EDINA ANNUAL REPORT for the Academic Year 2004-2005

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

This Annual Report is a review of service and project activity at the EDINA national data centre during the financial and academic year, 1st August 2004 to 31st July 2005. The structure of the report follows that agreed with the JISC Executive, in the light of an earlier Memorandum of Understanding and the recent Funding Agreement between the University of Edinburgh and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, for JISC and UK funding bodies. It sets out EDINA's mission, aims and objectives, reports on activities throughout the year and, in Section 16, outlines future plans.

EDINA is a JISC-designated national data centre; it also constitutes a formal planning unit within the University of Edinburgh Information Services. It must be compliant with the strategic objectives of both JISC, on behalf of its stakeholders, and the University of Edinburgh, as host institution committed to the provision of common services.

The purpose of EDINA is to enhance productivity of research, learning and teaching in the UK. It does this directly for staff and students by delivering a broad range of relevant and reliable online services for researchers, teachers, students and information professionals across subject areas within further and higher education, meeting national accessibility requirements and exceeding performance indicators for 24/7 availability over the year. It does this indirectly by assisting academic support staff in their work. EDINA also plays a full and active part through its project activity and by providing infrastructure services and products as part of collective effort to build the JISC Information Environment.

The past year, the academic year 2004/5, has seen continuation of the increase in the level and diversity of activity at EDINA, both for the delivery of online services with a 16% increase in institutional uptake over the year; this follows on from an increase of over a third (35%) in the previous year. Much of this increase is due to rapid growth in institutional uptake of online visual and sound materials: documentary film, still images and digital mapping.

Content of services and projects is varied, with words, numbers, pictures and sounds all now accessed as services on digital objects across the Internet. EDINA delivers reference services (to help find what exists and to provide onward linkage to services), value-added services on repositories of content, and increasingly is a provider of facilities that make for ease of secure use and lowered costs in the information infrastructure. This variety is presented in the EDINA portal via 'web-rooms' to assist navigation and usability. In the Reading and Reference Room, for example, the focus is on words and the changing area of scholarly communication. In the Map and Data Place, the focus is on encoded numbers and graphical display through such services as Digimap. The Sound and Picture Studio includes the EMOL film and EIG image services.

Our user base has also become varied at both colleges and universities, with researchers more generally defined as well as from academic departments and specialist research centres. We have worked hard over the past year, reviewing, adapting and improving support documentation to make our services more useful for teaching as well as research, and researcher/learner, purposes. The experience that the two national data centres, EDINA and MIMAS, have had in jointly providing support to the National Learning Network for further education has further broadened the user base.

There has been continued growth in project activity, often with extensive inter-working with major partners, and where significant services are in the making. Five areas of high policy importance for JISC and for the academic community have been particularly challenging during 2004/5:

Much of this project work underscores the technical content of recent project work, additional examples including the national OpenURL Router and geoXwalk.

Partnership with the academic support staff, librarians and a growing number of other information professionals within institutions that subscribe to EDINA services, has continued to be paramount. They have a key role in extracting maximal value as part of their provision of services. Partnership with data and software suppliers, and with our sister organisations who work with JISC to provide common services within the UK digital library, has also been an essential part of a successful year.

1.1 Mission Statement

EDINA seeks to enhance the productivity of research, learning and teaching in UK Further and Higher Education as a JISC designated National Data Centre delivering specialist data services.

1.2 Aims

1.3 Objectives

Collection, Content and Services

Accessibility, Outreach and Interoperability

To increase the overall relevance and utility of EDINA services, by

To widen access to online services, by

To continue to move to an open technological and service environment, by

Data Centre Development

Business Activity

To sustain and develop a healthy and well-found UK National Data Centre, by

Staff Resources

To sustain an effective blend of service orientation and development capability, by recruiting, retaining and developing a flexible complement of able, skilled and well-motivated staff by providing staff development opportunities and attractive and appropriate terms and conditions.

Technical Development

To develop and maintain an exceptional ICT capability, by

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2. EDINA National Services During the Academic Year 2004-2005

In 2004-2005 EDINA hosted the following national services, a detailed list and description of which is given in Appendix 1, the core of which are JISC-sponsored (*):

EDINA has two 'services in development'.

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3. Service Availability

Throughout the period, the aim was for EDINA services to be available 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, and our target of 99% uptime was surpassed. The EDINA Helpdesk was staffed during normal office hours.

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4. Service Funding

The national services offered by EDINA during 2004-2005 were funded from several sources. The majority were funded by JISC (via SHEFC), but funding was also provided by ESRC (Economic & Social Research Council), the University of Edinburgh, and by subscription directly from UK Further and Higher Education Institutions. A list of subscribing institutions is shown in Appendix 3.

All online services were made available 'free at the point of use' for academic purposes by staff and students at licensed institutions. For some services, such as EMOL and UKBORDERS, that licence is free; for most, an annual subscription is payable. The latter is sometimes collected by EDINA in order to cover the costs of service delivery, as is the case for EDINA BIOSIS; for most services listed above, JISC, or ESRC, meets that cost and collects subscription income. Examples include: Education Image Gallery, Digimap: Ordnance Data Collection, Digimap: Historic Map Collection, UPDATE. In all instances, the University of Edinburgh sustains the necessary IT infrastructure to enable cost-effective delivery of service.

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5. Service Strategy

During 2004/05, EDINA succeeded as an organisation geared to the delivery of high quality online services. The operation of EDINA national services was undertaken by the appropriate team identified in the EDINA's structure of management and operation:

User Support (Helpdesk, Advisory, Outreach, Documentation & Training) 'support to users' and their support staff, and feedback to the service delivery teams: promoting the EDINA services; providing a helpdesk and allied activities; learning from, and addressing the needs of, academic support staff and end users - through high quality training, online documentation and presence at key conferences and events
Service Delivery (Bibliographic & Multimedia Services; Geo-data Services; emergent Learning & Teaching) 'delivery of online services': developing, implementing and maintaining effective online data services, including the design and implementation of customised client software, server functionality and databases, and ensuring regular data updates.
Learning and teaching services and their development are the responsibility of all service areas and are supported by a Learning and Teaching co-ordinator. IT Technical Infrastructure 'management of the IT platform': reliable and sufficient support of online services; planning and maintaining the underlying software and hardware platforms; effective liaison with Infrastructure Services of the University's Computing Services (EUCS); specialist programming support as required. *
Business Development & Administrative Support Co-ordination, facilitation and provision of administrative support; seeking out and evaluating new opportunities for collection and development; providing an overview of all project work.

* The Infrastructure Services of EUCS provided EDINA with support in the installation, operation and maintenance of the hardware and operating system components of multiple SUN servers, the UNIX computing platforms used to host the EDINA services and the connection to the internet.

The JISC Information Environment (JISC IE) has become the centrepiece of JISC's collections policy. The overall aim of the JISC IE is "to develop a framework that will support the creation of an easily accessible, comprehensive information resource that can be used by teachers, learners and researchers within and beyond the UK Higher Education community". During 2004/5, EDINA worked in support of that aim, contributing to the JISC IE through project and service development work.

5.1 Specialist Support

EDINA services covered a range of academic disciplines resulting in a heterogeneous user community and target audiences with different user requirements. As EDINA does not have staff with specialist knowledge in all subjects covered by its databases, some specialist support was sought from appropriate experts, such as the data vendors, relevant University departments and the subject-based Information Gateways (e.g. BIOME, artefact and HUMBUL). We continued to have good working relationships with subject-based data organisations, such as the Arts & Humanities Data Service (AHDS) - particularly the AHDS Visual Arts (previously Visual Arts Data Service) and the History Data Service (HDS) - and with other non-JISC organisations involved in information infrastructure development, such as HE Academy.

5.2 Information Management

Presentation plays a key part in online service provision. In part, EDINA does this through a series of 'web rooms' on what is developing into a portal:

The purpose of the web room representation in the EDINA portal, since revised at http://edina.ac.uk, has been to allow the end-user (staff or student) to view the EDINA services within the perspective of their purpose. There are links to the national services provided by EDINA, links to other services and facilities of relevance, including other JISC-sponsored services and the subject-based resource discovery facilities.

Where appropriate, services were also grouped by subject, thus:

5.3 Technology

EDINA has used both commercial and open source solutions, with three purposes in mind: to host and manage content; to deliver services across the Web; and to facilitate inter-operability.

EDINA continues to move towards a more open technological/service environment. With its use of software and protocols to support interoperability across the JISC Information Environment (JISC IE), EDINA is a major component of this environment. This provides the context for choice of application software and database management systems with which to deliver online national services. This is most obvious for bibliographic databases, but has importance for multimedia and geo-spatial data as the use of these data increases in higher and further education. There is a growing demand from users for information services that retrieve spatial data, through a single user interface, from multiple remote spatial databases, and then integrate those data for display to the user.

The principal software products used for hosting services were mainly proven commercial products: Laser-Scan, ESRI ARC/INFO, Oracle and Ingres. Laser-Scan and ARC/INFO were used for geographic information systems (GIS) applications. Oracle and Ingres are relational database management systems used in the delivery of both geo-spatial and bibliographic data.

EDINA maintained its use of selected open source products such as Indexdata's Zebra, Open SiteSearch, MySQL, Postgres, Apache::ASP and Minnesota MapServer. In many instances the reliability and support offered for these products exceeded that of similar commercial products. Zebra is a database engine accessed only via the Z39.50 protocol, whilst MySQL and Postgres are relational databases using SQL as the main interface. Open SiteSearch has specialist use as a database management system for bibliographic datasets and is particularly suited for use within the distributed environment, supporting web access and Z39.50 v3 interoperability. Apache::ASP is a module for the Apache web server and provides a scripting environment for developing web interfaces to the underlying technology. MapServer is an OpenSource development environment for building spatially-enabled internet applications.

Apache was used as the World Wide Web server sometimes in combination with Jakarta Tomcat. Perl and Java (mainly server side) are used extensively for data processing and in the implementation of user interfaces.

Web Services using the SOAP mechanism have been used during project development as a solution for interoperability requirements and are beginning to be used in services, e.g. Digimap and UKBORDERS. OpenURL has been adopted as EDINA's linking technology for bibliographic services. In the wider geospatial community, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is at the forefront of developing and promoting open standards for the exchange, discovery and exploitation of geographic information. These standards subsequently became ISO standards. EDINA has been an associate member of the OGC for several years and is actively engaged in implementing OGC interoperability standards.

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6. Help to Users: Documentation and Help Facilities

EDINA's policy on provision of documentation and help facilities is as outlined in our Service Level Definition available from JISC's Monitoring Unit (MU) - www.mu.jisc.ac.uk.

6.1 Documentation and Web Presence

As described in section 5.2, EDINA services have been organised into 'web rooms' on the web site (rooms containing either data types or subject areas) as well as having separate service-specific pages. Links to other information services in the JISC IE and the broader information environment are included to alert users to the existence of other services and facilities of relevance.

Publicity material, in the form of the well-established EDINA A5 flyers and A3 posters, was produced and distributed. As with our existing services, new services were documented by means of A4 gatefold 'Quick Reference Guides', and with support material on the EDINA web site. In addition, individual posters were produced for exhibitions and to supplement the standard range of materials.

EDINA continued to provide service demonstrations for new services and interface updates. The service demonstrations are produced using Camtasia in a wide range of formats. These have superseded PowerPoint presentations, used previously for training purposes.

EDINA's quarterly newsletter, Newsline, continued to play an important role in helping academic support staff and others with an interest in our services to keep abreast of developments at EDINA. From time to time we have also included articles from individuals in UK academia, to gain a wider perspective on trends in the community and EDINA's role within it.

6.2 Help Facilities

The EDINA Helpdesk continued to act as the primary point of contact for all enquiries concerning EDINA services and responded to enquiries from both end-users and support staff. It also has a role, on a cost-recovery basis, in support of the National Learning Network and the Digital Curation Centre. Helpdesk staff categorise queries and enter them into a call-logging system, noting those to be included as an intrinsic part of our user feedback system for the purpose of future developments. Calls were mostly solved directly by the helpdesk staff or referred to 'experts' inside and outwith EDINA as appropriate.

Training and Tutorials

During the reporting period, EDINA offered a number of formal workshops and seminars. Ten Education Media OnLine, ten Education Image Gallery, two BIOSIS and six Digimap workshops were run over the year

Attendance at Education Media OnLine and Education Image Gallery workshops has been variable, however 97 people throughout the country have been trained in both services during the reporting period. Digimap sessions, as always, proved very popular and a total of 101 people attended Digimap sessions.

See Appendix 7 for a summary of courses run by EDINA during 2004/2005.

User Feedback on Training

Evaluation forms for all courses continued to be very positive; all sessions were given an average overall rating of "good" or "excellent". Full evaluation reports are available from EDINA on request. Comments from evaluation forms included:

At the end of the reporting period, trainers began asking attendees at EMOL and EIG workshops for ideas to change or add to courses. The most frequent request was for instruction in how to edit video and image resources for including in VLEs or learning objects. These suggestions will be taken on board and future training will reflect the user community's changing needs.

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7. User Relationships, Interest Groups and User Feedback

We continued to work with the JIBS User Group as an appropriate forum for input from users of many EDINA services. The Group's JISCmail list was used in addition to communication directly with EDINA's site reps to keep users informed of service news. During 2004-2005, EDINA staff also presented at a JIBS workshop by invitation.

EDINA continued to make use of JISCmail to keep Digimap users informed of service changes, and to encourage discussion about Digimap between users in different institutions and disciplines. EDINA also uses JISCmail lists to contact a small group of site representatives and technical support staff who assist in the provision of local support for the Digimap service.

Throughout the year, EDINA consulted with institutional user support staff for a range of services, as well as other representatives of the user community, e.g. on issues surrounding interface changes for Education Media OnLine, Education Image Gallery and preparations for the transition from UPDATE to the Land, Life & Leisure service.

Relationship with the FE Community

EDINA has good links with the JISC Regional Support Centres (RSCs), with whom many activities are undertaken across EDINA services.

In addition, the EDINA office at St Helens College in Merseyside has been very successful in terms of engagement in FE concerns and has led to fruitful collaborations, both with St Helens College and other colleges. This office was established in July 2001 and now has four members of EDINA staff based there, including both the EDINA Learning and Teaching Co-ordinator and a former college ILT co-ordinator with an FE background.

Through the National Learning Network (NLN) Learning Materials Hosting Service, EDINA maintains close links with the RSCs, providing technical support in answer to queries received at the EDINA helpdesk. In the NLN service, EDINA works closely with the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta), which is a strategic partner of JISC, and with MIMAS. Becta commissions the development of the NLN materials, while EDINA works in partnership with MIMAS to provide delivery of the NLN materials, and support for the RSCs, which give front-line support to colleges. JORUM will be a key part of the JISC IE, supporting the sharing, reuse and repurposing of L&T materials in the UK F/HEI sectors. JORUM Service Set-up activities in 2004/5 included JORUM presentations at seven RSC events and close working with the Scottish RSCs, who are working with the Scottish colleges on Scottish Transformation Projects and other SFEFC-funded activity. This included running two training sessions in Scotland. In addition, JORUM works very closely with projects funded under the two phases of the JISC Exchange for Learning (X4L) Programme. Many of these projects are based in, or include, FE institutions, and work continues with these projects to capture their content for the JORUM repository service. JORUM also presented at the Post-16 conference in 2004.

The services currently provided by EDINA of greatest interest to FE institutions are: Digimap, EMOL, UPDATE and Education Image Gallery. The number of subscribing FE institutions are given in the table below.

Service Number of subscribing FE Colleges (% of total)
Digimap 11 (12%)
UPDATE 17 (53%)
EMOL 132 (45%)
EIG 65 (64%)

EDINA is constantly working in business development activities in areas that it is hoped will provide more content of interest to FE.

EDINA provides helpdesk facilities and training workshops for its services that are available to both FE and HE. FE colleges are notified via the RSCs whenever workshops will be held in their particular areas. EDINA provides a range of promotional materials, including flyers and posters, to RSCs on request. EDINA has participated in RSC organised events and contributes regularly to relevant JISC and other awareness-raising activities aimed at FE; two of the Education Media OnLine and Education Image Gallery workshops run by EDINA were specifically organised through the RSCs.

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8. Promotion and Marketing

We continued our efforts to market our services to academic staff and students at subscribing institutions. As in previous years, we did this by assisting site representatives and other support staff in their local promotional activity by providing copies of posters, flyers and other informative material, either free or on a cost-recovery basis.

EDINA continues to collaborate with other related providers in promoting and marketing our services. Examples include the Census Registration Service (CRS) for UKBORDERS and the BUFVC for publicising the Education Media OnLine (EMOL) service.

A further area of expansion was the closer links with the JISC Regional Support Centres (RSCs). During the period, we ran several workshops in collaboration with them (see Appendix 7).

During the year, EDINA identified a number of relevant specialist conferences at which attendance was appropriate, e.g. Association for History and Computing Conference, Learning on Screen and ALLCU. A full list of conference presentations and exhibitions attended is given in Appendix 6.

Highlights in EDINA's calendar included:

Flyers and posters were distributed at a number of other events.

The following means were used to promote EDINA services and to keep users informed of developments:

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9. User Registration and Authentication

Registration and authentication for most EDINA Services is carried out using Athens.

EDINA continued to advocate the use of personal Athens user accounts to allow us to offer user-level options. However, EDINA did offer access to bibliographic web services from individual and group Athens accounts. Authentication procedures for EDINA services continue to comply with Athens Single-Sign-On (SSO) and Athens Devolved Authentication (DA).

Following the successful introduction of IP access for Education Image Gallery it was also implemented for EMOL. This has been adopted by a significant minority (~40%) of institutions.

Shibboleth

Since April 2004, EDINA has been working on the development and deployment of Shibboleth, in support of JISC's goal to adopt this technology as the prevalent mechanism for authentication and authorisation in the JISC Information Environment. This work has been taken forward in three strands:

  1. Service Conversion. Six of EDINA's JISC-sponsored services have already been converted to accept either Shibboleth or Athens credentials for access control. Progress is on track to convert the remaining services by the end of 2005. Apart from the technical issue of implementing this software, the main change this conversion exercise has entailed is a re-engineering of the licensing procedures for handling institutional subscriptions. Whereas in the past, this involved informing Athens of new subscriptions, and subsequently relying upon Athens Access Management to make authorisation decisions, under Shibboleth these authorisation decisions are now the responsibility of EDINA. New database management procedures are under development to streamline the handling of this licensing information.
  2. Federation development. Under the SDSS project (Shibboleth development and support services), EDINA has developed a pilot federation with two aims. Firstly, to provide programme support for projects funded under the JISC Core Middleware Programme. Secondly, to explore all aspects of federation development and management so as to obtain the experience necessary to advise on the structure and design of the proposed UK National Shibboleth federation.
  3. Internet2 engagement. SDSS has established effective working relationships with the core Shibboleth developers to ensure that UK requirements are considered in the ongoing process of Shibboleth development work. SDSS has made a number of technical contributions which are now part of the reference Shibboleth source release.

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10. Usage statistics

The number of institutional licences in 2004/5 for the nine national services sponsored by JISC is shown below, in the context of uptake in the three previous years:

Reading & Reference Room Map & Data Place Sound & Picture Studio
BIOSIS Inspec UPDATE /LLL Index Times UKBORDERS Digimap OS Digimap Historic EMOL EIG
2001/2 29 35 - - 126 66 - - -
2003/3 27 35 34 20 109 76 - 126 -
2003/4 28 16 36 21 116 85 - 184 58
2004/5 28 16 36 14 220* 93 26 248 102

(* the method for securing authorisation in the Census Programme has changed; the figure for 2004/5 is likely an overestimate, more like an upper bound)

This table shows continuous growth of Digimap subscriptions with steady increase in uptake of licences for contemporary Ordnance Survey map data, now available for five years beyond 2004/5. There is also the prospect of additional data collections being added to the Digimap framework, such as geological and hydrographic data. UKBORDERS does not require an institutional subscription.

The most dramatic change shown in this table is the growth in institutional uptake of two new services for visual and sound material, EMOL (moving pictures and sounds) and EIG (still images), each doubling since their first introduction. EIG requires a paid subscription; EMOL does not.

The table shows consolidation of the subscription services for the abstract and indexing (A&I) databases in the Reading and Reference Room. There is decrease for Inspec, which once was offered exclusively, and it now faces competition from other commercial service providers. Not shown here, but providing further context, are JISC-sponsored services delivered in earlier years but now withdrawn. In particular, in 2001/2, EDINA provided two additional online services in the Reading and Reference Room, Ei Compendex and Art Abstracts, to 75 and 58 institutions, respectively; those two abstract and indexing (A&I) databases are now delivered by respective rights holders, Elsevier Engineering and HW Wilson, signalling a trend towards non-interoperable access that requires attention.

Log-in statistics are given in Appendix 2.

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11. Changes to Services

Multimedia services

Education Media OnLine

Delivery of the films and videos that make up the collections in the Education Media OnLine (EMOL) service has continued to be a gradual, rolling process. The films are of high quality, are fully downloadable and cover a broad range of subjects from medicine to 20th Century history. In 2005, JISC extended EDINA's contract to host and deliver EMOL until 31 July 2007. By 31 July 2005, 248 institutions subscribed to EMOL and there were 15 collections represented in the service, with the Culverhouse classical music collection and a Channel 4 Shakespeare collection expected later in 2005.

Education Image Gallery

The EIG service initially offered only 40,000 images, the subsequent 10,000 to be chosen in consultation with the academic community during the full EIG service. In line with this commitment, 7,000 images, selected in response to user feedback) were added to EIG in early 2005. As of March 2005, EIG will be updated on a monthly basis with approximately 200 images of the latest Getty news and sport images from around the world in the following subject categories: Buildings; Contemporary Illustrative Material (both photography and art); Fashion; Industry; Key Personalities; Leisure; Major Events - from the international arena; Music; Politics; Social History; Sport; Transport; Work. By 31 July 2005, 102 institutions subscribed to EIG.

Bibliographic Services

UPDATE, now re-named Land Life Leisure

Throughout the year coverage of environmental, leisure and tourism material was extended in line with the growing scope of the service in response to rural diversification. Additionally, author indexing for records increased.

JISC conducted a consultation exercise in February 2005 in order to assess the interest amongst institutions subscribing to a new agreement from August 2005 onward. The outcome was positive but qualified, with the JISC Content Services committee deciding to provide one further year of funding for the service. Preparations for the re-badging the service as Land Life & Leisure began during the latter part of the year.

Statistical Accounts of Scotland

This had been a JISC-sponsored service, in that JISC funded both the initial digitisation project and assisted in the set-up to service. It is now a subscription service that must generate its own income, also providing a free-to-web browsing option to the pages of the Accounts. The subscription service has many 'value-added' features. A transcription of the questions asked of ministers by Sir John Sinclair, digitised images and an annotated transcript of the 'Dumfries manuscript', and the original correspondence received by Sir John Sinclair regarding the parish of Dumfries, were added to the subscription service. A new service interface was developed throughout the year.

Geospatial services

Digimap: Ordnance Survey Data Collection

There was intense focus last year, as in the close of the previous year, on securing continuity and growth for Digimap. September 2004 marked the start of the new five year agreement, to July 2009, between HEFCE (JISC) and the Ordnance Survey (OS) with major benefit for the FE and HE communities. There is still some uncertainty about the arrangements for supporting the new MasterMap format from OS. MasterMap will bring significant benefits to users but will create challenges for EDINA, JISC and OS with regard to its delivery and the support of users. Over the last year EDINA has submitted several costed proposals for a new MasterMap delivery mechanism. A final decision from JISC, on whether funding for OS MasterMap datasets will be available, is awaited. [If funding is confirmed, work on incorporating MasterMap into Digimap will begin in January 2005. This will be a significant undertaking both in terms of technical development and in assisting users to successfully migrate from Land-line use to MasterMap.]

Notwithstanding, use grew considerably in 2004/5, with some 14,000 active registered users from 93 universities and colleges using the service. The growth in users has been matched by a growth in use of the service, with an average of 15,300 sessions per month. Over the last 12 months, users have created 120,000 maps for printing and downloaded some 500,000 data files. The estimated commercial value of OS data downloaded in 2004/5 through Digimap was of the order of £13 million.

During the summer of 2004, in response to user feedback, work began to re-design the Digimap Download interface. This was done to improve the identification of data required, partly in an attempt to avoid users having to download more data than they need. The new and old interfaces were both available for the autumn term, to allow for updating of local documentation and teaching materials. Feedback from users has been very positive.

Finally, further work has continued on deploying web services by which to provide access to OS maps and data. The new JISC/OS license agreement allows other JISC funded services access via Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC www.opengeospatial.org) interface specifications to Ordnance Survey maps and data hosted at EDINA. Internally, EDINA deploy a range of such standards based mechanisms to support cost efficient service delivery. Work has been undertaken to make these web services and thus the data and maps accessible to users from desktop GIS applications. A trial of this new type of capability will be undertaken during the autumn of 2005.

The range of products offered through Digimap has increased under the new agreement. Two new raster data sets and a new, more detailed, height dataset have been added, and usage of these over the past year has been significant:

OS MasterMap, which will replace Land-Line.Plus, is a suite of products and part of the framework within which all future OS products will be released. The central concept of the OS MasterMap framework is the closer relationship between real world objects and features held in the OS spatial database. MasterMap is 'object-oriented': it is structured in a very different way, provided in a very different format.

The current JISC/OS agreement includes two of the MasterMap layers - Topography and the Integrated Transport Network (ITN). The former is the replacement for Land-Line.Plus and the most detailed topographic information available in Great Britain; the latter is a multimodal overview of Britain's transport infrastructure comprising the roads network and road routing information.

Digimap: Historic Map Collection

The Digimap Historic Map Collection was launched as a new pilot service in September 2004, delivering access to historical Ordnance Survey maps for the FE and HE communities. JISC has acquired a licence in perpetuity from Landmark Information Group. The Digimap Historic Map Collection was launched as a full 3 year service on 1st August 2005 at the annual JISC Conference. This is the first time that the full geographical extent of Landmark's historical maps have been brought together and delivered via the internet as searchable on-line maps. The collection consists of:

Coverage is for Great Britain, though coverage varied depending on edition and/or map availability. All maps are provided as TIFF raster images (over 400,000 separate map images).

The new service has been integrated into the existing Digimap architecture and is presented as part of the Digimap suite of services. This reduced development costs, provided users with a familiar interface and assisted with promotion and marketing.

The development stage ran from late September 2004 and March 2005, overcoming a number of technical challenges related to the complexity of the image collections. With web server and graphic user interface development, substantial data management and iterative usability testing, this functionality was achieved and in places, extended.

The development period was also the opportunity to create user support materials (e.g. on-line help pages) and carry out various promotional activities. These included the creation of poster, flyers and information sheets; presenting at relevant workshops and conferences and writing articles for Newsletters, journals and the national press (e.g. the Time Higher Education Supplement).

UKBORDERS

UKBORDERS is the 'senior service' at EDINA; having been launched in October 1994 and subsequently funded as a Census Unit under the 1991 ESRC/JISC Census Initiative. During 2004-5, as part of the 2001 ESRC/JISC Census Programme, users downloaded more than 15,000 files, conservatively estimated to be worth more than £1.7 million.

Responding to user feedback from the preceding year, the UKBORDERS team upgraded the service website and interfaces the during the 2004/05 period, as well expanding the facilities available:

  1. Easy Download - for quick access, downloading the most popular national coverage datasets (inc. 2001 look-up tables) in the most popular data formats.
  2. Boundary Data Selector - control by filtering by geographic extent and format type, and compression options. Selected boundaries can be previewed, with pan and zoom tools on a current Ordnance Survey map.
  3. Postcode Directory Download - for access to the contemporary All Fields Postcode Directories and its historical (back to 1980) variants.

The provision of historical and contemporary Postcode Directories has been welcomed, providing for the first time access to key ancillary datasets for geographical analysis and referencing.

UKBORDERS provides password-protected access (via Athens Single Sign-On and Athens DA) to digital boundary data (DBD). These datasets are available free at the point of use in a variety of popular output formats (Shape, MIF/MID, E00, DXF) for onward use with end users' software. As well as geographic outputs of the 2001, 1991 and 1981 censuses, UKBORDERS supplies selected historical census boundary datasets (e.g. 1881 Census Parishes), a range of higher geographies derived from low level census geographies (e.g. postal and electoral boundaries), 2001 census boundaries in SASPAC format and a variety of non-census boundaries (e.g. environmental boundaries). Datasets supplied by users, which result from academic research activities (e.g. the Consistent Areas Through Time (CATT)) have also been made available to the wider community. Currently, UKBORDERS curates and provides access to more than 320 discrete digital boundary datasets.

UKBORDERS is very well regarded by the community; this is reflected in comments received under the recent ESRC (Williamson) review. Additional evidence for the value of the service to the community was provided by an independent survey of users of UKBORDERS conducted by Kingston University (2004) which concluded:

"Overall the user response to the UKBORDERS service is very positive, with a clear message that it is fulfilling an important role within the UK Higher Education sector in relation to both teaching and research activity"

This reflects significant value-added activity at EDINA as the Geography Data Unit, building and assuring quality of new data from the core Census Outputs (e.g. creating ward boundary data from 2001 Census Output Areas). Providing such data saves each user performing a time-consuming and potentially problematic technical task themselves. UKBORDERS adds value to the core data with 'invisible' pre-service data processing, allowing users to concentrate on using the data.

One finally activity during 2004-5 was preparatory work for a submission to the ESRC of a proposal to operate the UKBORDERS for the period 2006-2011. This followed on from a communication from the ESRC that they had agreed to support the Census Programme for a further five years. EDINA will hear whether it has been successful in its bid to run the Geography Census Unit in October 2005. Further details on proposed activities will be given in the 2005-6 annual report.

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12. Projects

12.1 Learning and Teaching

EDINA has continued its work in 2004-2005 in the high profile JISC work area of learning and teaching. Of particular importance are the JORUM and the National Learning Network services, in which EDINA and MIMAS work collaboratively with a number of key organisations.

JORUM

In 2004/5, EDINA worked with MIMAS on the JORUM Service Set-up project and the final year of the JORUM+ project, which was re-named as JORUM R&D. The JORUM repository service will be a key part of the JISC Information Environment (IE), supporting the submission, sharing, reuse and repurposing of learning and teaching (L&T) materials in UK Further and Higher Institutions (F/HEIs).

The JORUM has two main purposes. First, it offers a place in which JISC-funded content for learning and teaching can be stored, managed and made available on a long-term basis to the community. In the past, publicly-funded content has been lost to the community when project teams have dispersed, and institutions have not always maintained the local servers in which it was deposited. Secondly, the existence of JORUM will enable the re-use and re-purposing of learning and teaching content across the UK. This breaks new ground by offering not only opportunities for teaching staff to download and use the materials, but also opportunities to deposit re-purposed and institutionally developed materials.

During 2004/5, JORUM has developed with JISC a subscription and licensing system to support institutions wishing to use and/or deposit in JORUM. There will be two JORUM services, JORUM Contributor, which supports deposit of content from institutions, and JORUM User, which enables institutions taking the service to search for, locate, preview and download content.

Opportunities for teaching staff to annotate materials deposited by other staff will also be available in the system.

A partnership arrangement with the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) has been established, to provide expert metadata cataloguing services for JORUM. A workflow has been established to support this process, which is incorporated into the intraLibrary system from Intrallect Ltd that provides the repository system for JORUM.

The repository system has been developed in line with requirements from early adopters. Dissemination events, documents, promotional materials and registration procedures were developed to support JORUM Contributor and JORUM User, which will be launched in 2005/6.

EDINA and MIMAS are supporting the content-producing projects funded under Phase 2 of the JISC Exchange for Learning (X4L) Programme. This work continues until July 2006 A "sandbox" version of intraLibrary is available to these projects to enable them to trial deposits and offers the possibility of developing functionality appropriate for trial before incorporating into service.

National Learning Network (NLN)

The NLN Learning Materials Hosting Service is funded by JISC to provide the infrastructure for delivery of the NLN online interactive learning materials. These have been commissioned by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) from a number of consortia of commercial suppliers and FE colleges.

EDINA provides helpdesk support to the Regional Support Centres (RSCs), which in turn support FE college staff. MIMAS hosts the Content Access Tool; a back-up service is provided by EDINA.

e-MapScholar

Through this project, which began in January 2001, staff at EDINA designed and developed an online Learning Resource Centre (LRC), that houses the learning materials, and an online learning Content Management System (CMS), that allows tutors to customise content, geographic extent and tools to their own needs. The project also developed a Virtual Placement (VP), a problem-based learning system which uses a real-life, work-based case study through which students can work, receiving emails from their tutors that appear to come from a virtual workplace. The VP can be used as a preparation or substitute for a real-life work placement, or as a student project.

During 2003/4, JISC funded a follow-up (Phase 2) study for e-MapScholar to undertake market research and examine the viability of making all of the e-MapScholar products available to the JISC community. The report to JISC in July 2004 presented the business case for e-MapScholar and offered several scenarios for consideration by the JISC Committee.

The report found that experts consulted believed that the e-MapScholar project had created a content service suitable for use in various educational levels including undergraduates, FE/HE progression and as an introductory resource for postgraduate students. The LRC/CMS was in advance of other online services by providing a way in which real-time data could be streamed to learning objects, and as such is a real example of interoperability between learning environments and digital libraries. Furthermore, the LRC/CMS has the potential to become a repository for a community of practice integrated with the JISC Information Environment - e.g. a community teaching spatial skills that could form part of a JISC system of distributed repositories. The experts consulted also stated that the VP combines creative simulation with game-play opportunities in a tool that supports learning about real-world application of digital geographic information in the work-place, offering a novel approach to learning that should be of widespread interest in the community.

The follow-on study also undertook user requirements work, which demonstrated that there is substantial interest in both the FE and HE communities in having all the products available to them on a long-term basis.

At the time of writing this Report, JISC is considering ways in which e-MapScholar outputs could be made available to the community on a service basis. In the meantime, the case studies are available freely at the EDINA website, and a prototype learning resource centre is available in the "Playground" area of the Digimap service for registered users. The VP is in use in some institutions and colleagues in these institutions have been seeking funding to develop further VPs.

Development of learning and teaching materials

EDINA also undertakes work to develop learning and teaching materials in support of other work areas. Examples include the Education Media OnLine service.

Education Media OnLine (EMOL)

Education Media OnLine is a JISC-funded set of collections of film and video, hosted by EDINA and cleared and digitised through the JISC MAAS (Managing Agent and Advisory Service). One component of the JISC funding to EDINA is the development of appropriate learning and teaching materials or case studies to support and encourage the use of this type of media. Work to develop materials in the Physical Sciences, Biosciences, Engineering and Materials subject areas has commenced.

Inter-working for L&T

It is important that EDINA works closely with other groups active in various aspects of Learning and Teaching. Our partners include:

JISC has key strategic partnerships with the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the USA, the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) in Australia, and SURF in the Netherlands. JISC views the JORUM as a key strategic area in which these partnerships are expressed. JORUM builds upon and strengthens JISC's strategic partnerships by meeting with representatives of these organisations, ensuring that high quality assistance and advice to national and international partners is provided, and providing infrastructure and content delivery to enable/enhance L&T activities. The JORUM team is working with the teams establishing national repository services in the Netherlands, Eire and Sweden, and participates in activities arranged by the EC-funded Learning Interoperability Framework for Europe Consortium.

The JORUM team works closely with the HE Academy and its Subject Centres in a number of areas, including work funded by JISC in the Distributed e-Learning Programme. In addition, it has contacts with several Centres of Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CETLs) There are around 11 CETLs with an interest in e-learning and contacts have been made with many of them. They are being encouraged by HEFCE to deposit materials in JORUM. JORUM presented at a workshop organised by one of them to consider repository solutions for their materials.

JORUM presentations have been made at many events, including high profile ones such as the 2005 ALT/SURF conference, Alt-I-Lab 2005, the HE Academy conference, the Wales e-Learning Conference and the Post-16 conference. In addition, the team have presented at e-science events, including the National e-Science Centre repository workshop and the ESRC Research Methods workshop, where these organisations are considering how best to make educational materials available to their communities. Presentations were also made at seven RSC events during the year and at several CETIS workshops.

12.2 Projects on Middleware Infrastructure

Shibboleth development and support services (SDSS)

The aim of the SDSS project, which runs from April 2004 until March 2007, is to provide support for projects in the Core Middleware Technical Development Programme by developing a prototype Shibboleth framework to enable project interworking. SDSS will implement prototypes for service elements required to support a national Shibboleth infrastructure. These include:

These prototype services will eventually be replaced by industry-strength solutions well before the end of the Programme in 2007. In the meantime, they are intended to provide a live testbed which will enable interworking between Core Middleware projects within a development environment.

12.3 Projects on Infrastructure for Journals and Articles

EDINA is responsible for three projects in the JISC IE infrastructure for serials at both title and article level. These include the project to develop SUNCAT, the UK National Union Catalogue of serials, one of four projects in the JOIN-UP cluster of the Infrastructure Programme, and one resulting from a completed JOIN-UP project. The JOIN-UP projects each contributed separate, but compatible and interoperable, component parts to the four-part structure of Discover/Locate/Request/Access addressing the linkage between references found in discovery databases (such as A&I databases and Table of Contents databases) and the services that provide the full-text material (typically journal articles), in printed or electronic form.

SUNCAT

Phase 1 (February 2003 - December 2004) was successfully completed and a database of in excess of 4,000,000 records with holdings of 22 major research libraries created. Included in the database are over 1 million MARC records from CONSER (Cooperative Online Serials), an international Cooperative Serials Cataloguing Programme, and over 1 million MARC records from the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) Register. In creating the database, work was carried out to adapt the existing matching algorithm to reflect, better, the varying cataloguing levels of the Contributing Libraries. An important part of Phase 1 work was developing the Users' Interface. The standard interface was revised with reference to user requirements work from the feasibility and scoping studies and was first demonstrated to a focus group of information professionals. It was subsequently tested with groups of end users and further revisions carried out. Funding was provided by JISC for Phase 2 (January 2005 - December 2006) and a pilot service was launched on 10th January 2005. An official launch, attended by representatives from Phase 1 and Phase 2 libraries, as well as JISC and EDINA staff, was held on 15th February.

Major emphases in Phase 2 have been on increasing the number of Contributing Libraries, including specialist libraries as well as academic ones, and specifying and agreeing a number of developments with Ex Libris to improve services for librarians. Thirty seven additional libraries have agreed to participate and data from 11 libraries of these libraries has been received and is being processed. The development work for the Librarian's Interface has commenced. This includes the creation of a specific title-level identifier (SUNCAT ID) and a set of tools to allow manual matching/unmatching to correct and enhance the results of the automatic matching as well as facilities to allow records to be downloaded to improve the quality of local catalogues.

GetRef

The Xgrain JOIN-UP project developed a broker for cross-searching abstracting and indexing services and electronic tables of contents services within the JISC Information Environment. The tool developed is now available to the community under the brand name 'GetRef' and has project funding through July 2006. It facilitates discovery of journal articles from bibliographic services thus fulfilling the first function of a joined-up journals service.

A simple GetRef interface for shallow searching makes abstracting and indexing databases more accessible for learning and teaching. GetRef also facilitates use of these bibliographic services in learning and teaching by providing a range of documentary materials and including 'content-level' descriptions within the service. Continued collaboration with the SPP, and more recently with the Discovery+ project, has further developed the functionality and usefulness of the Z39.50 server .

The user interface has been reengineered for enhanced performance and reliability, and features have been added to enable institutional profiling and preferences. The use of authentication/authorisation credentials for targets which do not support Athens is now possible for institutions with a profile. EDINA has continued working closely with the University of Stirling in order to explore the issues of using GetRef as a service within an institutional portal, and to broaden the range of end-resources configured within GetRef in a way useful to institutions. The University of Stirling has introduced the GetRef web portal to students. This has proved to be a highly beneficial collaboration. There has been promotion of GetRef within the academic community with a number of trials being set-up that have provided valuable feedback.

OpenURL Router

The ZBLSA JOIN-UP Project developed a linking tool that provides portals with the means to locate services pertaining to journals. The tool developed is now used by EDINA under the brand name 'GetCopy'. It connects discovery of a reference to a journal article with services providing the most appropriate full-text copy in printed or electronic form. GetCopy has been designed to be lightweight and business-neutral by operating on existing permissions; GetCopy simply determines the location of appropriate copies, and directs the end-user accordingly.

The OpenURL Router was conceived as the next infrastructure component required in this linkage chain. It addresses the issue of allowing linkage from bibliographic services to OpenURL resolvers. Although the OpenURL standard provides an encoding bibliographic metadata, enabling 'referrer' services to link to OpenURL resolvers, there is no mechanism that aids the referrer in determining to which resolver the link should be addressed.

Because OpenURL resolvers are generally deployed to provide onwards linkage to full text services and libraries, the access to which depends on the end-user's institutional membership, resolvers are typically set up for and maintained by individual institutions. This means that the resolver is of a great deal of use to members of that institution, and any OpenURL link that is not addressed to that resolver is of little use to them.

The only solution to this problem has been direct contact between all service providers and their customer institutions, to separately configure linkage to each resolver. These many-to-many relations are an administrative burden on all concerned. This system also restricts OpenURL linkage to subscriptions services, which have a business relationship with customers; without this, there is generally no mechanism in place for a service to recognise users and the institutions of which they are members.

The OpenURL Router provides a central registry detailing OpenURL resolvers, the institutions to which they belong, and certain details (Athens identifiers, IP addresses and domain names) that help in identifying members of that institution. This allows a referring bibliographic service to address OpenURL links to the correct resolver for each end user, without any prior knowledge of the user or their institution. Along with LitLink at MIMAS, GetCopy provides a default service for users who are directed to the OpenURL Router, but whose institutions do not have a registered OpenURL resolver. A significant number of institutions with an OpenURL resolver have now registered with the OpenURL Router. The project is funded until July 2006, when it is planned that the Router will transition to full service.

Contextual Resource Evaluation Environment (CREE)

This project was funded under the JISC Portal Programme and is led by the University of Hull (Feb 04 - Jul 05). EDINA's role was to investigate the JSR 168 and WSRP specifications, and document the adaptation of existing EDINA search tools (namely GetRef) so that they were compliant with one or both of these standards. This was to fit with the wider aims of the project, the documentation of user requirements of portal-embedded and non portal-embedded search and resource-push interfaces, and the practical integration of these tools with reference portal implementations.

A GetRef portlet compliant with the JSR 168 standard was written and tested in the uPortal framework. The WSRP4J tool, an Open Source Apache project, enabled access to this portlet as a remote web service (via WSRP) with no changes to the portlet code base. (The creation of a tool such as WSRP4J was made possible by the similarities between the web services interface and the Java API of the the JSR 168 specification). A final version of the portlet was distributed to the CREE team at Hull for integration into their uPortal framework instance. EDINA's contribution to the project was fulfilled with the submission of a final report to the CREE project manager in July; this included a full description of the technical implications of providing access to a service using a portlet model.

Discovery+ (D+)

Edinburgh University Library was the lead in this project funded under the JISC e-Learning framework Programme (elf) and completed in November 2004. The project developed a software toolkit to mediate the discovery of deep resources in distributed and heterogeneous repositories. These resources included bibliographic targets; one of which was the to be the GetRef service. EDINA provided consultancy to the technical development of the project and the code customisation (particularly in the area of authorisation and authentication) necessary for the inclusion of the GetRef service as a target.

12.4 Geo-spatial Development Projects

Geo-Crosswalk (geoXwalk)

The beginning of this reporting period saw the completion of geoXwalk Phase III project. This was a JISC funded one year development project aimed at the continued development and deployment of a gazetteer server and service for the purposes of enhancing geographic searching within the JISC Information Environment. It followed on from a successful Phase I scoping study which outlined the requirements and stakeholders for such a service and a follow-on Phase II which developed a demonstrator service. All project Phases were joint ones between EDINA, University of Edinburgh and (initially) the History Data Service and latterly (Phase II & Phase III), the UK Data Archive, University of Essex.

The principal purpose of geoXwalk is to provide a shared service within the JISC Information Environment (IE) that can underpin geographic searching. The rationale behind the project is that there is currently no unified entry point to assist in geographic searching within the existing academic network as each information provider/service adopts different geographic coding conventions (some use postcodes, others placenames, some grid references, etc.). geoXwalk is designed to make geographic searching transparent by 'crosswalking' these different geographies and is analogous to a shared terminology service.

Phase III formally ended in August 2004. JISC subsequently extended funding to this Phase in order that outstanding licensing issues with respect to the Ordnance Survey content be satisfactorily resolved. A Memorandum of Understanding was consequently agreed with Ordnance Survey which has permitted a Phase IV (EDINA only) project which commenced in June 2005. The primary aim of the proposed work will be to provide JISC with enough business intelligence to reach conclusions as to the future of geoXwalk as a shared service. The objectives of the project are:

At a more strategic level, it is hoped geoXwalk can be considered as one instance of a shared service within the JISC IE. It could thus be used to share experiences and feed findings into JISC's shared services programme, as well as present a well thought-out business case as a model for self-sustaining middleware.

Go-Geo! Portal Project

Go-Geo! (www.gogeo.ac.uk) is a portal that supports geospatial searching by interactive map, grid co-ordinates and place name, as well as the more traditional topic or keyword forms of searching. This was originally the result of cooperative effort between EDINA and the UK Data Archive but in 2004 EDINA took over Go-Geo! and rolled it out as a trail service to the UK academic community. Using an ANSI standard, Z39.50-1995, the portal undertakes simultaneous searching across many resources including the national GIgateway service and its network of catalogue services.

A key feature is the ability for users to find other related resources, such as books, photographs, projects and maps, for their geographic area of interest. These resources are discovered by cross-searching the JISC Information Environment and other online information services. The focus of the portal is therefore on 'where' a resource is about and less on the 'what' it is about, which is the focus of other JISC portals. An important aspect of the portal is the resources section, which provides comprehensive information about geographic information resources in the UK. This includes links to information about training courses, learning materials, organisations, books, journals and software which may be of interest to the user. The use of Go-Geo! continues to grow and there is a much higher awareness of the trial service than a year ago. Webmasters from 56 GI relevant web sites provide links to Go-Geo!, which has led to a sustained increase in the number of visits to the site.

While EDINA operates the trial service, JISC have provided additional funding for ongoing development. Between November 2004 - January 2005 JISC funded a short project, Phase 4a, which had the following objectives:

In the final report a recommendation was made that Go-Geo! portal should move beyond telling users where they can find data to permit access, interaction, integration and visualisation of retrieved and derived data.

In February 2005, JISC provided funding for a further (Phase 4b) project. The Go-Geo! Portal and Geospatial Metadata Development Programme is an 18 month initiative to promote and encourage geospatial metadata creation within UK tertiary education. Specifically, the aim is to provide resources that promote and support metadata creation, for example online teaching and learning material, to undertake additional metadata workshops and carry out a pilot study with four universities to establish a business model for metadata creation and maintenance based on the use of Go-Geo! resources as local data management tools. Technical development includes updating Go-Geo! to ensure compliance with the new ISO 19115 Metadata standard, implementation of an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Catalogue server interface on to Go-Geo! portal and the completion of the metadata tool which is integral to metadata creation and the pilot study. The project commenced in February 2005.

JISC (geo- )Interoperability Project

This was a six month JISC funded project to explore the utility of adopting open standards as a means to disseminate, access and utilise geospatial data within the UK academic community. It was a consortia project involving MIMAS, University College London, University of Leeds and the NERC DataGrid. It exploited the most mature of the industry consensus standards represented by the interface specifications promulgated by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The project demonstrated salient aspects of the benefits of moving towards Service Oriented Architectures as suggested by the emerging JISC e-Framework initiative.

The project delivered a number of OGC web services for the purposes of building a small range of use case clients to effectively demonstrate interoperability. These have acted as a test bed with which to elicit the practicalities of and the pertinent issues in adopting a web services based approach to geospatial data interchange and use. The project developed demonstrators to illustrate interoperability, but more importantly has shed light on the issues surrounding the adoption of such open standards for exploiting geospatial resources.

The project also successfully demonstrated that existing geospatial resources can be deployed relatively easily via OGC mechanisms and that in so doing, their exploitability can be enhanced. The interface standards explored in the project have permitted both mapping (visualisations) and data access routes to data. This has permitted novel uses of the data as demonstrated via test use cases and specially developed clients for data extraction, research and teaching purposes.

The primary conclusion is that, while there remain a number of significant challenges to address, not least security, the adoption of open standards for the exploitation of geospatial resources within the UK academic community is both achievable and of value for the future development of a spatial data infrastructure. However, more work is required if the aspirations of the e-Framework and Service Oriented Architectures are to become properly integrated within the JISC IIE.

Scoping a Geospatial Repository for Academic Deposit and Extraction - GRADE

GRADE is a new project funded under the JISC Repositories Programme and is being led by EDINA. The project began in June 2005. GRADE will investigate and report on the technical and cultural issues around the reuse of geospatial data within the JISC IE in the context of media-centric, informal and institutional repositories. The aim of GRADE is to lay the foundations for a sustainable infrastructure that underwrites the ongoing investment in the utilisation of geospatial resources within the learning, teaching and research environment of UK academia. A holistic approach to understanding the issues around storing and accessing geospatial data within a geospatial digital repository will be adopted. The development of demonstrators will be used to explore the range of issues involved and to gather evidence via the assembly of a portfolio of use cases. It is the processes and learning experiences the project is interested in more than the demonstrators and the technology behind them. The project will address a range of issues which are of generic concern to repositories, by using a geospatial media repository as an exemplar, including:

The project consists of a consortium led by EDINA, with partners:

Support and advice will be provided by a variety of associate partners including the British Atmospheric Data Centre, North Carolina State University Libraries (who are leading a project looking at archiving of at-risk geospatial data; funded under the US National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program) and Ordnance Survey.

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13. International Work

As national data centre, EDINA recognises the international dimensions to its work. Much of the raw material deployed in building and operating the digital library, data, software and hardware is international, and vendors view the UK market within the context of their global strategy. The business of academic research and teaching has comparable international context. The UK has a contribution to make and itself benefits from international engagement.

EDINA continues to develop this side of its work, with Europe having significance alongside global, especially American, context. Listed below are some of those developments, including that for staff development, as information professionals. One particular highlight last year opportunity to host the annual conference of IASSIST in Edinburgh in May 2005.

IASSIST

For many years, Data Library staff have been active members of the International Association of Social Science Information Services and Technology (IASSIST), 'an international organisation of individuals who are engaged in the acquisition, processing, maintenance and distribution of machine-readable text and/or numeric social science data'. The membership of IASSIST, which was founded some 20 years ago, includes information system specialists, database librarians or administrators, archivists, researchers, programmers and managers. Peter Burnhill is immediate past President, Alison Bayley is Assistant Treasurer and Robin Rice chairs the IASSIST Web Site Committee of which Stuart Macdonald is a member. IASSIST holds an annual conference in the USA or Canada for three years out of four and in Europe in the fourth year. EDINA and the University Data Library were host to the annual IASSIST Conference in Edinburgh in May 2005, based in the Holyrood Hotel.

Standards Work

Thus far, EDINA has engaged in international standards work on an informal basis only, the formal involvement on committees and working groups being judged to have high opportunity cost. Activity during 2003/4 has caused us to review this. There is growing involvement in OGC, for geographic inter-operability, on OpenURL and on the successor to Z39.50, on ISSN and emergent standards for the exchange of subscription information as part of digital rights management.

SUNCAT

Active participation in the ISSN Network, including attendance at the ISSN Directors' Meeting in Madrid, has been an important factor in the development of SUNCAT as a national union catalogue of serials. The ISSN is undergoing its review as an ISO standard, and revision to take account of electronic publication within the context of FRBR: the relation between 'work' (or Title) and 'manifestation' (Product) is key for the success of SUNCAT as it builds on item records. Productive contact has been made with the Library of Congress and with national union catalogues of serials, especially across Europe. This activity builds upon ground-work achieved through EDINA's earlier participation in the EU-funded CASA Project.

Shibboleth

This initiative, described in more detail in sections 9 and 12 in this report, is necessarily international. There has been contact with Internet2 and with SWITCH, the Swiss implementers.

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14. EDINA Management Board (was Steering Committee)

The University of Edinburgh and the Higher Education Funding Council for England have signed a Funding Agreement, in parallel to that entered into by the University of Manchester (with respect to MIMAS), under which there is to be a new body established. The previous EDINA Steering Committee did not meet during the reporting period, 2004/5.

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15. EDINA Management

EDINA and the Data Library constitute one of four planning units within the University's Information Services. Overseen by Vice Principal Helen Hayes EDINA sits alongside the Library, the Computing Services and the Media and Learning Technology Services.

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16. Future plans

We plan on firm evidence that there is a growing role for EDINA as JISC-designated National Data Centre, but this growth brings challenge as well as opportunity which we intend to meet through deepening partnership and inter-working. Our recent re-design of the EDINA web site this past year illustrates well both challenge and opportunity, presenting the activities of EDINA through a number of 'web-rooms', each intended to demonstrate its relevance to the communities which we seek to serve and with which we wish to engage.

Within the main 'service' web-rooms there has been much change, and promise of more. In the 'Sound and Picture Studio', we expect to see further growth in the uptake and usage of the documentary films delivered as part of the Education Media OnLine (EMOL) service. Our objective is to embed such new 'evidence' in research activity, in programmes of teaching and in the life of students throughout the UK. We intend to make best use of the partnerships we have fostered throughout further and higher education, and especially with the BUFVC/OU, the AHDS and the HE Academy. In parallel, we intend to build on our progress in hosting and delivering the Education Image Gallery service, which offers users at subscribing institutions online access to a major part of the Getty Images collection of images for educational use. Images, whether moving or still, are now showing at EDINA; we plan on the basis that more is 'Coming Soon'.

In the Reading and Reference Room, experience continues to be mixed and we must discern what this may mean for the future. On the one hand, we see success in building user communities for some databases dashed by circumstances not easily within our control, as was the case with Art Abstracts and Ei Compendex. On the other hand SUNCAT, the UK national union catalogue of serials is set to become the most significant serial-level online facility in the UK, with launch of pilot service in 2005. Outcome of funded projects at the article-level, clustered together as JOIN-UP by the JISC 5/99 Programme, have significance. For EDINA, both Xgrain and the ZBLSA projects have resulted in service-quality products (now branded GetRef and GetCopy) that await green light as JISC services, with GetRef geared to discovery of references and GetCopy to location of services for the found reference. There is also now in place the national OpenURL router, which passes on article requests to the 'appropriate' OpenURL resolver, GetCopy capable of playing a catch-all OpenURL resolver role. The challenge for JISC and its service providers is to really 'join-up' and to develop suitable interaction with portals and to attract a viable user community.

EDINA's engagement with Shibboleth development and support services (SDSS), as part of the JISC Core Middleware: Technology Development Programme, offers related authentication and authorisation opportunity and challenge for the UK digital library. Our focus s to implement key components of the infrastructure required to provide a national UK Federation., and to investigate the wider question of inter-federation interoperability.

In the Map and Data Place, the welcome increase in recognition of the significance of geospatial referencing and facilities' both nationally and internationally, provides opportunity. The use of Digimap continues to grow and it is now viewed as an important, and to some a vital, part of the UK information landscape, the uncertainty of the renewal process behind us. However, it does have the technical challenge to make best use of the innovation of MasterMap, an object/feature-based format that promises much for future use, requiring investment in terms of design, re-engineering and storage. delivery. Related project work, geo-Xwalk and Go-Geo!, represent key infrastructure for the UK community, of international standing, confirmed by the contract awarded to EDINA to host the GI-Gateway for the UK GI Industry. Over the coming year, EDINA aims to assist the JISC and UK e-Science and heritage communities extract best value through geo-referencing.

The activities reported in the Learning and Teaching Centre are amongst the most challenging that EDINA is engaged upon. EDINA has responded actively to the call from JISC to engage in support for e-Learning and the use of national services in Learning and Teaching. This extends throughout FE and HE. EDINA is sought out as partners by the leading players in this field, and in turn has worked in partnership with MIMAS, especially in support of the policy-important National Learning Network, and the pioneering work of the JORUM project. It will be interesting to see what becomes of both. EDINA expects to continue to play a significant role as digital repository of learning materials, and will increase the usability of its service for Learning and Teaching purposes. What we must resolve is the engagement we should have in the creation and delivery of e-learning materials.

Our presentation of services represents the role EDINA has to play as a data centre for Scotland. This too is full of opportunity over the coming year, especially with the wider regional agenda for the UK.

What we had earlier highlighted as of significance for a national data centre, digital preservation, now has future through participation in the Digital Curation Centre, with its pioneering engagement with both e-Science and the document tradition.

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APPENDIX 1: EDINA services

Bibliographic Services

Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

EconLit

Indexes and abstracts more than 550 international economic journals. Source material includes journal articles, essays, research papers, books, dissertations, book reviews, and working papers. Contains more than 350,000 records and covers subjects from accounting, consumer economics, monetary policy, labour, marketing, demographics, modelling, economic theory, planning, and more. Produced by the American Economic Association. From 1st August 2005 this service will be delivered and supported directly by Ovid.

PAIS International

Bibliographic index with abstracts covering the full range of political, social, and public policy issues. Topics covered include economic, political, and social issues, business, finance, law, international trade and relations, public administration, government, political science, and any topics that are or might become the subject of legislation. Covers selected journal articles, books, statistics, yearbooks, directories, conference proceedings, pamphlets, reports, government documents, and microfiche. Produced by the Public Affairs Information Services, Inc. From 1st August 2005 this service will be delivered and supported directly by Ovid.

Statistical Accounts of Scotland

Online version of the two accounts of all Scottish parishes conducted in the 1790s and 1830s and published as the First and New Statistical Accounts of Scotland. Together they provide an invaluable record of all aspects of life in Scotland at the time. Run on behalf of a consortium set up by SCURL, the Scottish Confederate of University and Research Libraries.

The Index to The Times, 1790-1980

The Index to The Times, 1790-1980 is an EDINA web service which comprises Palmer's Index to The Times (covering the years 1790 to 1905), and the Official Index to The Times (covering the years 1906-1980). This service is a valuable reference for historians of all areas of British life and international affairs.

Agriculture, Environment & Life Sciences

agcensus

Delivers agricultural census data as grid square estimates for a geographic area for a particular year at a specified resolution. You can also map the spatial distribution of census items for a given region and resolution for a particular year.

AGDEX

Extensive database of over 85,000 article titles or abstracts from the agricultural press, compiled since 1971 by the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC). The database is no longer being updated by SAC (from April 2004), although EDINA will continue to offer access to current subscribers for a further year.

BIOSIS Previews

Electronic version of Biological Abstracts (BA), the largest printed reference publication for life sciences information; and Biological Abstracts/RRM (Reports, Reviews, Meetings), the companion printed reference to books, meetings and research reviews. BIOSIS Previews database covers data from 1985 onwards.

CAB Abstracts

Bibliographic database compiled by CAB International. Covers the significant research and development literature in the fields of agriculture, forestry, aspects of human health, human nutrition, animal health and the management and conservation of natural resources. EDINA offers access to CAB Abstracts via the Ovid platform and an EDINA developed interface. From 1st August 2005, the service based on the Ovid platform will be delivered and supported directly by Ovid.

UPDATE

UPDATE, which will be rebranded as Land, Life & Leisure on 1st August 2005, is a bibliographic database of land-based literature whose focus is more practical than scholarly. There are several ways of scanning the database: via standard and advanced search pages; a wordlist index and browse lists or index terms. Results from searches can be emailed, printed, or saved to a file.

Engineering, Informatics & Physical Sciences

INSPEC

Regarded as the premier database for access to the world's leading scientific and technical literature in physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers and computing and information technology. Produced by the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

General Reference

SALSER

Scottish Academic Libraries Serials, SALSER, a World Wide Web-based virtual union catalogue of the serials holdings of all 13 Scottish universities, the municipal research libraries of Edinburgh and Glasgow, numerous smaller Scottish research libraries and the National Library of Scotland. Facilitates access to information on serials and thereby ensure their fuller and more effective use by students and researchers in Scotland.

Geospatial Services

Digimap

Delivers Ordnance Survey Map Data to UK Higher Education. Data is available either to download to use with appropriate application software such as GIS or CAD, or as maps generated by Digimap online. Allows users to view and print maps of any location in Great Britain at a series of predefined scales. Advanced tasks that Digimap enables are: downloading map data for use, for example, in GIS software on a user's own desktop; advanced cartographic tasks, such as user-specified scale, combining datasets on a map, large format printing; gazetteer functions on place names, postcode area and attribute look up

UKBORDERS

UK Boundary Outline and Reference Database for Education and Research Study, offers access to database of UK digitised boundaries. Includes coverage relating to population census, administrative, electoral and postal areas. Web-based Interface provides digitised boundary datasets in many GIS formats (MapInfo MIF/MID, ArcView Shapefile, Arc/Info Export and several others) for users to download. Also hosts historical boundary data relating to the 19th and 20th centuries and contemporary and historical postcode directories.

Multimedia

Education Media OnLine

Education Media OnLine is a JISC-funded set of collections of film and video, hosted by EDINA and cleared and digitised through the JISC Managing Agent and Advisory Service (MAAS), who also produced associated metadata. The films are of high quality, are fully downloadable (either in full or as segments) and can be used freely in learning, teaching and research.

Education Image Gallery

The Education Image Gallery is a JISC-funded service that provides access to a collection of 50,000 images (40,000 images were available at the time of launch in early 2004; the remaining 10,000 images will be selected in response to user feedback during the remaining years of service until 31 July 2007). The images are drawn from the vast resources of the Hulton Archive, Photodisc and the Getty Images® News Service (current events and sport) and they cover key events and multiple subject areas including history, entertainment, sport, science, fashion, politics, music, conflict, film, art, leisure and women's studies.

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APPENDIX 2: Number of log-ins August-July 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-05 for all EDINA Services

logins by service

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APPENDIX 3: Registered Institutions

BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
Aberdeen College X
Accrington and Rossendale College X
Anglia Polytechnic University X X
Angus College X X
Arts Institute at Bournemouth X X
Askham Bryan College X
Aston University X X
Barnfield College X
Barnsley College X X
Barony College X
Bath Spa University College X X
BBSRC X X X
Bedford College X
Bell College X
Bilborough College X X
Birkbeck College, University of London X
Birkenhead Sixth Form College X
Bishop Auckland College X
Bishop Burton College X X
Blackpool and Fylde College X
Boston College X
Bournemouth and Poole College X X
Bournemouth University X X X
Braintree College X
Bridgend College X
Brighton and Sussex Medical School X
Bromley College X
Brooksby Melton College X
Burnley College X
Burton College of Further Education X
Bury College X
Cadbury Sixth Form College X
Calderdale College X X
Cambridge University X X X X X
Cannington College X
Canterbury Christ Church University College X X X
BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
Cardiff University X X X X
Cardonald College X
Carmel College X X
CCLRC X
Central College of Commerce X X
Central Science Laboratory X
Cheadle and Marple Sixth Form College X
Chesterfield College X
City and Islington College X
City College Manchester X
City College Norwich X
City College, Birmingham X
City of Bath College X
City of Bristol College X
City of Stoke on Trent Sixth Form College X
City University X X
Colchester Institute X X
Coleg Glan Hafren X
Coleg Meirion Dwyfor X
Coleg Sir Gar X X
College of Richard Collyer X
College of St Mark and St John X
College of West Anglia X
Cornwall College X
Coventry University X
Cranfield University X X X
Croydon College X
Cumbria Institute of the Arts X
De Montfort University X X
Derby College X X X
Doncaster College X
Dublin Institute of Technology X
Dudley College of Technology X
Dumfries and Galloway College X
Dundee College X X
Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College X X
BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
East Antrim Institute of Further and Higher Education X
East Norfolk Sixth Form College X
East Surrey College X
Easton College X
Edge Hill College X X X X
Edinburgh College of Art X X
Edinburgh's Telford College X X
Elmwood College X
Exeter College X X
Falkirk College of Further & Higher Education X X
Fareham College X
Farnborough College of Technology X
Fermanagh College X
Filton College X
Franklin College X
Gateshead College X
Glasgow Caledonian University X X X
Glasgow College of Nautical Studies X X
Glasgow Metropolitan College X X
Glasgow School of Art X X
Gloscat X
Greenwich Community College X X
Guildford College of FE & HE X X
Hadlow College X
Harlow College X
Harper Adams University College X X
Hartlepool College of Further Education X X
Henley College, Coventry X
Hereward College X X
Heriot-Watt University X
Holy Cross Sixth Form College X
Hopwood Hall College X
Hugh Baird College X
Hull College X X
Imperial College X X
Imperial College London X
BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
Institute of Education, University of London X X
Isle College X
Itchen College X
Jewel and Esk Valley College X
John Leggott College X
John Wheatley College X
Keele University X X X X X
Kent Institute of Art and Design X
King Edward VI College X
King's College, London X X
Kingston College X
Kingston Maurward College X X X
Kingston University X X X
Lancaster University X X X
Langside College X
Lauder College X X
Leeds Metropolitan University X X
Leek College X
Lincoln College X
Liverpool Hope University College X
Liverpool John Moores University X X
London Metropolitan University X X X
London School of Economics and Political Science X X X X
Long Road Sixth Form College X
Loughborough College X
Loughborough University X
Luton Sixth Form College X
Macclesfield College X
Manchester Metropolitan University X X X
Metro, Anniesland College X
Mid Cheshire College X
Middlesborough College X
Middlesex University Higher Education Corporation X X X
Mid-Kent College X X
Moulton College X X
Napier University X X X
BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
New College Nottingham X X
Newbattle Abbey College X
Newcastle College X X
Newcastle-under-Lyme College X X
North Devon College X
North East Institute of Further and Higher Education X
North East Surrey College of Technology X
North Hertfordshire College X
North Nottinghamshire College X
North Warwickshire & Hinckley College X
North West Institute of Further and Higher Education X
Northampton College X
Northern College X
Northumberland College X
Norwich School of Art and Design X X
Nottingham Trent University X X X X
Oaklands College X
Oldham Sixth Form College X X X
Orpington College X
Oxford and Cherwell College X
Oxford Brookes University X X X X
Palmer's College X
Pershore Group of Colleges X
Preston College X
Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College X
Queen Margaret University College X
Queen Mary University London X X
Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication X
Reid Kerr College X
Robert Gordon University X X
Rodbaston College X
Roehampton University X X
Rose Bruford College X
Rotherham College of Arts & Technology X
Royal Agricultural College X
Royal College of Physicians of London X
BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
Royal Holloway, University of London X
Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama X
Salford College X
Sandwell College X
School of Oriental and African Studies X
Scottish Agricultural College X X
Sheffield Hallam University X X
Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology X
Sir George Monoux College X
Solihull College X
Solihull Sixth Form College X X
South Downs College X X
South East Derbyshire College X X
South East Sussex College X
South Thames College X X
South Trafford College X X
Southampton Institute of Higher Education X X
Southwark College X
Sparsholt College Hampshire X X
St Brendan's Sixth Form College X X
St Charles Catholic Sixth Form College X
St David's Catholic College X X
St Francis Xavier Sixth Form College X
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London X
St Helens College X X X X
St Martin's College X
St Mary's College Blackburn X
Stafford College X
Staffordshire University X
Stamford College X
Stevenson College, Edinburgh X
Stockton Riverside College X
Stockton Sixth Form College X
Stoke-on-Trent College X
Stow College X
Suffolk College X
BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
Surrey Institute of Art and Design X X
Sussex Downs College X
Sutton Coldfield College X X
Swansea College X
Swansea Institute of Higher Education X
Telford College of Arts and Technology X
Thames Valley University X X
The City Literary Institute X
The Community College X
The Higher Education Academy Physical Sciences Centre X
The Open University X X X X X
The People's College, Nottingham X
The Queen's University of Belfast X
The Royal National College for the Blind X X
The Sixth Form College, Colchester X X
The Sixth Form College, Farnborough X X
Thomas Danby College X X
Thomas Rotherham College X
Totton College X
Treloar College X
Tresham Institute of FE & HE X
Trinity and All Saints College X
Trinity College, Carmarthen X
Truro College X
Tyn Metropolitan College X
UHI Millennium Institute X
University College Chester X X
University College Dublin X
University College London X X
University College Northampton X X
University College Worcester X X X
University of Aberdeen X X
University of Abertay Dundee X
University of Bath X X X
University of Birmingham X X X
University of Bolton X X
BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
University of Bradford X X
University of Brighton X X X
University of Bristol X X X X
University of Central England X X
University of Central Lancashire X X X X X
University of Derby X X
University of Dundee X X
University of Durham X X
University of East Anglia X X
University of East London X
University of Edinburgh X X X
University of Exeter X X X X
University of Glamorgan X X X
University of Glasgow X X X X
University of Gloucestershire X X
University of Greenwich X X
University of Hertfordshire X X X
University of Huddersfield X X
University of Hull X X X X
University of Kent at Canterbury X
University of Leeds X X X X
University of Leicester X X X X X
University of Lincoln X X
University of Liverpool X X X X
University of Luton X X
University of Manchester X X X X X
University of Newcastle upon Tyne X X X X X
University of Northumbria at Newcastle X X
University of Nottingham X X X X X X
University of Oxford X X
University of Paisley X
University of Plymouth X X X X
University of Portsmouth X X X
University of Reading X X X X X
University of Salford X
University of Sheffield X X X
BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
University of Southampton X X X
University of St Andrews X X
University of Stirling X X X
University of Strathclyde X
University of Sunderland X X
University of Surrey X
University of Sussex X X
University of Teesside X X
University of the Arts London X X
University of the West of England X X X X X
University of Ulster X X X
University of Wales, Aberystwyth X X X X X
University of Wales, Bangor X X X
University of Wales Institute, Cardiff X
University of Wales, Lampeter X
University of Wales, Newport X
University of Wales, Swansea X X
University of Warwick X X
University of Westminster X X X
University of Winchester X X
University of Wolverhampton X
University of York X X X X X
Varndean Sixth Form College X
Wakefield College X
Walford and North Shropshire College X
Warwickshire College X X X X
West Lothian College X
West Suffolk College X
West Thames College X
Weston College X
Widnes and Runcorn Sixth Form College X
Wiltshire College X
Wimbledon School of Art X
Worcester College of Technology X
Writtle Agricultural College X
Wyggeston & Queen Elizabeth 1st College X
BIOSIS Digimap OS Digimap Historic Map Collection EIG EMOL Index to the Times Inspec UPDATE
Yeovil College X X
York St John College X X

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APPENDIX 4: Summary of Expenditure 2004-2005

This information is not available on the on-line version.

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APPENDIX 5 - Staff at EDINA and Data Library

Peter Burnhill Director (seconded P/T to Digital Curation Centre)
Alison Bayley (PT) Deputy Director
Ingrid Earp (PT) Administrator
Jacqueline Clabby (PT) Administrator
Isobel Johnstone Administrative Secretary/Director's PA
Julie Whitefield Clerical Officer
Local Services
Robin Rice Data Librarian
Stuart Macdonald Assistant Data Librarian
Alyssa McRae (PT) Data Library Assistant
IT Technical Infrastructure
Alan Ferguson Manager & Software Engineer
Gavin Inglis Software Engineer
Sandy Shaw Technologies Specialist
John Murison Project Officer (from May 2005)
Melanie Lee Software Engineer (from June 2004)
Graeme Pow (PT) Technical Writer
Service Delivery: Bibliographic and Multimedia Services
Christine Rees Manager & Project Leader
Leah Halliday (PT) Business Development Officer
Rick Loup (PT) Business Development Officer
Tim Stickland Software Engineer
Ben Soares Software Engineer
Morag Macgregor Software Engineer
Jonathan Hunter Software Engineer
Ian Stuart Software Engineer
Nathalie Schulz (PT) Project Officer (to Apr 05)
Zena Mulligan (PT) Project Officer
Natasha Aburrow-Jones Project Officer/Library Assistant
Learning and Teaching
Moira Massey Learning and Teaching Project Co-ordinator
Catherine Fleming (PT) Project Officer
Deborah Wood (PT) Project Officer (to Oct 04)
Sarah McConnell Project Officer
Steve Rogers Support Officer
Kenneth Baird Support Officer (from Jan 05)
Colin Gormley Software Integration Officer (from Nov 04)
Geo-Data and Research Services
David Medyckyj-Scott Manager & Project Leader
James Reid Business Development Officer
Andrew Corbett Software Engineer
Chris Higgins Software Engineer
Eddie Boyle Software Engineer
Andrew Robson Software Engineer (to Apr 05)
Andrew Elcock Software Engineer
Andrew Seales Software Engineer
Jennie Robertson Software Engineer
Tony Mathys Software Engineer (from Aug 04)
Jagdeep Addagarla Software Engineer (from Apr 05)
Duncan Clarkson Software Engineer (from May 05)
James Crone GIS Developer
Tim Urwin Project Officer
Mike Mineter Project Officer (to Sept 04)
Barbara Morris (PT) Project Officer (to Sept 04)
User Support
Helen Chisholm (PT) Manager
John MacColl (PT) Manager (to Dec 05)
Helpdesk
Helen McVey Computing Assistant
Paula Cuccurullo Computing Assistant
Outreach and Support
Andrew Bevan Promotions
Peigi MacKillop Training Officer
Rick Loup (PT) Support Officer
Emma Sutton Support Officer
Tim Riley Support Officer
Guy McGarva (PT) Support Officer
Tom Armitage Support Officer
Documentation
Paul Milne Documentation and Web Officer
Lynne Robertson Web Designer (to Sep 04)
Mary Hutchison Web Designer (from Oct 04 to Mar 05)
Jacqueline Clark Web Designer (from Apr 05)
Alyssa McRae (PT) Documentation Assistant
Digital Curation
Guy McGarva (PT) Support Officer
Graeme Pow (PT) Technical Writer

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APPENDIX 6: Conferences, Courses and Presentations

Conferences, Presentations and Exhibitions

August 2004

September 2004

October 2004

November 2004

January 2005

February 2005

March 2005

April 2005

May 2005

June 2005

July 2005

Courses and Meetings Attended

August 2004

September 2004

October 2004

December 2004

January 2005

February 2005

March 2005

April 2005

May 2005

June 2005

Demos and Training Sessions

August 2004

September 2004

October 2004

November 2004

December 2004

January 2005

February 2005

March 2005

April 2005

May 2005

June 2005

July 2005

APPENDIX 7: Training Courses

Digimap

Education Image Gallery/Education Media OnLine

BIOSIS

Land-based resources day