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, 1 August 2007 to 31 July 2008. The structure of the report follows that agreed with the JISC Executive, in the light of an earlier Memorandum of Understanding and the 2005 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, and reports on activities.

EDINA is a JISC-designated national academic 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 education (FE) and higher education (HE), 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 (IE).

During the past year the institutional uptake of EDINA services continued to increase. There were 517 institutions licensed to use EDINA services in 2007/2008 which is a slight increase from a total of 491 institutions licensed to use EDINA services in with 2006/2007, and represents more than a three-fold increase compared to 2002/2003. The total number of institutional licences for EDINA services was 1,550 in 2007/2008, compared to 1,300 for 2006/7. Much of this increase is due to the launch of services such as Jorum and SUNCAT, continued growth in institutional uptake of online visual and sound materials (documentary film, still images) and the continued success of the mapping service Digimap.

The content of services and projects is varied. EDINA delivers reference services (to help find what exists and to provide links 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.

Our user base has also become varied, with colleges as well as universities, with researchers more generally defined as being from both academic departments and specialist research centres. With market coverage of over 90% of universities and two thirds of colleges, EDINA is an established part of the UK digital library. We have worked hard over the past year, reviewing, adapting and improving support documentation to make our services more useful for learning, teaching and research.

In February 2008, EDINA launched Marine Digimap, which provides access to hydrographic maps and data from SeaZone Solutions Ltd. There has been continued growth in project activity with Compass and DiAD in the geospatial area and Low Cost OpenURL Resolver and CLOCKSS in the scholarly communication area.

EDINA has taken a national (and internationally recognised) lead in developing technical know-how and providing support through the Shibboleth Development and Support Services (SDSS) project. This project support activity has converted into defined service activity, with the SDSS team contracted by JISC to provide metadata maintenance and technical support to the UK Access Management Federation for Education and Research (the UK federation) through federation operators (JANET). The SDSS team has been designated a centre of excellence for JISC.

Over the past two years all EDINA services have been successfully "Shibbolised" to enable authentication via the UK federation in preparation for the lapsing of the agreement by which JISC contracted Eduserv to provide Athens access management; this agreement lapsed on 1st August 2008. Service conversion, together with the support required by the community as they too migrate access management to use Shibboleth technology, has had a significant impact on staff resources.

Partnership has continued to be paramount with the academic support staff, librarians and a growing number of other information professionals within institutions that subscribe to EDINA services. They have a key role for extracting maximum 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 the UK and beyond.

EDINA is a UK national academic data centre, designated by JISC on behalf of UK funding bodies to support the activity of universities, colleges and research institutes in the UK, by delivering continuing access to a range of online data services through network-level infrastructure, as well as supporting knowledge transfer and ICT capacity building, nationally and internationally.

1.2 Strategic Goals

EDINA has published a Strategy for 2008-2011, along with a two-page summary.

In order to deliver its mission, EDINA is committed to the following strategic goals. They reflect EDINA’s relationships locally to the University of Edinburgh, externally to its funding bodies (JISC, ESRC and the European Union), and nationally and internationally with partners and prospective partners.

The strategic goals are to:

1. Manage and present a portfolio of data services and projects relevant to need
2. Increase usefulness and relevance of EDINA services and project activity
3. Sustain and develop a well-founded UK national academic data centre

The strategic areas in which EDINA seeks sustainability are:

• Activity, sometimes in strategic partnership with other organisations, providing added-value services that users want to use
• Resources, maximising the return on the tangible and intangible assets of the data centre, especially the reputation and expertise of staff
• Finance, securing sufficient resources to meet EDINA’s goals over the medium- to long-term

1.3 Operational Priorities

A number of operational priorities have been identified within each strategic goal.

A. Manage and present a portfolio of data services and projects relevant to need

EDINA will:

• Provide quality assured services for client communities by ensuring that end users receive services tailored to their requirements, offering reliability, responsiveness and support
• Enhance content and collection development, sustaining leadership in the provision of specialist data services, e.g. reference services for scholarly communication, digital map and geospatial resources, moving pictures, images and sound
• Gain understanding by undertaking research into innovative services and enhancements of existing services, and engaging in ‘future watch’ activities
• Present a coherent and useful service portfolio, managing accession to, exit from and placement within the EDINA portfolio to enable cross-service aims to be met

B. Increase usefulness and relevance of EDINA services and project activity

EDINA will:

• Provide effective outreach and support services, listening to and assisting scholars, university and college teachers and their support staff and developing networks of support
• Enhance accessibility of services in terms of usability and utility and providing choice of access points to the information provided, including investigation of presentation via devices such as PDAs and mobile phones
• Support learning and research activity by investigating and providing ‘Web 2.0’ social media and collaborative tools, and personalised services
• Gain leverage from inter-working locally, nationally and internationally, building on its reputation by engaging in appropriate initiatives
• Develop interoperable services and infrastructure, playing a key role in the academic infrastructure of the UK such as the JISC’s Integrated Information Environment and e-Framework, and in the geospatial Spatial Data Infrastructure

C. Sustain and develop a well-founded UK national academic data centre

EDINA will:

• Provide effective governance and management of resources, facilitating growth where necessary but controlling growth through strategic partnership arrangements and outsourcing where applicable
• Enhance the resource base through technology and staff talent, recruiting, retaining and developing a flexible complement of able, skilled and well-motivated staff, and providing a rewarding working environment
• Develop quality technical capability, obtaining best-value leverage for our client communities from the world-class infrastructure developed and maintained by the University of Edinburgh Information Services group
• Ensure EDINA’s long-term sustainability, by securing sufficient funding for operational and development requirements and widening the funding base of the data centre to reduce risk

Highlighted priorities for strategic activity for the period 2008-2011 include:

• Services for Research Councils and schools in the UK
• Continued collection of community-generated resources in repository services
• Provision of more services on open access, including a repository of learning and teaching materials
• Appropriate use of 'Web 2.0' social media and collaboration tools;
• Delivery of services to mobile devices, such as PDAs and phones
• Personalisation of services
• Improving our engagement with our communities
• Increasing our reputation locally, nationally and internationally, by engaging in appropriate activity and working with existing and new partners
• The building of active 'self-help' communities

In terms of the development of interoperable services and infrastructure, we are prioritising:

• Continuing to act as service provider of interoperable services, and engaging in technical projects to develop shared services and e-infrastructure
• The provision of expert advice to JISC in the area of access management
• 'Adding the where' – that is, geographical location – to educational and other resources, thereby geo-enabling the JISC information environment, and contributing to the provision of a global Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)
• Services accessible to the e-Science community

In addition, we plan to investigate the provision of:

• Advisory services, especially in the geospatial and learning and teaching areas
• Long-term preservation services
• Working with other players in the Scottish Government's e-Strategies to develop joined-up services