UKOLN Annual Reports
Report for the period
1 August 2004 to 31 July 2005
November 2005
ISSN 1466-2949
UKOLN Annual Reports
Report for the period
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Presented to the MLA: The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and to the Joint Information Systems Committee (the JISC)
Introduction | A brief history of UKOLN
Staff Changes and Activities | The Director
Policy and Advice | Research and Development
Distributed Systems and Services | Resources
and Administration
Publications | Presentations
Committees | Visitors
Looking back over the past year, it is evident that the political and economic landscape of the education and cultural heritage sectors is evolving in parallel with the more technical developments in Information & Communication Technologies, and these taken together are enabling new modes of learning, a more democratic approach to accessing the outcomes of publically-funded research, the creation of richer cultural resources and the establishment of more "joined-up" and informed social communities. These trends have been reflected in the fruitful partnership of sector agencies in collectively supporting the Common Information Environment initiative, in the strategic and operational plans of core funders and in the collaborative nature of much of the work that UKOLN has achieved during 2004-05.
During this period, both the core funding agencies, MLA and the JISC, have been reviewing their organisations, structures, business processes and services. MLA has undergone an external review carried out by KPMG, which has resulted in proposals for closer integration with the nine Regional Agencies in a new MLA Partnership model, whilst the JISC has strengthened its Development team with a number of new senior posts. In this period of change, UKOLN has continued to interact with, provide support for, and inform our funders in a range of significant development activities.
This year, the JISC has implemented new initiatives in a number of key areas closely related to UKOLN activity. It has announced the e-Framework in partnership with the Department of Education, Science and Training, Australia (DEST). The e-Framework is a service-oriented approach to the development and implementation of a cross-domain infrastructure to support e-Learning, e-Research, Digital Libraries and e-Administration. The JISC has also launched a major £4million Programme on Digital Repository (DR) development with the aim of enabling a "critical mass" of repositories to inform and underpin the creation of a distributed DR infrastructure. In addition the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) Programme has funded a number of projects exploring a variety of VRE platforms to integrate e-research functionality and workflow in a range of disciplines.
Similarly, MLA has achieved marked success with the Evaluation Report on the Peoples Network and the Enquire service has been launched as part of the Peoples Network Service. The Framework for the Future (2003) has been revised and an Action Plan 2004-06 has been published. The vision of the "Knowledge Web" has been widely promoted and planning is underway to launch an implementation of the Peoples Network Discover service in October 2005. MLA has also published the Digital Preservation in the Regions report, in partnership with the Digital Preservation Coalition, which documents an assessment of digital preservation preparedness in the regions. There are many issues to be addressed in this particular area, not the least to ensure that all museums, libraries and archives are aware of the challenges in ensuring long-term access to their digital assets. Looking more widely at activities of key stakeholders and collaborators, the HEFCE strategy for e-learning has been presented, the British Library has published its new three-year strategy "Redefining the Library" and the Research Information Network has been established with a Strategy in place.
One particularly relevant topic for UKOLN and one which has been debated extensively in the past year, is the changing nature of scholarly communications and the open access agenda, both of these positioned within the wider context of the evolving e-research paradigm. This debate was largely triggered by the publication of the Report Scientific Publications: Free for All? by the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee in July 2004. Responses were published in November and more recently the Research Councils (RCUK) have produced a proposed Position Statement on Open Access following widespread consultation with higher education institutions and other bodies. In addition the British Academy has published a Policy Review document E-resources for research in the humanities and social sciences which also considers the Open Access theme together with the role of digital repositories in facilitating access to resources. All of these discussions are occurring alongside the announcement and consultation on further details of the next UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) scheduled to take place in 2008. It remains to be seen how research outputs made available in open access repositories and open access journals will be represented in the next RAE.
Finally, in the associated area of digital curation of research data, the National Science Board in the US has circulated drafts of a report on Long-lived digital data collections: enabling research and education in the 21st century and one Recommendation of particular note (Rec. 6) recognizes the importance of "data scientists". They are acknowledged as having a new but vital role in the research process. In this important context of human resources and professional development, it is worth pointing out that information scientists, librarians and digital library researchers also have highly relevant expertise and skills to offer and there is much scope for developing synergies between these currently diverse communities of practice.
UKOLN has continued to play a leading role in informing and influencing national and international policy development and strategy for emerging digital library infrastructures. This has been achieved through a mix of influential publications, pioneering projects, organisation of international conferences and ramping up major new areas of activity. A selected list of UKOLN achievements during 2004-5 is presented below:
My sincere thanks are due once again to colleagues at UKOLN. Together they form a very strong team, demonstrating a deep commitment to the UKOLN organisation together with a passionate interest in all aspects of digital libraries and Web technologies. Collectively they represent a rich resource of expertise and skills, and these are reflected in the quality of their publications, presentations, opinions and inputs to the communication and discussion channels on which we thrive.
During the year we have been appreciative of the support of Professor Kevin Edge, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research and Professor James Davenport at the University of Bath, and of members of the Library staff. We look forward to continued collaboration in the future.
Finally, I would like to thank the core funders JISC and MLA, for their much-valued support of UKOLN during the past twelve months.
Dr Liz Lyon, Director, August 2005
UKOLN and its antecedent organisations have been based at the University of Bath for over 23 years. In 1979 the Centre for Catalogue Research was established with Philip Bryant as Director. Funded by the British Library Research & Development Department, it was preceded by several projects initiated by Maurice Line, University Librarian, looking at catalogues and bibliographic data.
In 1987 the Centre for Bibliographic Management (CBM) was established. The change of name recognised the wider role the Centre was playing in the UK library world. Lorcan Dempsey and Ann Chapman became research officers at CBM during this period.
Two years later in 1989, the UK Office for Library Networking (UKOLN) was established to work alongside CBM, after a grant was made available by the British Library Research and Development Department (BLR&DD).
In 1992 CBM and UKOLN merged to form UKOLN: The Office for Library and Information Networking. UKOLN was jointly funded by the ISC (now the JISC) and BLR&DD. Derek Law was Chair of the Management Committee.
Lorcan Dempsey was appointed as Director of UKOLN in November 1994 following the retirement of Philip Bryant, and in 1995 UKOLN revised its name to the UK Office for Library and Information Networking. At this time UKOLN began its work within the eLib framework. The ROADS Project was initiated and planning began for Ariadne magazine. Professor Mel Collier became chair of the Management Committee.
In 1996 the UK Web Focus post was established. UKOLN got its first experience of working on EU- funded projects as DESIRE and BIBLINK began and work commenced on NewsAgent. Dr Richard Heselatine became chair of the Management Committee.
UKOLN was reviewed by its funding bodies in 1997 and was congratulated on "becoming recognised as a centre for excellence at international levels in the areas of networking and associated new technology and standards development". Preparatory work began on EU projects PRIDE and EXPLOIT; BLRIC-funded projects WebWatch, CIRCE and Stories from the Web; and on the JISC-funded Agora.
In 1998 Work commenced on the JISC-funded Agora Project and the EU-funded EXPLOIT Project. UKOLN also contributed to Cedars, an eLib programme project on digital preservation.
In April 1999 the research funding function of the British Library was transferred to the Library and Information Commission (LIC). The Interoperability Focus, an initiative jointly funded by the LIC and the JISC, was appointed. UKOLN's bid to host the Centre for the Resource Discovery Network, a JISC-funded initiative, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Data Service (at King's College London) and the University of Hull, was successful. The IMesh Toolkit Project, funded by the JISC and the National Science Foundation (of the US) began.
In 2000 Dr Liz Lyon was appointed as the new Director following Lorcan Dempsey's appointment to the post of Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) Programme Director for the JISC.
Work commenced on the EU-funded projects Renardus, SCHEMAS and Cultivate. UKOLN was realigned within the University of Bath and became a Centre within the Division of Access and Continuing Studies (DACS). Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries - a new UK strategic organisation - replaced the Libraries and Information Commission (LIC) and the Museums and Galleries Commission (MGC).
In 2001 Resource, in partnership with the JISC, commissioned a formal review of UKOLN by the Information Management Research Institute at the University of Northumbria. The outcomes of the review were very positive.
During 2002 the JISC Quality Assurance Focus post was established and is hosted jointly by UKOLN and the Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT). UKOLN also contributed to recent international standards developments including the Open Archives Initiative and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. UKOLN also provided technical support and advice to the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) Digitisation Programme.
In 2003 funding was secured for the e-Bank project and for the NOF EnrichUK Collections Portal. UKOLN collaborated with the eEnvoy's Office in work for the European Committee for Standardization CEN/ISSS Workshop on Metadata for Multimedia Information - Dublin Core. Work also commenced on a pilot project to investigate the requirements of a Service Registry for the JISC Information Environment.
In 2004 UKOLN became a partner in the new UK Digital Curation Centre, aiming to provide a major new service for the community. The other partners in this venture included The University of Edinburgh, The University of Glasgow and the Computing Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC).
As a partner in the DELOS Network of Excellence in Digital Libraries, work developed on a variety of projects including the organisation of the European Conference on Digital Libraries which was held at the University of Bath in September 2004.
In 2005 UKOLN became a partner in the £5.5 M EPSRC-funded Grand Challenge project led by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath, which is exploring through-life knowledge strategies to ensure long-term access and preservation of engineering information. UKOLN also contributed to the development of the e-Framework, organised the International Digital Cultural Content Forum in Oxford for MLA and became host to two Support posts for the new £4M JISC Digital Repositories Programme.
Planning was underway for the 1st International Digital Curation Centre Conference to be held in Bath in September.
UKOLN also developed its contributions to many projects through the extension of funding and the granting of new funding to new initiatives.
Emma Tonkin joined UKOLN in October 2004 as a member of the Interoperability Focus Team. UKOLN also welcomed Traugott Koch who joined as a Research Officer in May 2005. Pete Dowdell and Amanda Closier both left during the year to pursue new ventures.
Marieke Guy and Sally Lewis both returned from maternity leave during the year, Marieke to take up a new role in the Interoperability Focus team and Sally to resume her role as Resource Co-ordinator and Team Leader. Jenny Taylor covered Sally's post during her absence, and Cora Eley was employed to cover Jenny's role. Monica Duke took maternity leave from June 2005.
UKOLN now have two staff working remotely from home.
...acting as an agent for knowledge transfer...
Our work this year has once again focused on the three priority areas defined in the published UKOLN Strategy 2004-2007 and presented by Dr Liz Lyon to the Joint Information Systems Committee chaired by Professor Sir Ron Cooke in October 2004. These three themes, the Common Information Environment, digital repositories and the embedding of open standards and metadata developments, underpin both our core work and our various project activities.
We continue to engage with museums, libraries and archives, both through MLA at national level and through the Regional Agencies. Dr Lyon participated in the 5th International Cultural Content Forum, which this year was held in Oxford and organised by UKOLN. The Director has also made significant contributions to the strategic development of the "local" regional agency SWMLAC: the South West Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. This has included leading two workshops in the innovative ICT Masterclass Programme, which has been initiated and developed by the ICT Strategy Steering Group, of which the Director is a member. The Masterclass series provides a professional development opportunity for staff and covers aspects of leadership, strategic management, organisational development and the management of change, with ICT as an enabling theme throughout the Programme. Dr Lyon has also continued in her role as a member of the SWMLAC Board.
UKOLN has contributed to strategic development of eResearch initiatives through the Director's position on the JISC Committee for the Support of Research, through membership of the new Virtual Research Environment (VRE) Programme Advisory Board and through the Arts and Humanities Research Council ICT Experts Panel. These activities have complemented the continuing dialogue and debate around the open access agenda and the emerging details of the next Research Assessment Exercise in 2008. In the last year there has been growing awareness of the importance of the self-archiving in repositories of research data-sets in addition to e-prints, and this has been due in part to the active dissemination and promotional activities of the eBank UK Project which is being led by UKOLN. In this context, the Director gave a presentation at a major international SURF/CNI/JISC meeting on Institutional Repositories in Amsterdam as a part of the technical strand.
One of the principles underpinning our approach to research and development has been one of collaboration and partnership. There is much to be gained by identifying synergies and shared challenges which are relevant to many organisations in our field. The Director has strengthened working relationships with key stakeholders such as the British Library, the Research Information Network, the Consortium of University and Research Libraries (CURL) and the Museum Documentation Association through invited presentations, discussion with members and strategic planning meetings. This has resulted in joint project bids, joint workshops and the co-operative development of activities.
During the past year, the Digital Curation Centre has been ramping up its programme of work in all four areas: research, development, services and outreach. Liz Lyon has continued as a member of the Centre Directorate as Associate Director Outreach and has led the Outreach and Community Support Programme. This has included the Public Launch in November 2004 in Edinburgh, planning for the 1st International DCC Conference to be held at Bath in September 2005 and the development of the new e-journal: the International Journal for Digital Curation. Dr Lyon also gave a DCC presentation with Chris Rusbridge (DCC Director) at the Coalition for Networked Information Taskforce Spring Meeting in Washington DC in April.
Much concerted effort and planning culminated in September 2004 with the successful 8th European Conference on Research and Advanced Technologies for Digital Libraries (ECDL). In the role of Conference Chair, the Director opened and closed the Conference and presented the first ECDL Awards. Organising this large research conference was something of a "first" for UKOLN and we were very pleased to welcome so many of our digital library colleagues to Bath for such a prestigious event.
UKOLN is a partner in the EU-funded Framework 6 Programme DELOS Network of Excellence for Digital Libraries, which this year received a positive review of its first Joint Programme of Activity. The Director is a member of the Scientific Board and has co-ordinated the work of the Knowledge Extraction and Semantic Interoperability cluster, which has delivered a number of technical Reports and a workshop on digital repositories.
Finally, we are looking forward to participating in an exciting new research project with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath. This is a £5.5 million EPSRC-funded Grand Challenge project exploring through-life knowledge strategies and tools associated with ensuring long-term access, preservation and curation of engineering information as part of the product-to-service business model. This initiative has synergies with our preservation work and the DCC, and as introduction, the Director led an initial information-sharing workshop with industry partner representatives. From the interesting outcomes, it is very clear that digital preservation and curation is a major challenge for organisations of all sizes and in all sectors.
...influencing policy and informing practice...
UKOLN's Policy and Advice Team has an outwards-facing remit and is responsible for supporting UKOLN's communities by helping to ensure that they can make use of appropriate best practices in the provision, support and management of networked services.
The Policy and Advice team is led by Brian Kelly, who also provides the UK Web Focus advisory service. During the year the Interoperability Focus Team, which is a major contributor to the work of the Policy and Advice Team, has been strengthened. Emma Tonkin has joined UKOLN to work alongside Pete Johnston. In addition, Marieke Guy and Rosemary Russell have moved from project work to join the team and Ann Chapman, while still continuing the work on bibliographical management and collection description work, is now working more closely with the Interoperability Focus.
The ninth in the series of annual Institutional Web Management Workshops was held in the University of Manchester in July 2005. The feedback from the event showed that this was the most highly rated, with both the workshop content and organisations being highly appreciated by almost 200 participants. After nine years of organising this event Brian Kelly has passed on responsibility for next year's event (which will be held at the University of Bath) to his colleague Marieke Guy.
During the year strong links have been forged with our fellow JISC-funded advisory service, TechDis. Following a number of joint workshops which have advised on best practices for Web sites, it was recognised that the conventional approach to Web accessibility, based on W3C's WAI guidelines, has limitations, especially in the area of e-learning accessibility. A joint UKOLN-TechDis holistic framework for e-learning accessibility has been developed which builds of aspects of the WAI guidelines which are usable, and provides a user-focused approach to accessibility. The holistic framework was initially published in the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology. This work has been presented at the "International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)" which was held in Tokyo in May 2005. In addition a prize-winning paper Implementing A Holistic Approach To E-Learning Accessibility was presented at the ALT-C 2005 Conference in September 2005.
This year has also seen much greater involvement with a variety of collaborative and mobile technologies. We have been exploring the potential of technologies such as Wikis, instant messaging and Internet telephony applications as well as mobile devices such as MP3 players. This work has involved making use of such technologies to provide better support for UKOLN staff, especially remote workers, to support our events and to advise our communities on best practices. This work has included:
Use of Skype: We have been making use of the Skype Internet telephony application for communicating with remote workers and to support joint working with others. We have also made use of Skype during events, to allow remote participants to listen in (and contribute to) events without having to be physically present. Although such technologies appear to have many benefits, there are also potential problem areas to be addressed, ranging from technical concerns over use of such software, the dangers of lock-in to proprietary applications and concerns over privacy. These issues are being addressed as part of our evaluation and advisory work.
Use of Wikis: We made use of a Wiki (a collaborative Web-based authoring environment) during the Institutional Web Management Workshop to allow participants to create Web resources easily, such as notes on the discussion group sessions. Wikis are also being used to support a number of our collaborative projects.
Use of mobile devices: The increasing availability of WiFi networks across university campuses and in coffee bars, airports, public libraries, etc. can help to enhance the potential of mobile devices such as PDAs. In addition consumer electronic devices such as digital cameras and MP3 players can be integrated within a pervasive networked environment. We have been making use of WiFi networks, recording technologies and podcasting to support a number of our events and have published papers and run workshops on this topic.
The increasing range of new application areas which are being developed can provide valuable functionality for the user community. However there can also be dangers of vendor or application lock-in and potential interoperability difficulties. The use of open standards is often heralded as an answer to such problems. In practice, however, open standards are not a universal panacea: open standards may be immature, fail to gain acceptance in the marketplace or may be costly to implement. There can be dangers in attempting to mandate use of standards at too early a stage in their development. On the other hand, there are also dangers associated with over-reliance on commercial solutions. The JISC-funded QA Focus Project sought to address these conflicts and we have built on this initial work in the development of a layered approach to the use of standards, which recognises that there is a context to the use of standards. This layered approach is being used as the basis for development of the standards for use within JISC's development programmes.
The Interoperability Focus Team has published the Good Practice Guide for Developers of Cultural Heritage Web Services (GPG), which provides advice on standards and best practices to interested organisations. The content of the guidebook is based on the guidance provided by the NOF-digitise Technical Advisory Service to projects funded by the NOF-digitise Programme. Although the GPG was originally written in 2001/2002, UKOLN is committed to maintaining and developing it in order to support new digital library development work across the sector.
The team has taken a more active role in exploring the potential role Creative Commons licences have to play in allowing use and reuse of resources through papers and workshops. Interoperability Focus has also supported the Common Information Environment's (CIE) Creative Commons (CC) study that is considering the applicability of CC licences to public sector organisations in the United Kingdom.
Support has been provided for MLA's Peoples Network Discovery service through involvement in the development of the technical architecture and providing advice on best practices. The Interoperability Focus Team supports the work of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) in several areas. During 2004-2005, Pete Johnston continued to chair the Dublin Core Collection Description Working Group and to serve on the DCMI Advisory Board. He was the author of the DCMI-Recommended Resource Element Refinement in Dublin Core Metadata, and a co-author of the DCMI Abstract Model, which became a DCMI Recommendation in April 2005. Support has been provided for collaborative working across members of DCMI and the IEEE to improve interoperability between the Dublin Core and IEEE Learning Object Metadata standards. In addition contributions have been made to UKOLN's work on behalf of the UK DCMI Affiliate.
We have participated in the work of the NISO Metasearch Initiative, particularly in the area of collection-level description. This initiative is developing standards to support applications that search across collections of heterogeneous resources.
In the UK, Interoperability Focus has continued to contribute to the work funded by JISC to enhance effective discovery of and access to resources through the development of the JISC Information Environment (IE), in particular through its support for the IE Service Registry Project led by MIMAS. In the area of e-Learning standards and specifications, we have worked closely with members of CETIS, particularly in their work on the UK Learning Object Metadata (LOM) Core application profile.
We are an active member of the UK e-Government Unit's Metadata Working Group, which develops and maintains the e-Government Metadata Standard (eGMS). The Interoperability Focus Team has contributed to the work by MLA to develop the People's Network Discovery Service (PNDS) by developing a metadata application profile to support the discovery of cultural heritage resources. We have has also supported MLA's work in the EU-funded MICHAEL Project, which is developing inventories of digital collections.
Bibliographic Management originated in the work of the Centre for Bibliographic Management (CBM) and is funded from the core grant. The work of this post is concerned with the standards, formats and quality of the data that describes, identifies and locates specific works of intellectual or artistic creation, in whatever physical form they exist, and retrospective cataloguing and conversion and bibliographic database performance measurement.
In 1999 the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) began a funded programme of projects to improve library services to visually impaired people. Following UKOLN's review of the National Union Catalogue of Alternative Formats (NUCAF) in 1999, a new union catalogue and collection description database were developed and launched in September 2003 as Revealweb, with funding until March 2006.
During this year, Bibliographic Management has given advice on the use of specific MARC21 fields and the MARC21 Holdings format 007 field coding was extended for further types of accessible formats. Additional pages were created for the Revealweb cataloguers help desk.
Revealweb was awarded a Commendation for Widening Access to Information in the Jodi Mattes Awards in April 2005. The Awards are for a museum, gallery, library, archive or heritage Web site in England which demonstrates active commitment to meeting Web accessibility standards, involves users and develops practical and imaginative ways of making cultural and learning resources accessible to disabled people.
Revealweb was also praised in the March 2005 House of Commons Select Committee report on public libraries. It notes: 'Revealweb is an important resource which serves as a national database of materials in accessible formats. This is a multi-functional, state of the art, web-based, freely accessible service which is the cornerstone of an integrated network of services for visually disabled people and is part funded by MLA.' However, there was concern that funding ended in March 2006, and recommended that: '...secure funding is made available for the maintenance and development of Revealweb over the longer term.'
At the end of March 2005, Bibliographic Management completed its monitoring of the availability of bibliographic records in the BNB files on the British Library database; these surveys have been carried out since January 1980.They sample post-1974 UK publications, within the coverage of the British National Bibliography. Monthly results were analysed and a conflated hit rate produced for the previous twelve months. A search of the database six months after the original search identified records subsequently added to the database, producing a recheck hit rate. All results were made available on the UKOLN Web site.
The decision to end the survey followed a review, which revealed that although the methodology remained sound, other factors had changed. In the last few years it has become more difficult to find libraries to take part, resulting in gaps in samples. Reasons given for non-participation were: installation of new or upgraded systems, staff re-structuring and shortages, inability to compile a sample due to out-sourcing of ordering and/or cataloguing or distributed acquisitions and cataloguing at multi-site academic libraries and, in a few cases, bookfund cuts. Also more sample returns contained less than the required number of titles. This was due to insufficient throughput of items, and the inclusion of pre-1974 and non-UK publications in error. In addition to these problems, the review indicated little current interest in the results. The survey had in the past been a useful tool used by the British Library to evaluate and improve performance, but for some years now the results had been very stable.
UKOLN is continuing to monitor the records contributed to the BNB files through the Copyright Libraries Shared Cataloguing Programme (CLSCP). This is now undertaken as an annual snapshot and the results are reported to the British Library and the CLSCP Steering Committee.
Through the BIC Bibliographic Standards Technical Sub-Group, Bibliographic Management continues to contribute to the MARC21 development process and to evaluations of the book trade format ONIX.
In January 2004, Ann Chapman was invited to join the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals / British Library (CILIP/BL) Committee on the Revision of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR). The Committee provides the UK input into the revision process for the new edition, provisionally named Resource Description and Access, which is planned for publication in 2008.
The Collection Description Focus was established in 2001. The aim of the Focus is to improve co-ordination of work on collection description methods, schemas and tools, with the goal of ensuring consistency and compatibility of approaches. The Focus provides support for both projects actively involved in collection description work and for those investigating or planning such work.
Work has continued on developing a collection-level description application profile for the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), with discussion taking place on the dc-collections@jiscmail.ac.uk email list. In early 2005, the Focus commissioned Michael Heaney of Oxford University Library Services to extend his model of collections and their catalogues to include services.
A further two papers in the Case Study series were published: these were Case Study 3 on Collections Navigator: collection descriptions at the Natural History Museum and Case Study 4 on Cornucopia. They are available in hard copy as well as being accessible from the Collection Description Web pages. The Focus continued to publish a Newsletter and contributed articles to library and archive publications. Presentations were made at two events.
While there are no current initiatives requiring the creation of collection-level descriptions, occasional queries for advice from individual institutions are still received, and there is continuing support for the JISC Information Environment Service Registry. The Focus has been asked by MLA to review the subject indexing in its collection description database Cornucopia in relation to an intended expansion to include collection descriptions for library collections in addition to the existing museum descriptions.
Since December 2003, the Focus has been a partner in a demonstrator collection description database Tap into Bath; this was launched in December 2004. This was a collaborative project with museums, archives, art galleries, and public, special and academic libraries in the City of Bath, in which 29 institutions took part.
The database uses the RSLP Collection Description Metadata Schema and is hosted on a University of Bath Library server. A seminar was held in August at the University of Bath for project partners to see progress to date and view some initial data entry. Most of the data was entered by the end of September 2004 followed by editing and final changes to the display pages.
Partners have valued the opportunity to meet and work together on a cross-domain project and have participated in publicising the resource. The open source software has been reused for the Southern Cross Resource Finder, a Web-based resource that enables users to discover collections from British libraries, archives and museums, which hold resources useful for the study of Australia and/or New Zealand.
...advancing knowledge through research and development...
UKOLN's Research and Development Team carries out applied and technical research in key areas of interest to UKOLN's stakeholder communities. Research at UKOLN informs the work of the Policy and Advice Team, and enables UKOLN's technical staff to engage with new technologies and emerging standards.
The last year has seen the continuation and consolidation of projects as well as the start of a new role for UKOLN with two new posts collaborating with CETIS to offer support to the new JISC Digital Repositories Support Programme. This work aims to synthesize outputs of the programme and, working closely with the JISC Framework initiative, will progress defining reference models for repository services across the UK.
The R&D Team has continued to pursue a number of connected themes within its project work: open access to repositories of datasets and journal articles; development of preservation and curation tools and best practice; building infrastructure to support the components of the JISC Information Environment. By pursuing these themes, central to the development of digital libraries, we have been able to support UKOLN's core work while building up key competencies and skills of UKOLN staff.
Our chief funders remain the JISC and the European Community.
The Augmented Representation of Cultural Objects (ARCO) Project started in October 2001 and ended at the end of September 2004. It was funded as part of the EU's Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme. The project ran for three years and included seven partners with the University of Sussex acting as co-ordinator and the Sussex Archaeological Society and the Victoria and Albert Museum as pilot sites.
The overall aim of the project was to develop techniques for the capture, virtual representation and manipulation of cultural objects and artefacts. UKOLN led the work involved in co-ordinating and specifying user requirements from the museums and technical partners. UKOLN was also involved in providing technical advice with regard to the metadata requirements of the project.
UKOLN, with contributions from others, completed the specification of the ARCO Metadata Schema (AMS). The AMS consists of metadata for resource discovery, curatorial description and technical data related to the digital representation of museum artefacts. It draws on standards such as Dublin Core and mda's SPECTRUM.
The final year of the project focused on the integration of ARCO components, assessment, evaluation and marketing at various exhibitions and conferences, such as the Museum and Heritage Show and EVA 2004. Showcases demonstrating various parts of ARCO technology including virtual walkthroughs and interaction through augmented reality applications were developed specifically for this purpose.
A comprehensive report on semantic interoperability of digital library systems was completed in June 2005; the task was led and coordinated by UKOLN. The report was co-authored by several members of the Knowledge Extraction and Semantic Interoperability cluster (UKOLN, ICS-FORTH, University of Lund, Technical University of Crete).
The report defines interoperability very broadly as enabling any form of inter-system communication, or the ability of a system to make use of data from a previously unforeseen source. Interoperability in general is concerned with the capability of differing information systems to communicate. This communication may take various forms such as the transfer, exchange, transformation, mediation, migration or integration of information.
Semantic interoperability is characterised by the capability of different information systems to communicate information consistent with the intended meaning of the encoded information (as intended by the creators or maintainers of the information system). It involves:
The issue is addressed from the following perspectives:
UKOLN is also currently working in partnership with the Technical University of Crete and the Ionian University on a task in the DELOS Joint Programme of Activities II (JPA II). The Task is concentrating on the interoperability of audio-visual digital libraries and e-learning applications, in order to support the modular development of personalised learning experiences.
The aim is to develop a robust model that will allow for the use of semantic descriptions of audio-visual content objects and/or segments that reside on a digital library. The intention is to support the creation of reusable learning objects that may be employed in the assembly of personalised courses. In addition, the model will allow users who participate in e-learning activities to browse and retrieve audio-visual objects from digital libraries, which match their interests, and to use them as learning resources.An internal deliverable investigating personalisation in this context was submitted by UKOLN at the beginning of July 2005.
UKOLN contribution to the Knowledge Extraction and Semantic Interoperability (KESI) work package included organization of a DELOS workshop entitled Digital Repositories: Interoperability and Common Services which took place over 11-13 May 2005, hosted by project partner FORTH on the Greek island of Crete. The workshop included submitted papers examining the role of repositories as providers of both preservation and access services.
The opening keynote presentation from Sandy Payette, Co-director of the Fedora Project, suggested we stand away from our traditional perspective of digital repositories as document-centric storage mechanisms and consider their role within a broader service-oriented architecture that enables integration, content and services.
UKOLN is also part of the DELOS digital preservation cluster. The first phase of research activities undertaken by this cluster concentrated on the production of a series of background studies (available from the cluster Web site) designed to help integrate preservation research across Europe. As part of this phase, UKOLN contributed to a report on the Digital Preservation Testbed, a conceptual framework for the experimental evaluation of different digital preservation methods. The cluster also organised a summer school on digital preservation, held at the beginning of June 2005 in Sophia-Antipolis, France. As part of this, Michael Day led a three-hour sessions on preservation metadata and process documentation.
The first major task of the DCC Outreach team at UKOLN was the co-ordination of the official launch of the DCC, which took place on 5th November 2004 at the National e-Science Centre in Edinburgh.
Since the launch the major focus has been the organisation of the First International Digital Curation Centre Conference. The Conference will be held in Bath in September 2005. Registration is underway and the Conference is already attracting speakers and delegates from both the UK and abroad.
Plans for a second Conference in November 2006 in Glasgow are progressing well. In tandem with the events, the DCC Outreach team is responsible for producing a strong DCC brand, which is reflected in a range of publicity materials, flyers, posters, brochures as well as being an integral part of the new DCC Portal which was launched in May 2005. The profile of the DCC as reflected in print and web materials helps to reinforce the aims of the DCC and portray it as a cohesive centre of excellence. Working in conjunction with colleagues at the National e-Science Centre the Outreach team is working on the development of the DCC Associates Network. The Network is a means of engaging with institutions, organisations and individuals across all disciplines and domains. Membership of the Associates Network is free and is open to all institutions in the HE/FE sectors and to all individuals and groups engaged in the creation, use and management of digital data. The Network offers a means of understanding the requirements and methods of digital curation, sharing best practise in delivery and application, advancing related research, and developing consensus on the priorities and resources required for digital curation.
Liz Lyon, DCC Associate Director (Outreach), continues to promote the work of the DCC by attending and speaking at a range of conferences, seminars and meetings both nationally and internationally.
The Development team is using the Development Web site and Wiki and a public JISCmail mailing list to expose its work to and engage with the wider curation community. The work is guided by the overarching document DCC Approach to Digital Curation - under Development. The OAIS reference Model is used as a foundation for developing the requirements for a digital curation support infrastructure.
A key component of this infra structure is a Registry/Repository for Representation Information. A prototype has been set up, with illustrative data available at the Development Web site. Work is proceeding on a releasable prototype to be handed over to the Services group.
As the ideas in the Approaches paper have developed, and bearing in mind that the Repository itself should be a trusted repository various issues have come to light, including the following:
UKOLN continues to participate and contribute to all areas of the above work, with specific input to the work on standards, content packaging and classification scheme.
UKOLN is also involved in the Digital Curation Centre's research activities and is undertaking a preliminary study of co-operative networks of distributed repositories. It has long been acknowledged that successful digital preservation initiatives are likely to depend heavily on co-operation, e.g. structures that enable the sharing of knowledge, expertise and infrastructure across traditional domain boundaries. The rise of the 'institutional repository' paradigm reminds us that co-operation is going to be also needed at the repository level. In place of physically integrated, centralised digital preservation systems that attempt to fulfil all of the functions defined by standards like the influential Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (ISO 14721:2003), we are increasingly likely to see distributed preservation infrastructures. These will typically be based on networks of co-operating repositories, but with additional shared services like registries of information about common file formats, software etc. In these networks, repositories will need ways of interacting both with each other and with their designated communities. Initial work at UKOLN has been focused on the production of a scoping paper that will introduce the problem and focus on issues like selection, object exchange and repository certification. This will help to identify other potential research topics.
The eBank UK Project is funded by the JISC under the Semantic Grid and Autonomic Computing Programme. UKOLN leads the project, partnered by the School of Electronics and Computer Science, and the School of Chemistry at the University of Southampton; in addition PSIgate, University of Manchester, offers the perspective of a potential user of the eBank service.
eBank UK brings together chemists, digital librarians and computer scientists in an interdisciplinary collaboration which explores the potential for integrating research datasets into digital libraries by using common technologies such as the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).
Working within the crystallography domain, in phase 1 of the project (2003-2005) the Crystal Structure Report Archive (an institutional repository) was created at the University of Southampton using a modified version of the eprints.org software. A number of datasets from the chemistry sub-discipline of crystallography were deposited in the repository, which offers a local browse and search interface tailored to crystallography. A metadata schema, based on Dublin Core, was designed to describe the datasets, and metadata descriptions were made available for harvesting using the OAI-PMH. An eBank demonstrator was built at UKOLN to harvest and aggregate the metadata descriptions from the Southampton Crystal Structure Report Archive. The UKOLN eBank demonstrator provides a prototype cross-search across a sample of metadata records describing crystallography experiments, and a small number of metadata records describing articles from the crystallography literature were made available for use in this demonstration by the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). Links to the crystallography datasets and to the articles on line at the IUCr Website are available in the search results to show the potential for linking the datasets to associated journal articles. The eBank demonstrator was embedded within the Resource Discovery Network PSIgate portal as a potential access point for learners.
User scenarios were employed to help understand requirements in this specialised area which deals with complex digital objects. Two workshops were held, the more recent in February 2005, at the University of Bath, in which participants from different scientific activities in the UK and Europe discussed the feasibility and requirements of dataset descriptions.
Following successful progress during phase 1, a programme of follow-on activity to extend and build on the results has been funded to take the project forward into 2006. Phase 2 of the project will explore the development of a generic data model and metadata schema for scientific data. Another strand of work will explore the pedagogical potential of linking research datasets with e-learning. eBank will work closely with projects addressing access to scientific datasets within the newly funded JISC Digital Repositories Support Programme.International awareness of the implications of linking data and the scholarly knowledge cycle concept has been achieved through a number of presentations and publications to the wider community including papers presented by UKOLN at PV2004 and JCDL 2005.
ePrints UK, which ran until October 2004, demonstrated the potential for a national service to provide access to the collective output of eprints available from UK universities and colleges. ePrints UK harvests metadata from available OAI-compliant eprint repositories into a single central metadata database, hosted by the RDN server based at UKOLN. The project offers a search service across all harvested metadata and linked users to full text where available.
The project also investigated enhancement of harvested metadata through a number of services; organised a number of workshops; and produced supporting studies. The project encountered a number of technical challenges in the provision of a search service based on enhanced metadata aggregated from institutional repositories funded by the FAIR Programme. A number of valuable lessons were learnt regarding provision of added- value services in the institutional repository field.
The focus of the workshops was widened to provide a forum for exchange of experience across FAIR projects, and to provide an opportunity for interaction with an international range of experts. The workshops were a particularly successful part of the project: all were well attended and resulted in collaborative activity. The project gave a presentation at OAI3 in Geneva, 2004, as well as a tutorial on the OAI PMH.
At the close of the project in October 2004, ePrints UK provided a search facility across some 55,000 metadata records. The service is being maintained for the foreseeable future.
The JISC is funding over twenty projects in a new programme relating to digital repositories across learning and research in HE and FE. The programme will bring together repository development across various domains: research, learning, information services, institutional policy, management and administration and record management. Projects will be investigating repository services for learning objects, scientific research datasets as well as textual publications.
In early 2005 UKOLN and AHDS produced a Digital Repositories Review to provide background information for participants in the call. The review gives a snapshot of current activity and, by means of a gap analysis, identifies issues both technical and organizational that need to be addressed within the programme.
Two Digital Repositories Programme Support posts have been appointed at UKOLN to synthesise the outputs of the programme and to build reference models to support the repository infrastructure. UKOLN will be working closely with CETIS in this support role, as well as with the projects and the JISC Programme Manager.
The JISC IE Metadata Schema Registry (IEMSR) provides services based on information about the metadata terms used by applications within the JISC Information Environment, focusing particularly on the terms deployed by implementers of the Dublin Core and IEEE LOM metadata standards in their "application profiles" of these two standards. The first phase of the project, in which UKOLN and ILRT, University of Bristol, were the principal project partners, ran from January 2004 until June 2005.
During this initial phase, CETIS and Becta supported the project in gathering requirements for a metadata schema registry from service providers and application developers. The project also analysed the Dublin Core and IEEE LOM metadata standards to develop models for application profiles of those two standards. This phase of the project has resulted in the development of three prototype tools: a registry data server (which provides a persistent store for data about metadata terms and their use); a Web site (which allows users to browse and query data from the registry server); and a data creation tool (which enables users to create descriptions of their metadata vocabularies and application profiles which can be submitted to the registry server). A workshop was held in which a small group of potential users - individuals involved with metadata standards work or with the implementation of metadata standards within JISC and Becta projects and services - evaluated the prototype tools.
A second phase of the work is planned, in which renewed emphasis will be placed on dialogue with potential users on the functions that the IEMSR can provide, in order to strengthen the business case for the registry.
The Research and Development Team is led by Rachel Heery, Assistant Director
Staffing on projects: Manjula Patel (ARCO, Digital Curation Centre, DELOS), Traugott Koch (JISC IE Services Registry, eBank), Michael Day (Digital Curation Centre, DELOS, eBank UK, ePrints UK), Philip Hunter (ePrints UK), Pete Johnston (JISC IE Metadata Schema Registry, JISC IE Services Registry), Monica Duke (eBank UK), Rachel Heery (eBank UK, JISC IE Metadata Schema Registry, DELOS), Emma Tonkin (JISC IE Services Registry).
...building innovative systems and services based on Web technologies...
The Distributed Systems and Services Team supports the activities of other parts of UKOLN by building innovative systems and services based on Web technologies and by providing technical support to all members of UKOLN staff. These systems and services inform the policy and advice that UKOLN gives to the community and grounds our more theoretical research and development activities in practical implementations.
UKOLN provides a technical and interoperability advice role for the Resource Discovery Network (RDN), as well as hosting and developing the central RDN Web services. Following the review of the RDN by JISC and the setting up of the RDN Executive at MIMAS, UKOLN has been involved in a strategy of aligning the whole of the RDN on a single software platform. As part of this we worked with a team of technical staff from all the RDN hubs to evaluate two "subject gateway" open source software packages - InfoMINE IVIA and the Scout Portal Toolkit. In the end, neither package was felt suitable for the RDN's needs, so the activity has been re-focused around developing an internal solution based on some of the existing software used by the RDN.
Much of the technical work of the RDN is now being carried out at the University of Manchester. We have therefore agreed with the RDN Executive to scale back UKOLN's involvement in the RDN over the next year or so. This will enable a core of RDN technical staff to be built up in the Manchester area. As a result of all these changes we have made few modifications to the central RDN Web site during the last year. One exception was a new part of the site, focused explicitly on the needs of the Further Education community in the UK.
As noted in the last annual report, we were also considering the use of the Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) specification to augment the current RDN-Include facility, making the RDN available for use within institutional portal frameworks such as uPortal. While little real progress has been made with this, we did collaborate with the Centre for Development of New Technologies in Learning (CDNTL) at the University of Bath on a JISC-funded project called GroupLog. As part of this, a significant "Portlet Feasibility Study" was written, which highlighted some of the current issues in adopting a 'portlet' approach. We hope that this study will prove useful, both to the RDN and to other service providers who are considering moving in the same direction.
On a related theme, we began offering a Search and Retrieve Web Service (SRW) interface to the RDN ResourceFinder (the central database of all RDN records) in April 2004. Usage of this interface has been very patchy, busy months seeing up to about 7,500 searches but some months seeing far fewer. Interestingly, most of the searches against our SRW interface originate from Canada, almost certainly from LionShare project partners, with very little traffic originating in the UK. This probably indicates a need to promote the availability and use of SRW within the UK rather better.
The RDN/HEA partnership activities also slowed down during the year, though UKOLN staff continued to provide technical advice to both communities and continued to make minor changes to the RDN/LTSN Learning Object Metadata Application Profile.
UKOLN provides a technical advisory service to the JISC concerning the development of the JISC Information Environment and has continued to disseminate information about the technical architecture through a number of technically oriented presentations, tutorials and attendance at various meetings.
UKOLN's work in this area continues to have significant overlaps with other areas of JISC activity, particularly the Repositories Programme, and with broader interests such as the Common Information Environment and the NISO Metasearch Initiative. In particular, this year has seen the transformation of the JISC eLearning Framework into the eFramework for Education and Research and UKOLN has worked closely with colleagues at JISC and DEST as part of the JISC Framework Working Group to try and help develop the thinking that underpins this activity.
We have also been working with the Digital Library Federation on a similar area of work known as the DLF Abstract Service Framework Working Group. This work resulted in a draft 'Discovery to Delivery Reference Model' being developed.
Our metadata-related Web-based tools, DC-dot, DC-assist, RSS-xpress and OpenResolver continue to be widely used, downloaded and cited. RSS-xpress currently supports about 180,000 visitor sessions per month (an increase of nearly 40% compared with last year). DC-dot supports around 7,500 visitor sessions a month. It is has been used to describe nearly 11,000 new resources this year.
There was a total of 1,930,948 visitor sessions to http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ (check whether home page or whole site) for period August 2004 to July 2005. This is an increase of nearly 25% on last year's figures.
The Web Editor is also a member of the team comprising staff at EDINA, NeSC and UKOLN, which has been involved in the redevelopment of the Digital Curation Centre Web site. The site now offers new features including:
The above represent stage one of the redevelopment process in which the brief was to improve the navigation and design of the site. The second stage of the redevelopment will focus on the DCC intranet, while work continues on developing and extending the functionality and content of the new Web site. The Web Editor also supports the DCC Outreach team's publicity materials output.
As part of our DCC work to develop the International Journal of Digital Curation we have joined CrossRef, in order that we can assign Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to each article. The CrossRef agreement asks us to assign DOIs to our other publications and to deposit metadata about each article with the CrossRef system. We will be doing this in due course for all the articles in Ariadne as well as for Exploit Interactive and Cultivate Interactive.
Ariadne issues 41 to 44 were published during the past year (October, January, April, and July). A variety of main articles, regular columns, reviews and reports on events were published.
Over the course of 2004-5 Ariadne largely maintained its editorial policy of ensuring that a variety of topics were covered in the four issues published.
Issue 41 (October 2004) offered a wide variety of topics including views of projects and organisational issues. Although a number of the articles such as "The Tapir: Adding E-Theses Functionality to DSpace" and "What Do Application Profiles Reveal about the Learning Object Metadata Standard?" were unashamedly technical in their composition, the issue also gave insights into the DARE (a welcome contribution from the Netherlands) and CREE projects. The editor was particularly pleased to publish "How the Use of Standards Is Transforming Australian Digital Libraries", an article which demonstrated how the exploitation of recent standards has allowed the National Library of Australia to digitise its collections and host federated search services. Additionally it was pleasing to offer an article on a development in a standard with worldwide impact, namely ISBN-13 which will affect information professionals in many areas. Furthermore it was most useful to be able to offer two items on the ECDL 2004 Conference hosted by UKOLN.
The January issue of the Magazine was by no means alone in seeking to cover a development of very current and pressing interest to its readership, namely the Freedom of Information Act; but it was able to provide information and comment of specific interest to colleagues working in organisations and institutions within the community Ariadne serves. For readers no less likely to be affected by the Act than the national and local government authorities and other agencies, the issue was able to offer informed predictions and opinion from a well-placed source at JISC as well as the equally informed hindsight of the Records Manager at University College Dublin where similar legislation came into operation four years earlier. In addition it was also useful to provide the perspective of delegates at a conference entitled Freedom of Information and the Historian jointly hosted by The National Archives and the Institute of Historical Research last November. However, in keeping with the general editorial policy of avoiding 'too many eggs in one basket', Issue 42 also offered insights into new technologies such as Wikis and the Access Grid, both written by UKOLN staff, and equally on higher-level policy-related issues such as open source software in UK Further and Higher Education and the continuing debate on Open Access.
In its attempts to keep an eye on technical developments of interest to its readers, Ariadne Issue 42 published an article on Mozilla Firefox and useful features and extensions for Web developers together with an engaging and informed evaluation of the Google Search Appliance. This issue also began a 'thread' in the area of access and authentication by its coverage of the first Shibboleth Workshop in the UK, a topic which, not surprisingly, was revisited later in the year.
The Spring 2005 issue of Ariadne provided a very varied set of topics for readers' consideration, ranging from the technical items, such as the description of a particular approach to OpenURLs and metadata autodiscovery in scholarly and non-scholarly environments; an introduction to the JISC Information Environment Metadata Schema Registry (IEMSR) Project; an overview of some repository management software tools; and a compelling description of the contributor's experience of Shibboleth installation in a Higher Education environment, to what might be described as the more organisationally oriented articles on ways of developing trust within globally distributed, and therefore 'virtual' teams, supporting digital preservation and asset management in institutions and the story behind the British Library's online training package for public library staff. It is also of note that a number of the reviews undertaken for the Magazine have touched upon organisational issues and have acted in a complementary fashion to this particular theme in the main articles published this year.
The July 2005 issue might well have been guilty of concentrating too many articles in one particular thematic basket, namely accessibility, were it not for the addition of articles on a variety of other subjects such as the differing areas of expertise within the UK data libraries with particular reference to their relationship with National Data Centres; an overview of Oxford's virtual research environment (VRE) and three related JISC-funded projects; together with a return to an item raised earlier in the year namely Blogs, where the contributor examined how mobile Blogs for personal reflection may be related to institutional learning environments, drawing on experiences from the RAMBLE Project. Nonetheless the topic of accessibility did predominate in this issue and for good reason, reflecting the interest and even concern that recent legislation has occasioned in institutions. The articles however offered varied perspectives from a review of accessibility by disabled people to digital information systems across broadcasting, telecommunications and the Internet, an aspect of the work of EC-funded European Internet Accessibility Observatory Project, an overview of MLA's Web accessibility audit involving extensive user testing and automatic testing of Web sites, the acclaimed Revealweb site which brings together information about accessible resources for visually impaired people and an examination of a more pragmatic approach to the universal applicability of the Web Accessibility Initiative's guidelines. This issue was headed up by an article by the Co-director of the Creative Archive Project at the BBC who provided insights into likely effects of the Archive in the future and underpinned Ariadne's efforts to provide readers with insights into the future of their profession.
Following discussions on the format and content of the existing UKOLN Newsletter, it was agreed that a more flexible, current and frequent form of newsletter was required which would tend to serve a wider group of readers than the 10-page annual issue. This work of redevelopment was passed to the Ariadne Team for scoping, planning and design with the Ariadne Editor planning editorial processes and general content and layout policy in close co-operation with the Web Editor who concentrated on the print and Web version global graphics and design.
The first issue of the revised format entitled Focus on UKOLN, but also Issue 14 (August 2004) of UKOLN's Newsletter, for the sake of continuity, was printed, published and distributed in time for the ECDL 2004 Conference hosted by UKOLN at the University of Bath. Issue 15 (March 2005) was available for distribution at the Annual JISC Conference in Birmingham in April 2005 and Issue 16, under preparation as this report is written, is planned to be available for the 1st International Digital Curation Conference in September 2005. The Web version of each issue is made available at the same time as the print version is first distributed and provides links not only to the recent new formats of the Newsletter but to the previous issues as well.
Feedback from readers to date would seem to indicate that the redeveloped version of the UKOLN Newsletter has met its goals of greater readability, frequency and currency.
Currently UKOLN's internal and external server machines are predominantly Sun/Solaris-based, though the RDN service and UKOLN's internal development servers are both Linux-based. However, the server infrastructure at UKOLN is being reorganised as part of the development of our systems. Four new servers have been purchased this year. These servers are multi-processor x86-64 based architectures, and will mostly be running on Slackware Linux instead of Solaris. At the same time, we are undertaking a UKOLN-wide survey to identify our functional requirements for the groupware tools we run on our office PCs and laptops. The results of this survey will be coupled with the new servers better to serve the needs of staff within UKOLN.
Over the year all the desktop PCs in UKOLN have been upgraded. Almost all of our office desktop machines run Windows XP (with a few running Windows 2000 and Linux). Our investigations into the use of the University's Active Directory service continue and we hope to begin migrating to it in the near future making the maintenance task easier.
The online booking procedure for events run by UKOLN has been streamlined and the Support Team have become more involved in providing IT support at events, in particular the successful ECDL 2004 Conference where wireless networking was supported. The NOF Enrich Web site has been moved to a permanent server in Manchester where it will now stay, with minimal support from UKOLN. The 'Stories from the Web' Web site remains on a server in the University of Bath machine room. The site won first place in the Guardian Well Being Web site awards.
Finally, several internal staff development IT workshops have been run during the year and these have been successful in encouraging staff to share IT knowledge and effectiveness. These workshops will be further developed in the coming year.
The Distributed Systems and Services team consists of Monica Duke (Software Developer), Shirley Keane (Web Editor), Andy Powell (Assistant Director and Team Leader), Greg Tourte (Systems Developer), Richard Waller (Ariadne Editor) and Eddie Young (Systems Support).
Peter Dowdell (Software Developer and NOF Advisor) left UKOLN in October 2004. Monica Duke went on maternity leave during June 2004 and gave birth to a baby girl shortly afterwards.
The chart below shows the breakdown of UKOLN funding for the period August 2004 to July 2005.
UKOLN's core activities during the period were jointly funded by MLA (Museums, Archives and Libraries Council) and the JISC. This funding supported activities of the Policy & Advice Team, some development and production services of the Distributed Systems and Services Team - including the production of the online magazine Ariadne and some Research & Development Team activities. Core funding also supported work of the Director, administrative and managerial support, office systems support as well as UKOLN's events and marketing activities. Project income is categorised as JISC funding or research grants.
In addition to JISC Core funding, during 2004/05 UKOLN received funding for the following JISC projects: the Digital Curation Centre (jointly funded with the EPSRC); eBank UK; the Information Environment Service Registry; the Information Environment Metadata Schema Registry; the RDNC; the Subject Portals Project (SPP); and Grouplog.
The following projects provided research grant income during the period: DELOS, ARCO and CEN2, all funded by the European Union; the EnrichUK Portal, funded by the New Opportunities Fund; and the Digital Curation Centre(jointly funded with the JISC and EPSRC).
Consultancy income included funds from OCLC, the British Library and the JISC.
UKOLN organises a number of workshops and seminars in support of its own work as well as organising events on behalf of its funders and other stakeholders. The funding reported here reflects the income received to support the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2005 and the EDCL 2004 Conference, organised by UKOLN, and held in Bath in September 2004.
It has been a successful year for the Events Team at UKOLN with events taking place all over the UK and Europe. A particular success was the ECDL 2004 Conference which attracted over 400 participants to conference and tutorials sessions over six days.
The feedback from delegates to these events has been very positive including comments such as:
"I found this a very useful event. The talks were excellent and the atmosphere friendly and creative" (Hyper clumps, mini clumps and national catalogues)
"Enjoyable and thought provoking" (Institutional Web Management Workshop)
| European Conference on Digital Libraries | Bath, 12-19 September 2004 (ECDL 2004) |
| Hyper clumps, mini clumps and national catalogues | London, 11 November 2004 |
| Tap into Bath launch | Bath, 8 December 2004 |
| Using the IESR: What's in it for you? | London, 12 January 2005 |
| Digital Cultural Content Forum | Oxford, 11-13 February 2005 |
| eBank Workshop | Bath, 18 February 2005 |
| DELOS Digital Repositories: Interoperability and Common Services Workshop | Crete, 11-13 May 2005 |
| Institutional Web Management Workshop | Manchester, 6-8 July 2005 |
| Distributed Services Registry Workshop | Warwick, 14-15 July 2005 |
Members of the Resources and Administration Team are Natasha Bishop (Events & Marketing Manager), Ruth Burt (Office Administrator), Ali Cook (Financial Administrator), Sally Criddle (Resource Co-ordinator and Team Leader), Birgit Kongialis (Financial Administrator), Sarah Smith (Events & Marketing Assistant) and Jenny Taylor (Assistant Resource Co-ordinator). Jenny Taylor led the Team during Sally Criddle's maternity leave, whilst Cora Eley was employed as Assistant Resource Co-ordinator.
...spreading the word...
UKOLN has extensive communication and dissemination channels nationally and internationally and staff contribute to the community through membership of a wide range of influential committees.
A selective list of publications, presentations and committee memberships follows. Also included is a list of some of the visitors whom UKOLN received during the year.
Tap into Bath, Ariadne, Issue 40, July 2004 (with A.Baud)
Collection-level descriptions: joining up the domains
Journal of the Society of Archivists, Vol.25 (2) October 2004, pp.149-155
ISBN-13: The New Number on the Block, Ariadne, Issue 41, October 2004
Collection descriptions: state of play, Library+Information Update, Vol.4 (4) April 2005, pp.35-37
10th CETIS-TechDis Accessibility Special Interest Group Meeting: an 'At the Event' report.
Ariadne, Issue 43, April 2005.
Revealing All. Ariadne, Issue 44, July 2005.
Searching and browsing multiple subject gateways in the Renardus Service.
In: Cor van Dijkum, Jörg Blasius, Henk Kleijer, and Branko van Hilten, (eds.),
Recent developments and applications in social science methodology: proceedings
of the Sixth International Conference on Logic and Methodology, August
17-20, 2004, Amsterdam, The Netherlands [CD-ROM].
Amsterdam: SISWO Instituut voor Maatschappijwetenschappen, 2004. ISBN 90-6706-176-X.
(With Traugott Koch and Heike Neuroth)
The 4th International Workshop on Web Archiving.
Ariadne, Issue 41, October 2004.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue41/ecdl-web-archiving-rpt/
DELOS Information Day, Bath, 15 September 2004.
DELOS Newsletter, Issue 2, October 2004.
http://www.DELOS.info/newsletter/issue2/infoday/
DELOS Workshop on Semantic Interoperability in Digital Libraries, Bath, 17
September 2004.
DELOS Newsletter, Issue 2, October 2004.
(With Manjula Patel)
http://www.DELOS.info/newsletter/issue2/cluster-reports/#5
Preservation metadata initiatives: practicality, sustainability, and interoperability. In: Frank M. Bischoff, Hans Hofman and Seamus Ross, (eds.), Metadata in preservation: selected papers from an ERPANET Seminar at the Archives School Marburg, 3-5 September 2003, (Veröffentlichungen der Archivschule Marburg, Institut für Archivwissenschaft, Nr. 40), Marburg: Archivschule Marburg, pp. 91-117. ISBN 3-923833-77-6.
Integrating research data into the publication workflow: eBank experience.
In: Proceedings PV-2004: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation and Adding Value
to the Scientific and Technical Data, 5-7 October 2004, ESA/ESRIN, Frascati,
Italy,
Noordwijk: European Space Agency, 2004, pp. 135-142.
(With Rachel Heery, Monica Duke, Liz Lyon, Simon Coles, Jeremy Frey, Michael Hursthouse, Leslie Carr and Christopher Gutteridge)
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/9705/
What's new in digital preservation, Issue 9 (July - December 2004)
Digital Preservation Coalition and National Library of Australia, 22 December
2004
(With Gerard Clifton)
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/whatsnew/issue9.html
What's new in digital preservation, Issue 10 (January - May 2005)
Digital Preservation Coalition and National Library of Australia, 27 May 2005
(With Marian Hanley and Gerard Clifton)
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/whatsnew/issue10.html
Enhancing access to research data: the challenge of crystallography
In: Proceedings of the 5th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Denver,
CO., USA, June 7-11, 2005. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2005,
pp. 46-55. ISBN 1-58113-876-8.
(With Monica Duke, Rachel Heery, LeslieCarr and Simon Coles)
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1065385.1065397
eBank UK: linking research data, scholarly communication and learning
In: Proceedings of the 3rd UK e-Science Programme All Hands Meeting (AHM
2004), Nottingham, UK, 31 August - 3 September 2004.
(With Liz Lyon, Rachel Heery, Simon Coles, Jeremy Frey, Michael Hursthouse,
Leslie Carr and Christopher Gutteridge)
http://www.allhands.org.uk/proceedings/papers/237.pdf
Integrating research data into the publication workflow: eBank experience
In: Proceedings PV-2004: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation and Adding
Value to the Scientific and Technical Data, 5-7 October 2004, ESA/ESRIN, Frascati,
Italy, Noordwijk: European Space Agency, 2004, pp. 135-142.
(With Rachel Heery, Michael Day, Liz Lyon, Simon Coles, Jeremy Frey, Michael
Hursthouse, Leslie Carr and Christopher Gutteridge)
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/9705/
Enhancing access to research data: the challenge of crystallography
In: Proceedings of the 5th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Denver,
CO., USA, June 7-11, 2005. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2005,
pp. 46-55. ISBN 1-58113-876-8.
(With Michael Day, Rachel Heery, Leslie Carr and Simon Coles)
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1065385.1065397
Lessons and Outcomes from the Subject Portals Project,
VINE, Vol. 35, No 1/2, 2005.
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/
QA Focus information for digital libraries: A case study of CC implementation,
INDICARE Monitor, Vol. 2, No. 2, April 2005.
(with Kelly, B.)
http://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=92
Finding Someplace to Go: Reading and the Internet,
Ariadne, Issue 43, April 2005.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue43/guy/
Book Review: Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval,
Ariadne, Issue 43, April 2005.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue43/guy-rvw/
Creative Commons and the Information Professional,
Managing Information, May/June 2005, Issue, 4-6. June 2005
http://www.managinginformation.com/Catalogue/contentsjune2005.htm
Integration and Impact: The JISC Annual Conference,
Ariadne, Issue 44, July 2005.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue44/jisc-conf-rpt/
eBank UK: linking research data, scholarly communication and learning
In: Proceedings of the 3rd UK e-Science Programme All Hands Meeting (AHM 2004),
Nottingham, UK, 31 August - 3 September 2004.
(With Liz Lyon, Monica Duke, Simon Coles, Jeremy Frey, Michael Hursthouse, Leslie
Carr and Christopher Gutteridge)
http://www.allhands.org.uk/proceedings/papers/237.pdf
Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries: 8th European Conference,
ECDL 2004,
Bath, UK, September 12-17, 2004.
Proceedings (joint editor)
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3232. Berlin: Springer Verlag. ISBN
3-540-23013-0 (With Liz Lyon)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/b100389
Integrating research data into the publication workflow: eBank experience.
In: Proceedings PV-2004: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation and Adding Value
to the Scientific and Technical Data, 5-7 October 2004, ESA/ESRIN, Frascati,
Italy, Noordwijk: European Space Agency, 2004, pp. 135-142.
(With Monica Duke, Michael Day, Liz Lyon, Simon Coles, Jeremy Frey, Michael
Hursthouse, Leslie Carr and Christopher Gutteridge)
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/9705/
Digital repositories review
Report to accompany JISC Digital Repositories Programme call
February 2004 (With Sheila Anderson)
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_digital_repositories
Enhancing access to research data: the challenge of crystallography
In: Proceedings of the 5th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries,
Denver, CO., USA, June 7-11, 2005. New York: Association for Computing Machinery,
2005, pp. 46-55. ISBN 1-58113-876-8.
(With Monica Duke, Michael Day, Leslie Carr and Simon Coles)
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1065385.1065397
Metadata for harvesting: the Open Archives Initiative and how to find things on the Web
The Electronic Library, 22(2), 2004, 168-174.(With Marieke Guy)
A Tradition of Scholarly Documentation for Digital Objects
the Launch of the Digital Curation Centre in Edinburgh on November 5th, 2004, Ariadne, Issue 42, January 2005
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue42/dcc-rpt/
DCC Workshop on Persistent Identifiers
Ariadne, Issue 44, July 2005
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue44/dcc-pi-rpt/
Dublin Core Abstract Model. DCMI Recommendation. March 2005.
(with Andy Powell, Mikael Nilsson and Ambjörn Naeve)
http://dublincore.org/documents/abstract-model/
What are Your Terms?
Ariadne, Issue 43, April 2005.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue43/johnston/
Element Refinement in Dublin Core metadata.
DCMI Recommended Resource. June 2005.
http://dublincore.org/documents/dc-elem-refine/
Interoperability Across Digital Library Programmes? We Must Have QA!
Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, 8th European Conference, ECDL 2004 Conference, Bath, UK, September 2004 Proceedings.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/papers/ecdl-2004/
Web Focus: QA Focus has Finished - Let's Start Embedding QA
Ariadne, Issue 41, October 2004.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue41/web-focus/
Developing a Holistic Approach for e-Learning Accessibility
Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 2004, Vol. 30, Issue 3.
(with Phipps, L. and Swift, E)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/cjtl-2004/
Web Focus: Experiences of Using a Wiki for Note-taking at a Workshop
Ariadne, Issue 42, January 2005.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue42/web-focus/
Using Networked Technologies to Support Conferences
EUNIS 2005 Conference Proceedings
(with Tonkin, E. and Shabajee, P.)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/eunis-2005/paper-1/
IT Services - Help or Hindrance to National IT Development Programmes?
EUNIS 2005 Conference Proceedings (with Child, P)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/eunis-2005/paper-2/
Let's Free IT Support Materials!
EUNIS 2005 Conference Proceedings
(with Knight, G. Casey, J. and Guy, M.)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/eunis-2005/paper-3/
Forcing Standardization or Accommodating Diversity? A Framework for Applying the WCAG in the Real World
Proceedings of the 2005 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A). ISBN: 1-59593-036-1.
(with Sloan, D., Phipps, L., Petrie, H. and Hamilton, F)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/w4a-2005/
A Quality Framework for Web Site Quality: User Satisfaction and Quality Assurance
The 14th International World Wide Web Conference [WWW2005]. Special Interest Tracks & Posters. ISBN 1-59593-051-5 pp. 930-931. , (with Vidgen, R.)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/www2005/
A Quality Assurance Framework For Metadata
Library Trends, Spring 2005, Volume 53 (4). (with Closier, A. and Hiom, D)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/papers/library-trends-2005/
QA Focus information for digital libraries
Indicare, April 2005. (with Guy, M)
http://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=92
Implementing a Quality Assurance Methodology for Digital Library Programmes
VINE, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/papers/vine-01-2004/
Web Focus: Using Collaborative Technologies When on the Road
Ariadne, Issue 43, April 2005.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue43/web-focus/
Towards a Pragmatic Framework for Accessible e-Learning
Ariadne, Issue 44, July 2005. (with Phipps, L., Witt, N)
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue44/phipps/
Web Focus: The WWW 2005 Conference
Ariadne, Issue 44, July 2005.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue44/web-focus/
The Digital Curation Centre: A Vision for Digital Curation
Chris Rusbridge, Peter Burnhill, Seamus Ross, Peter Buneman, David Giaretta, Liz Lyon, Malcolm Atkinson
Paper for Conference: From Local to Global: Data Interoperability Challenges and Technologies, Mass Storage & Systems Technology Committee of the IEEE Computer Society
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/docs/DCC_Sardinia_paper_final.pdf
Proceedings of the 8th European Conference on Research & Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (ECDL), Bath, UK, September 12-17, 2004.
Rachel Heery & Liz Lyon (eds.)
Publ. Springer: Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3232.
http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=issue&issn=0302-9743&volume=3232&issue=preprint
From Data Deluge to Data Curation
Philip Lord, Alison McDonald, Liz Lyon, David Giaretta,
In: Proceedings e-Science All Hands Meeting 2004, Nottingham, September 2004
eBank UK : linking research data, scholarly communication and learning
Liz Lyon and Simon Coles, e-Science All Hands Meeting 2004, Nottingham, September 2004
Integrating research data into the publication workflow: the eBank experience
R Heery, M Duke, M Day, L Lyon, S Coles, J Frey, M Hursthouse, L Carr, & C Gutteridge,
In: Proceedings PV-2004: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation and Adding Value
to the Scientific and Technical Data,
5-7 October 2004, ESA/ESRIN, Frascati, Italy, (ESA WPP 232), Noordwijk: European
Space Agency, 2004, 135-142.
DELOS Workshop on Semantic Interoperability in Digital Libraries
Bath, 17 September 2004 DELOS Newsletter, Issue 2, October 2004. (With Michael Day)
http://www.DELOS.info/newsletter/issue2/cluster-reports/#5
A cultural heritage repository as source for learning materials
In: Proceedings VAST 2004, The 5th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Brussels, Belgium, 7-10 December 2004.
(With Krzysztof Walczak,
Fabrizio Giorgini and Martin White)
http://www.enamecenter.org/pages/VAST2004_fullPapers_s6.htm
Metadata requirements for digital museum environments, International Journal of Digital Libraries, 5(3), May 2005, 179-192. (With Martin White, Nikolaos Mourkoussis, Krzysztof Walczak, Rafal Wojciechowski and Jacek Chmielewski) http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00799-004-0104-x
Semantic Interoperability in Digital Library Systems
DELOS Network of Excellence on Digital Libraries, Deliverable D5.3.1, 2005
(With Traugott Koch, Martin Doerr and Chrisa Tsinaraki)
Guidelines for assigning identifiers to metadata terms
DCMI Working Draft, August 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcmi/term-identifier-guidelines/
The JISC Information Environment and Google
Discussion paper for JISC, November 2004.
DCMI Abstract Model, with Mikael Nilsson, Ambjörn Naeve and Pete Johnston,
DCMI Recommendation, March 2005.
http://dublincore.org/documents/abstract-model/
Resource Discovery Landscape, Paper for JIIE and JCS, May 2005.
Subject Portals Project (SPP) Phase II Completion Report, February 2005.
The Subject Portals Project, Assignation, Vol.22, No.3 (April 2005)
Using Networked Technologies To Support Conferences
EUNIS 2005 Conference Proceedings,
(with Kelly, B. and Shabajee, P)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/eunis-2005/paper-1/
Tap into Bath: thinking globally before acting locally.
With Bridget Robinson
Tap into Bath Seminar, University of Bath, Bath, 10 August 2004
Tap into Bath: thinking globally before acting locally.
With Alison Baud
Tap into Bath Seminar, the Open University, Milton Keynes, 11 October 2004
Pitfalls and blind alleys: perspectives on performance measurement
Umbrella 2005, the University of Manchester, Manchester, 30 June - 2 July 2005
Digital preservation,
lecture for MSc Library and Information Management, Unit 6A:
Advanced Information Systems, University of Bristol, Bristol, 13 October 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/preservation/presentations/2004/bristol-msc/slides.html
Long-term preservation and access: the UK context
RCUK Workshop on Publication of Research Outputs, Institute of Physics, London, 18 October 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/preservation/presentations/2004/rcuk-workshop/day-slides.html
Long-term preservation: an overview
Joint Workshop on Electronic Publishing, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, 15 April 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/preservation/presentations/2005/lund-workshop/md-slides.html
Categories, uses and challenges of metadata and process documentation
Digital Preservation for Digital Libraries: DELOS International Summer School 2005, INRIA, Sophia-Antipolis, France, 6 June 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/preservation/presentations/2005/DELOS-summerschool/slides.pdf
The Digital Curation Centre
meeting of Medical Research Council librarians, MRC Human Genetics Unit, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, 14 June 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/preservation/presentations/2005/edinburgh-mrc/slides.pdf
Digital Curation Centre research agenda
National Institute for Environmental eScience (NIEeS) community awareness day on the Digital Curation Centre, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, 16 June 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/preservation/presentations/2005/cambridge-niees/slides.pdf
Demonstration of eBank UK aggregator service and integration with PSIgate, eBank UK Workshop, University of Bath, Bath, 5 August 2004.
Open Archives and the OAI-PMH
guest Lecture on Information Modelling
(COMP5050) Module at the School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds, 7 December 2004.
http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/inf/documents/monica.ppt
Open Archives and the OAI-PMH
guest Lecture on Information Modelling
(COMP5050) Module at the School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds, 7 December 2004.
http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/inf/documents/monica.ppt
Introduction to Dublin Core, particularly in the context of OAI-PMH
eBank UK and CCLRC Workshop, University of Bath, Bath, 18 February 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/ebank/programme.html
IWMW Impact Analysis and Evaluation Session (facilitator)
Institutional Web Management Workshop 2005 (IWMW 2005): Whose Web Is It Anyway? University of Manchester, 8 July 2005 (With Philip Hunter)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2005/sessions/impact-analysis/
Integrating research data into the publication workflow: the eBank UK experience
PV-2004: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation and Adding Value to the Scientific and Technical Data, ESA/ESRIN, Frascati, Italy, 6 October 2004
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/pv-2004/heery-pv2004-v1.pdf
The JISC Information Environment Metadata Schema Registry
Eighth International Open Forum on Metadata Registries (Open Forum 2005), Berlin, 11-14 April 2005
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/iemsr/dissem/pres/openform/
Introduction and Welcome
9th DELOS Network of Excellence Thematic Workshop on Digital Repositories: Interoperability and Common Services, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 11 May 2005
http://DELOS-wp5.ukoln.ac.uk/presentations/crete-welcome.html
Enhancing access to research data: the challenge of crystallography
5th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Denver, Colorado, USA, June 7-11, 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/ebank-uk/dissemination/jcdl2005/heery-slides.pdf
ePrints UK and the open archives idea (workshop),
National Acquisitions Group Conference, Aston University, Birmingham, 16 September
2004.
(With Greg Tourte)
http://homes.ukoln.ac.uk/~lispjh/nag/nag-conference-2.pdf
IWMW Impact Analysis and Evaluation Session (facilitator),
Institutional Web Management Workshop 2005 (IWMW 2005): Whose Web Is It Anyway?
University of Manchester, 8 July 2005
(With Marieke Guy)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2005/sessions/impact-analysis/
Guidelines for machine-processable representation of Dublin Core Application
Profiles
CEN/ISSS MMI-DC Workshop Meeting, Brussels. 23 September 2004
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/cen-mmidc-dcapm/
Dublin Core Collection Description Working Group
DC-2004: Metadata across Languages and Cultures, Shanghai, China. 11 October
2004
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcmi/dc2004/cdwg/
Creating an Application Profile: The Dublin Core Collection Description
Application Profile
DC-2004: Metadata across Languages and Cultures, Shanghai, China. 13 October
2004
(With Thomas Baker and Robina Clayphan)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/dc-2004/dcap-tutorial-part3/
Collection & Service Description and the NISO Metasearch Initiative DC-2004: Metadata across Languages and Cultures, Shanghai, China. 13 October 2004 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcmi/dc2004/nisomi/
Collection Description, Dublin Core and the NISO Metasearch Initiative
JISC IESR Workshop: What's in it for you? London. 12 January 2005
http://www.iesr.ac.uk/events/2005/01/12/dccdniso.pdf
IEMSR, the Information Environment and Metadata Application Profiles
JISC IEMSR Workshop: Tools for the IEMSR, Bath. 15 March 2005
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/iemsr/dissem/pres/iemaps/
NISO Metasearch Initiative Task Group 2: Collection Description Status Report
NISO Metasearch Initiative Meeting, Durham, North Carolina, USA. 24 March 2005
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/nisomi/tg2/20050323/status/
Metadata Schema Registries, Metadata Application Profiles and the Information Environment
JISC Development Team Meeting, London. 18 April 2005
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/iemsr/dissem/pres/jiscdevgp/
Metadata for the People's Network Discovery Service
PNDS Start-Up Meeting, London. 27 April 2005
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/activities/events/pnds/start-up-2005-04/pndsmeta.htm
Interoperability Across Digital Library Programmes? We Must Have QA!
ECDL 2004 Conference, 13 September 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/presentations/ecdl-2004/
Benchmarking Web Sites, Workshop for the NEMLAC regional agency, 16 September
2004
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/nemlac-2004-09/
A Holistic Approach to Web Accessibility
mda 2004 conference, 23 September 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/mda-2004/
Quality Assurance for Web Sites
Workshop at the ILI 2004 conference, 20 October 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/presentations/ili-2004/
Beyond E-mail! Wikis, Blogs and Social Networking Software
ILI 2004 conference, 12 October 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ili-2004/
Optimising Technology in Libraries
Panel session at the ILI 2004 conference, 12 October 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ili-2004/
Interoperability? Are Standards the Answer?
OSS Watch workshop on Interoperability, 14-15 October 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/osswatch-2004-10/
Addressing the Challenges of New Devices and New Web Technologies
Meeting of the SWITC Group, 4 November 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/switc-2004-11/
Interoperability? We Need Quality Assurance!
Society Of Archivists EAD/Data Exchange Group AGM, 11 November 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/archivists-2004-11/
Benchmarking Web Sites
Workshop for the RSC South East, 16th November 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/rsc-se-2004-11/
Beyond Email: Strategies for Collaborative Working in The 21st Century
Joint UKOLN/UCISA workshop, 22 November 2004.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/ucisa-wlf-2004-11/
A Holistic Approach to Accessibility
Workshop on "Assistive technology: Disabled people accessing digital services", 1 February 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/mla-2005-02/
Collaborative Technologies: A UKOLN Perspective
UKOLN/Centre for Information Management seminar on 2 February 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/seminars/ukoln-cim-2005-02-02/
RSS and JISC Services Newsfeed Aggregator Demonstrator
JISC workshop, "Promoting Your Service Through News", 10 February 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/jisc-2005-02/
Auricle Podcast No. 1, Podcast interview.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/podcasts/podcast-2005-02-23/
Beyond Email - The Potential For Collaborative Tools
Seminar for MLA staff, 25 February 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/mla-2005-02/
A Holistic Approach to Accessibility
Workshop on "Assistive technology: Disabled people accessing digital services", 28 February 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/mla-2005-02b/
A Standards Framework for Digital Library Development Programmes
'Gong show' presentation at DELOS workshop on 28 March - 1st April 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/DELOS-2005-03/
Providing and Using News Feeds: How RSS Can Help
Three briefing sessions at the UKSG annual conference, 11-13 April 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/uksg-2005/
Web Accessibility: A Holistic Approach
UK Museums and the Web 2005 conference, 21 April 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/museums-web-2005/
Benchmarking Museum Web Sites
Workshop session at the "Spring School in New Media", on 21 April 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/museums-spring-school-2005/
Forcing Standardization or Accommodating Diversity? A Framework for Applying the WCAG in the Real World
International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)", 20 May 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/w4a-2005/
Podcast: Reflections on WWW2005, Podcast interview.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/podcasts/podcast-2005-05-23/
What Can RSS Offer the Publisher?
Institute Of Physics Publishing, 10 June 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/seminars/iop-2005-06/
JISC Standards: A Presentation to the JISC
ISC Development Team, 15 June 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/jisc-2005-06/
Using Networked Technologies to Support Conferences
EUNIS 2005 conference, 22 June 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/eunis-2005/paper-1/
Let's Free IT Support Materials!
EUNIS 2005 conference, 22 June 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/eunis-2005/paper-3/
IT Services - Help or Hindrance to National IT Development Programmes?
EUNIS 2005 conference, 23 June 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/eunis-2005/paper-2/
The Web Management Community: Present and Future
Panel session at the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2005, 7 July 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2005/talks/panel-1/
RSS: Let's Clear The Confusion And Start Using!
Workshop session at the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2005, 7 July 2005.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2005/sessions/kelly-b/
Supporting Technology-Facilitated Learning in the Conference Environment
EUNIS 2005 conference, 21 June 2005
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/eunis-2005/workshop/
Library futures in the new research landscape
CURL Members Meeting, London, October 2004
Future-proofing the technology - addressing the challenge
Collaboration for Sustainability Conference, Bath, October 2004.
Digital Library developments supporting eResearch
British Library, November 2004
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/e.j.lyon/ppt-2000-html/brit-lib-nov04_files/frame.htm
Exploring the Global Knowledge Space
SWMLAC ICT Masterclass, Bristol, 26 January 2005.
UK Digital Curation Centre One Year On
CNI, Washington, 4-5 April 2005 (with Chris Rusbridge)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/e.j.lyon/ppt-2000-html/cni-spring05-dcc-apr4.html
From Research data to new knowledge: a lifecycle approach
CNI-JISC-SURF Conference, Amsterdam, 10-11 May 2005
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/e.j.lyon/ppt-2000-html/inst-rep-amst-final_files/v3_document.htm
eBank UK : linking research data, learning and scholarly communications.
JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Cambridge, 7-8 July 2005 (with Simon Coles)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/e.j.lyon/ppt-2000-html/jisc-joint-prog-july05-final.html
Delivering (e)-services to the community: who, what, where, when, how?
SWMLAC ICT Masterclass, Taunton, 22 July 2005
Building Virtual Museum Exhibitions with ARCO
Computer Graphics Workshop, Department of Computer Science, University of Bath, 14 September 2004
Semantic Interoperability in Digital Library Systems
DELOS Network of Excellence in Digital Libraries WP5 Forum Workshop, Semantic Interoperability in Digital Library Systems, Bath, 17 September 2004
http://www.DELOS.info/eventlist/semint_bath.html
A Cultural Heritage Repository as Source for Learning Materials, 5th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (VAST 2004), Brussels, Belgium, 9 December 2004 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/vast2004/vast2004.htm
Encoding DC in XHTML, XML and RDF, ECDL 2004 Tutorial, Bath, September 2004.
JISC Architecture(s), JISC/DEF Meeting, Bristol, September 2004.
The OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, CRIS Seminar, Brussels, September 2004.
Encoding DC in XHTML, XML and RDF, DC-2004 Tutorial, Shanghai, October 2004.
Common Services in the IE, JISC Meeting, London, October 2004.
The JISC Information Environment, Presentation to CABI Staff, Oxford, January 2005.
Distributed Service Registries, IESR Workshop, London, January 2005.
Resource Discovery Landscape, Joint JIIE/JCS Meeting, London, May 2005
To name: persistently: ay, there's the rub, DCC Persistent Identifiers Workshop, Glasgow, June 2005.
Content packaging and MPEG-21 DID, JISC All Projects Meeting, Cambridge, July 2005.
Tap into Bath: thinking globally before acting locally.
Tap into Bath Seminar, University of Bath, Bath, 10 August 2004
(with Ann Chapman)
The Subject Portals Project: overview and outcomes.
JISC/DEF (Danish Electronic Library) meeting, Bristol, 16 September 2004.
What's wrong with today's web?
EMMLAC ICT seminar, Leicester, 1 November 2004. (with Emma Tonkin).
Making information accessible to UK academics and researchers
NASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications) Symposium, Oxford, 5 November 2004.
What's wrong with today's web?
EMMLAC ICT seminar, Leicester, 1 November 2004. (with Rosemary Russell).
ePrints UK and the open archives idea (workshop)
National Acquisitions Group Conference, Aston University, Birmingham, 16 September
2004. (with Philip Hunter)
http://homes.ukoln.ac.uk/~lispjh/nag/nag-conference-2.pdf
ECDL 2004 Conference Organising Committee (Chair)
BIC Bibliographic Standards Technical Subgroup
CILIP Cataloguing and Indexing Group
CILIP/BL Committee on AACR
Reveal Policy Advisory Group
Reveal Database Management Group
ECDL 2004 Conference Programme Committee
9th DELOS Network of Excellence Thematic Workshop on Digital Repositories Committee (Co-chair)
ECDL 2004 Conference Programme Committee
ECDL 2004 Programme Chair
DCMI Advisory Board
DCMI Registry Working Group Co-chair
DCMI 2005 Programme Committee
PV2005 Programme Committee
FAIR Advisory Board
JISC Repositories and Preservation Advisory Group
JORUM Steering Group
Arts & Humanities Research Council Peer Review College
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Advisory Board
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Collection Description Working Group
(Chair)
e-Government Unit Metadata Working Group
e-Government Unit Technical Metadata Working Group
NISO Metasearch Initiative Task Group 2
Programme Committee for DC-2005: Vocabularies in Practice
Institutional Web Management workshop Programme Committee (Chair)
JISC Committee for the Support of Research
JISC VRE Advisory Board
RDN Management Board
CURL Resource Discovery Task Force
University of Bath Learning & Teaching Committee
University of Bath Enterprise Education Group
University of Bath I4 Working Group
SWMLAC Board
SWMLAC ICT Steering Group
AHRB ICT Expert Panel
DELOS Scientific Board
Common Information Environment Group
NERC DataGrid Advisory Committee
UKOLN Strategic Advisory Committee (Chair)
British Council Knowledge & Information Advisory Committee
ECDL 2004 Programme Committee (Conference Chair)
DC Registry Working Group
DC Architecture Working Group
Dublin Core Advisory Board
Dublin Core Usage Board
Dublin Core Architecture Working Group (chair)
DLF Abstract Service Framework Working Group
JISC/DEST e-Framework Development and Maintenance Group
OCLC Research Advisory Committee
British Library Technical Advisory Panel
JISC PALS Metadata and Interoperability Group
JISC Distributed eLearning Advisory Board
UK eGovernment Metadata Technical Working Group
ODRL/DCMI Profile Working Group (co-chair)
University of Bath Acceptable Use of Computing Facilities Committee
ECDL 2004 Conference Organising Committee
| 13/09/04 | Chrisa Tsinaraki, Electronics & Computer Engineer (TUC MUSIC) |
| 29/09/04 | Victoria Pirie, Deputy Head, Museums, Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery |
| 16/11/04 | David Wallom, Operations Director, Centre for e-Research, Bristol |
| 24/11/04 | Kerry Blinco, Infostructure Consulting Services Pty, Australia |
| 24/11/04 | Sheila Anderson, Director, AHDS |
| 03/12/04 | Paul Watry, Automated Projects Manager, Special Collections and Archives |
| 07/01/05 | Kate Fernie, ICT Advisor, EU Projects, MLA |
| 19/01/05 | Bill Hubbard, SHERPA Project Manager, IS Divisional Office |
| 09/02/05 | Sung Hyuk Kim, Professor, Sookmyung W University |
| 07/03/05 | Sarah Porter, Head of Development Group, JISC |
| 14/04/05 | Phil Purdy, People's Network Development Officer, MLA |
| 22/04/05 | Chris Rusbridge, Director, Digital Curation Centre |
| 22/04/05 | Michael Heaney, Head of Service Assessment and Planning, Oxford University Library Services |
| 16/05/05 | Michael Jubb, Director, Research Libraries Network |
Content by Shirley Keane
of UKOLN.
Page last revised on:
21-Dec-2005
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