has two principal aims: to be a key resource for locating journal titles in UK research libraries; and to be a source of high-quality records that may be downloaded by cataloguing staff in contributing libraries as a means of upgrading their local catalogues. SUNCAT will be developed and built in three phases. During Phase 1 (February 03-December 04), EDINA is responsible for developing a scalable architecture and populating it with the CONSER database, the ISSN Register and the serials records of 22 of the UK's largest research libraries. The first 8 months have been a period of rich learning for the Project team. The bulk of the work undertaken during this period has involved surfacing the issues and challenges associated with building a union catalogue from extremely heterogeneous data of variable quality. The serials environment is in flux and many of the challenges facing the Project team have not been addressed elsewhere. We have now reached a stage where we understand sufficiently the architecture and planned development of SUNCAT that we may fruitfully engage in discussion with those responsible for National Union Catalogues throughout Europe and for Melvyl (the Union Catalogue for the California Digital Library) and the SUNY catalogue. Many of these were built using Aleph. We have also worked closely with the National Library of Scotland and the University libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Glasgow to uncover the challenges raised by contributed data of variable quality that stretches back centuries. We have progressed considerably with conversion, matching and merging of records and have agreed a minimum- and a full-record standard for SUNCAT. </p> <h5>Xgrain</h5> <p> The Xgrain project has continued to develop a broker for cross-searching abstracting and indexing services and electronic tables of contents services within the JISC Information Environment. Xgrain facilitates discovery of journal articles from bibliographic services thus fulfilling the first function of a joined-up journals service. A simple Xgrain interface for shallow searching makes abstracting and indexing databases more accessible for learning and teaching. Xgrain also facilitates use of these bibliographic services in learning and teaching by providing a range of documentary materials and including 'content-level' descriptions within the service. Content-level descriptions will be included in the service during 2003. Xgrain has added a Z39.50 interface to its brokering service which has been tested by the Subject Portals Project (SPP). Continued collaboration with the SPP will further develop the functionality and usefulness of the Z39.50 server and may develop another machine-to-machine interface using the SRW initiative. </p> <h5>ZBLSA</h5> <p> ZBLSA has developed a linking tool that provides portals with the means to locate services pertaining to journals. ZBLSA connects discovery of a reference to a journal article with services providing the most appropriate full-text copy in printed or electronic form. The main client communities of ZBLSA are the A&I database services that operate at the JISC Nation Data Centres and the RDN subject portals. They will use ZBLSA to locate appropriate copies of journal articles whose existence has been discovered by the end-user. ZBLSA has been designed to be lightweight and business neutral by operating on existing permissions; this eliminates the need to be involved in the authorisation or authentication required for document delivery transactions. ZBLSA simply determines the location of appropriate copies, and directs the end-user accordingly. It is intended that ZBLSA will be a primary mechanism for directing end-users from the UK tertiary education sector to publisher web sites. EDINA is currently working to ensure that a critical mass of content is available via ZBLSA by working with journal service providers to implement the ZBLSA Rights Evaluation Scheme. </p> <h4>Other projects</h4> <h5>Television and Radio Index for learning and Teaching (TRILT)</h5> <p> EDINA continued the development and delivery of the TRILT, a British Universities Film and Video Council 5/99 project offering a comprehensive, detailed, searchable index of UK TV and radio channels, plus a similarly searchable and comprehensive archive of TV and radio data from June 2001 onwards. The TRILT project came to a successful conclusion on 31 August 2003, and TRILT is now available as a service from the BUFVC </p> <h4>Relationship with FE community</h4> <h5>Engagement with the FE sector</h5> <p> The EDINA office at St Helens College in Merseyside has been very successful in terms of learning for EDINA staff about FE concerns and has led to several fruitful collaborations, including regionally based collaborations, in an effort to provide services that are more relevant to FE. This office was established in July 2001 and now has three members of EDINA staff based there, including the EDINA Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator and one member who has an FE background and used to be an ILT Co-ordinator in a college. </p> <p> Through the National Learning Network (NLN) Learning Materials Delivery Project, EDINA maintains close links with the RSCs. The Training and Liaison Officer (based in Edinburgh) has contacts with identified persons in each RSC and keeps them informed about developments. The Technical Officer (based at St Helens College) provides technical support and training materials. </p> <p> The EDINA Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator attended a meeting of the RSC Managers in September 2002 to discuss the NLN project to that date, issues that had arisen and future developments. </p> <p> The NW RSC Manager and Technical Support Officer attend all NLN operational meetings. </p> <p> EDINA provides helpdesk facilities and training workshops for its services that are available to both FE and HE. FE colleges are notified via the RSCs whenever workshops will be held in their particular areas. The services currently provided by EDINA of greatest interest to FE institutions are Digimap, EMOL (40% of subscribers are FE colleges) and Update (an index of farming, countryside and environmental journals). EDINA is constantly working in business development activities in areas that it is hoped would provide more content of interest to FE. </p> <p> EDINA has sent staff to the Ferl conference for the past three years and had a stand at the conference last year. Staff attend RSC conferences when invited. St Helens-based staff provided a keynote speech at the NW RSC Conference on 27 June 2003 that detailed the work being done by EDINA in collaboration with other groups in the FE sector. </p> <p> EDINA provides a range of promotional materials, including flyers and posters, and contributes regularly to relevant JISC and other awareness raising activities. EDINA staff are conscious that much work has been done with NW RSC and are now attempting to engage with other RSCs to undertake work with them. A recent example is the close work that is going on with Scotland South and West to establish facilities for EMOL and Digimap training. However, EDINA will still work closely with NW RSC and plans are under way to provide an EMOL/Digimap workshop in the NW region requested by college staff at the NW RSC Conference. </p> <h5>Digimap Trial to FE colleges</h5> <p> The Digimap in FE Trial project reported in September 2002. The aim of the Digimap in FE project was to investigate how best to provide on-line access to Ordnance Survey (OS) digital map data for UK FE. The objectives were to: </p> <ul> <li>determine which elements of the Digimap service were of value to the FE community; </li> <li>assess demand for Digimap within FE, trying to take into account the diversity of FE;</li> <li>evaluate the costs involved in extending Digimap to FE, including data, software, machine load, training, extra staff, travel and support; </li> <li>evaluate the support structure required for Digimap in FE, and how this would fit in with Regional Support Centres;</li> <li>assess the subscription fees which FE colleges would be prepared to pay to have access to Digimap.</li> </ul> <p> As a result of the trial, the JISC and OS agreed that EDINA should offer the full Digimap service to all FE colleges from January 2003 until December 2004, with continued free access to the seven trial sites from September until December 2002. The Digimap FE subscription is be 煤605 p.a. (of which 煤105 is payable to the JISC). Colleges additionally have to pay for the OS Education Licence fee, which will be 煤145 p.a. for most FE colleges and 煤88 p.a. for Sixth Form colleges. These fees are substantially lower than those charged to HE, reflecting the lower level of expected usage in FE. </p> <h5>Development of FE learning materials</h5> <p> St Helens College is currently using a small amount of funding from the JISC JUBILEE project, obtained via EDINA, to support the use of Digimap in classes in various Programme Areas around the college. Learning materials for inclusion in the College's Blackboard VLE have been developed and the plan is to make them some of them available at the EDINA website to assist other FE colleges using the service. </p> <p> Interested staff were recruited by the Centre for ICT Developments from the following areas: Sports Studies, Hairdressing, Health and Social Care, Animal Management, Construction and Foundation Degrees/Capability. </p> <p> The funding from JUBILEE was used to buy out staff time, to enable them to work on the materials. The materials include: </p> <ul> <li>National Diploma Animal Management Unit 14 Ecology and Conservation, Assignment 2: Small Mammal Trapping in Sankey Valley Park - students plot the mammals they trap on a Digimap map, opened in Microsoft Paint.</li> <li>Foundation Degrees/Capability key skills and team working exercise: students plan their visits to two art galleries, and landmarks spotted along the way, using a variety of internet resources and Digimap.</li> <li>Hairdressing: the students identify Andrew Collinge salons in the NW of England using yell.com, put the postcodes identified into Digimap, locate the salons and provide an assignment on the location of the salons from a business point of view.</li> <li>Surveying and Construction: using Digimap as a resource to explain map-reading and co-ordinates etc in NC Construction, HNC Construction and Foundation Degree in Construction and Civil Engineering.</li> <li>Sports Sciences: understanding map reading and how to read variations. This team are particularly keen for the e-MapScholar tools to become available.</li> </ul> <h5>Consultancy work</h5> <p> EDINA's Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator was invited to join the JISC's Post-16 Operational Group, which meets twice each year to discuss matters of interest to the FE and post-16 sectors. This invitation is seen as recognition of the work that EDINA is doing to make its services relevant to FE. </p> <p> The Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator is also a member of the Round Table of the JISC Plagiarism Advisory Service, which is based at the University of Northumbria. The Round Table acts in an advisory capacity to the service and the Co-ordinator was asked to join the Round Table as someone who could represent both an FE and HE viewpoint. This was seen as advantageous to the service. She has channelled funding from the service to contacts in FE likely to assist with provision of FE case studies. </p> <p> The Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator was also invited to join the North West Regional Collaboration Group, which was established by the NW RSC Manager to bring together all parties in the NW having an interest in post-16 activities. The Group is currently exploring a funding proposal to the NW Development Agency for provision of a post-16 learning object repository, which would support all sectors including workplace learning in the NW of England. The learning experience on the JORUM+ project is advantageous to this Group. The Co-ordinator has the opportunity through this Group to meet with representatives of post-16 organisations in the NW, including the Learning and Skills Councils, Lancashire Learning Partnership (a consortium of FE colleges), Network NW, and NW Node. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section12" name="section12">12. Publications, papers and exhibitions</a></h2> <p> A list is given in <a href="appendix6.html">Appendix 6</a>. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section13" name="section13">13. International work</a></h2> <h3><a id="section13-1" name="section13-1">13.1 E-BioSci</a></h3> <p> The Data Library, as a host of EDINA BIOSIS and other life science services, is a partner in E-BioSci, a three-year EU Fifth Framework project led by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). E-BioSci is an initiative to set up a platform that will provide services relating to access and retrieval of digital information in the life sciences, ranging from bibliographic or factual data to published full text. Its objectives are to explore technologies and protocols that will permit the establishment of a European-based research infrastructure of global significance and, where appropriate, to act in a co-ordinative capacity to achieve these goals. The Data Library role is to host the UK node of a tool (Doc2Loc) providing a many-to-many mapping of document identifiers to literature text, and to use experience gained from the JISC IE programme through the Xgrain and BLSA projects to help develop future strategies for document location. </p> <h3><a id="section13-2" name="section13-2">13.2 IASSIST</a></h3> <p> For many years Data Library staff have been active members of the International Association of Social Science Information Services and Technology (IASSIST), 'an international organisation of individuals who are engaged in the acquisition, processing, maintenance and distribution of machine-readable text and/or numeric social science data'. The membership of IASSIST, which was founded some 20 years ago, includes information system specialists, database librarians or administrators, archivists, researchers, programmers and managers. Peter Burnhill is immediate past President, Alison Bayley is Assistant Treasurer and Robin Rice chairs the IASSIST Web Site Committee of which Stuart Macdonald is a member. IASSIST holds an annual conference in the USA or Canada for three years out of four and in Europe in the fourth year. The 2003 conference was held in the University of Ottawa, Canada 2004 conference will be held in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. The Data Library is to play host to the annual IASSIST Conference in Edinburgh in May 2005, based in the Holyrood Hotel. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section14" name="section14">14. EDINA Steering Committee</a></h2> <p> At the start of the reporting period, August 2002 - July 2003, this Committee was chaired by Derek Law. Librarian and Director of Information Strategy at Strathclyde University. Its membership included representatives from the JISC, the MAU. The JIBS User Group and from the University of Edinburgh, as well as individuals drawn from across the UK academic community. Once again there were problems trying to convene meetings that were suitable for both JISC representatives and the Chair to attend, with some cancellation required. In late 2002, it also became apparent that there might be potential clash of interest, as Professor Law, as Chair of the SUNCAT Steering Committee, would be receiving a bid to run SUNCAT from a consortium in which EDINA played a leading part. In consequence, Professor Law gave notice of his intention to step down as Chair of the EDINA Steering Committee. </p> <p> The role, composition and Chairmanship of the EDINA Steering Committee requires attention. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section15" name="section15">15. EDINA Management Group</a></h2> <p> This is the body, under the chairmanship of the University's Vice Principal for Academic Service and Information Strategy, to which the Director of EDINA is responsible for the strategic direction, conduct and success of EDINA. At the start of the reporting period it comprised of four persons: Vice Principal Dr Richard Field (Chair), Peter Burnhill (Director of EDINA), Brian Gilmore (Director of Computing) and Ian Mowat (University Librarian). </p> <p> The tragic death of Ian Mowat had profound effect on many aspects of the University's information and library activities. He was a great friend and champion on EDINA's behalf, and is sorely missed. His death also had effect organisationally. Subsequently, and given Dr Field's announcement of his intention to retire, the University carried out re-organisation, such that, following international search, the University appointed a Vice Principal for Knowledge Management who would also be Librarian to the University. It was also decided that EDINA and the Data Library would become a planning unit within the Information Services Group. The Directors of Computing, of Libraries, of Media and Learning Technology and of Life Long Learning form part of that ISG reporting structure. Although the EDINA Management Group did meet during the reporting year, its function has now been taken by the ISG Directors' Group, which is convened by the new Vice Principal, Helen Hayes, who took up her position in September 2003. </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section16" name="section16">16. Summary of accounts</a></h2> <p> A statement of expenditure for 2002/2003 is given in Appendix 4. (Not available in this online version) </p> <p><a href="#toc">Return to table of contents</a></p> <hr/> <h2><a id="section17" name="section17">17. Future plans</a></h2> <p> The re-organisation and re-design of the EDINA web-site this past year illustrates well both the growth in the challenges and opportunities that EDINA has before it and the growth path that EDINA must decide upon. In particular, the re-launched web-site, at http://edina.ac.uk, presents the activities of EDINA through a number of 'web-rooms' each intended to demonstrate its relevance to the communities which we seek to serve and engage. </p> <p> Within the three main 'service' web-rooms there has been much change, and promise of more. In the 'Sound and Picture Studio', we expect to see growth in the uptake and usage of the documentary films delivered as part of the Education Media Online (EMOL) following its successful launch. Our objective is to embed such new 'evidence' in research activity, in programmes of teaching, and in the life of students throughout the UK. We intend to make best use of the partnerships we have fostered throughout further and higher education, and especially with the BUFVC/OU, the AHDS and the LTSN. In parallel, we intend to make good our success last year in being selected to host and deliver service and support for online access to a major part of the Hulton Getty Collection of images for educational use. Images, whether moving or still, are now showing at EDINA. </p> <p> In the Reading and Reference Room, recent experience has been mixed and we must discern what this may mean for the future. On the one hand, we see success in building user communities for such Abstract and Index (A&I) databases dashed by circumstances not easily within our control, as was the case with Art Abstracts. While we were able to recover a good service with BIOSIS, we must accept that Ei Compendex is now to be served by its owner (Elsevier Ei), with all that may mean. On the other hand, we now have the major but welcome challenge of developing and hosting SUNCAT, the UK national union catalogues of serials. This brings us into partnership with Ex Libris and with the libraries of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Oxford, as well as a close working relationship with the British Library and the ISSN Network. Phase 1 of the SUNCAT project is to December 2004, with prospect of Phase 2 delivery of service and the extension of scope to include research libraries beyond those of the largest twenty-two. SUNCAT is set to become the most significant serial-level online facility in the UK. Related project at the article-level are clustered together as JOIN-UP, brought together by the JISC 5/99 Programme. Both Xgrain and the ZBLSA projects have produced demonstrators based upon good analysis and good code: the first geared to discovery of references; the second to location of services for the found reference. Useful opportunity has been taken to provide the JISC with a national OpenURL router, to pass on article requests to the 'appropriate' OpenURL resolver- with the BALSA OpenURL resolver playing a catch-all role. The challenge now is to place these facilities, 'in the market', with suitable interaction with portals, SUNCAT, other JOIN-UP projects and service suppliers. </p> <p> In the Map and Data Place, the changes have largely all been positive with increasing recognition of the significance of geo-spatial referencing and facilities both nationally and internationally. That said, although the uptake and the use of Digimap continues to grow and it is now viewed as an important, and to some a vital part of the UK information landscape, Digimap is also facing significant challenges of two kinds. The first is technical, brought about by the innovation of MasterMap, an object/feature based format that promises much for future use, but one that requires investment in terms of design, re-engineering and storage. The second is organisational, associated with the renewal process: of licence from OS for use of data; of re-subscription by the academic community; and arrangement to be made for future service delivery. All three combine to make top priority for EDINA Digimap. Related project work, geoXwalk, Go-Geo and the support for the NOF funded British Library led 'Sense of Place' project, represent key 'add-ons' for the UK community, ones of international standing confirmed by the contract awarded EDINA to host the GI-Gateway for the UK GI Industry. EDINA aims to assist the JISC and the UK e-Science and Heritage communities extract best value through geo-referencing. </p> <p> The activities reported in the Learning and Teaching Centre are amongst the most challenging that EDINA is engaged upon. EDINA has responded actively to the call from the JISC to engage in support for e-Learning and the use of national service in Learning and Teaching. This extends throughout higher and also further education. One measure of this commitment is the partnership that EDINA has with St Helens College through a second EDINA office. EDINA is sought out as partners by the leading players in this field, and in turn has worked in partnership with MIMAS, especially in support of the policy-important National Learning Network, and the pioneering work of the JORUM+ project. It will be interesting to see what becomes of both. EDINA expects to continue to play a significant role as digital repository of learning materials, and will increase the usability of its service for Learning and Teaching purposes. What we must resolve is the engagement we should have in the creation and delivery of e-learning materials. </p> <p> In the Scottish Gallery, it is clear that the service offered on the Statistical Accounts of Scotland, a contemporary record of agricultural and industrial change at the start of the nineteenth century, really does have a future. The challenge is to secure the service financial viability and to provide mechanism for its development and curation. The cross sectoral collaboration required and deployed for this service provides a working precedent for comparable 'national treasures'. </p> <p> EDINA has secured continuity for its Infrastructure through successful procurement, and has strategy to cope with the large demands for storage now being made. It has strengths through its staff, organisational structure and successful engagement with user communities. Our understanding of the future is assisted by the deployment of staff with (part-time) responsibility for development in five areas: bibliographic, multi-media, geo-graphic, numerical data, learning and teaching. What we must plan for is to increase the ease in which there is mutually beneficial policy between EDINA and its stakeholders, including the JISC. </p> <h3>Footnotes</h3> <p> <a id="footnote1" name="footnote1">1.</a> Department for Education and Skills, Towards a Unified e-Learning Strategy, July 2003 [12/08/03] </p> <p> <a id="footnote2" name="footnote2">2.</a> EDINA <a title="Opens new window." target="_blank" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150416003128/http://edina.ac.uk/">http://edina.ac.uk/</a> [26/09/03] </p> <p> <a id="footnote3" name="footnote3">3.</a> MIMAS <a title="Opens new window." target="_blank" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150416003128/http://www.mimas.ac.uk/">http://www.mimas.ac.uk/</a> [26/09/03] </p> <p> <a id="footnote4" name="footnote4">4.</a> Centre for educational technology interoperability standards <a title="Opens new window." target="_blank" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150416003128/http://www.cetis.ac.uk/">http://www.cetis.ac.uk/</a> [26/09/03] </p> <p> <a id="footnote5" name="footnote5">5.</a> Intrallect <a title="Opens new window." target="_blank" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150416003128/http://www.intrallect.com/">http://www.intrallect.com/</a> [26/09/03] </p> <p> <a id="footnote6" name="footnote6">6.</a> Xtensis e-Learning Ltd [26/09/03] </p> </body> </html>