ERIMS: Electronic Readings in Management Studies

Project web site

http://erims.temp.ox.ac.uk/erimsproj/

Programme area

On Demand Publishing

Contact details

Dr Gerd Islei, Project Director and Fellow in Information Management,
Templeton College Kennington, Oxford OX1 5NY
Phone: 01865 735422 Fax: 01865 736374
Email: ISLEI_G@templeton.oxford.ac.uk

Project description

as of 4th January 1996

Introduction

ERIMS intends to establish an image database of Electronic Readings in Management Studies with the participation of three leading university business schools and their libraries to act as test sites.

Initially four publishers have agreed to license copyright material listed on MBA reading lists and to join a forum for negotiations governing the use of the database. Various computer hardware, software and other interests are involved in an advisory capacity to assist in the development of a viable delivery system and technologies which will apply authorisation, tracking and royalty control systems to the use of the database.

Description

The project will concentrate on establishing a database of images by scanning existing printed documents, but also intends to look at the longer term delivery of marked up texts by working with selected academics authoring new texts within the lifetime of the project.

The involvement of publishers in the framing of the project and its subsequent evolution into a commercial system is seen as crucial. The publishers will derive valuable market research from the analysis of the combined reading lists from three major MBA programmes. ERIMS will also examine user reaction to electronic delivery of full text under different hardware, software and payment environments and compare this to traditional modes of delivery such as short loan collections and reading packs.

Project Deliverables

• Corpus of electronic texts in management studies
• Specimen licence with publishers of management studies literature. This will permit the database to be held on university servers and allow viewing and printing from the database by registered users.
• User authorisation and copyright tracking system. This will either be developed by the project or adapted from existing software.
• User studies of preferences for electronic texts, retrieval, delivery and payment systems.
• Evaluation of alternative delivery methods such as CD ROM or Internet access.
• Demonstrator client-server local delivery environments allowing full-text retrieval by standard catalogue OPAC searches and additional access via reading list browsing.

Participants

University Partners:

• University of Oxford. School of Management Studies, and Templeton College
• University of Aston. Library and Information Services, and Aston Business School.
• University of Sheffield. University Library, and Sheffield University Management School

Publishers

• Basil Blackwell
• Butterworth-Heinemann
• Oxford University Press
• Pitman
• Routledge
• Scandinavian University Press

Advisors

• Leatherhead Information Technology Ltd
• D.S. Ltd
• Fretwell-Downing Data Systems Ltd
• University Microfilms/IPI
• Digital Equipment Co
• Pensumtjeneste As, Oslo.