1. Introduction

The Annual Report made to the JISC Executive on service and project activity at the EDINA national data centre during the financial and academic year, 1 August 2008 to 31 July 2009, is largely a summary of the quarterly reporting that EDINA makes to JISC via the Monitoring Unit and the quarterly reports to the Operational Plan. It will be complemented by an EDINA Annual Review presented to the EDINA Management Board, and by editions of the EDINA Community Report made available to the wider research and education sector.

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. What is reported here is 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.

During 2008/2009 EDINA hosted 22 national services. A total of 505 institutions were licensed to use at least one EDINA service, this represents market coverage of over 97% of universities and two thirds of colleges within the UK. The total number of institutional licences for EDINA services in 2008/2009 rose to 1,565, due mainly to the launch of the popular NewsFilm Online service in October 2008.

The services provided by EDINA represent important ways in which the JISC mission is realised. JISC's Strategy for 2007 – 2009 stated that, "JISC envisages continuing to develop the two JISC national data centres (EDINA and Mimas) as primary service-partners for a range of content and production services". This is true within the UK and as part of its international strategic partnerships, such as Knowledge Exchange (http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/) and the E-Framework for Education and Research (http://www.e-framework.org/). As an established part of the UK digital library, EDINA has been working in partnership with other JISC-sponsored bodies and with the academic support staff within institutions that subscribe to EDINA 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.

EDINA continues to develop its world-wide reputation for innovative service delivery and R&D activities, excelling in the business areas of geospatial, scholarly communication, multimedia, learning and teaching, and access management. Important national and international groups with which we have continued to maintain close links in 2008-2009 include governmental, educational, standards development, research data, commercial, web services and grid development organisations.

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 Strategy

EDINA published its Strategy for 2009 – 2012 and a Business Development Plan for 2009 – 2012 in May 2009 .

During the academic year 2008/2009, the EDINA Strategy and business development priorities for 2010 – 2013 were also developed. A rolling Strategy enables EDINA to ensure that our focus remains on staying relevant to our communities and demonstrating the added value that researchers, teachers, support staff and learners receive from our services.

1.3 Operational Priorities

This document reports on progress in many of the following areas that have been highlighted as priorities for strategic activity for the period 2008 – 2011:

• 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.

For the development of interoperable services and infrastructure, we prioritised:

• 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 planned 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.

This document reports on progress in many of these areas.