Vol 3.1: Spring 1998

In Newsline 3.1 Making EDINA services more accessible EDINA sets its sights on SiteSearch version 4.0 ATHENS3 update for 'sitereps' New improved BIOSIS UKBORDERS™ gets spring clean EDINA site visits Art Abstracts What is EDINA?

Making EDINA services more accessible

The EDINA Web pages are being re-vamped following an internal study aimed at increasing the accessibility of EDINA's on-line services. One of the outcomes of this study has been the adoption by EDINA of a set of 'accessibility guidelines' for future work on Web pages and Web interfaces.

Although the initial purpose of the study was to find out how to make our services more accessible to people with visual impairments and other disabilities, we discovered that the issue of accessibility had a much wider context. In fact, the very methods used in making services more accessible to disabled people are directly relevant in designing services that are accessible from a range of computers and browsers.

But what does it mean to say that a service is 'accessible' to people with disabilities? At a minimum level it means that the service is usable by them -- that they can access all of its functions and options. Ideally, it means they can use the service as easily, efficiently and effectively as any other group.

To make on-line services accessible to people with a variety of disabilities, a range of measures are required. In some cases, accessibility is primarily about having appropriate input devices (e.g., keyboard, mouse, etc.) and this is an area which is beyond EDINA's control. But there are measures which we can take.

Because our Web pages and services present information visually, the needs of visually-impaired users are a major consideration. Visual impairments include low vision, blindness and colour blindness. Users with low vision may find it hard to read text that does not contrast well with the background colour of the page, while those with colour blindness may have difficulty distinguishing between red and green, or yellow and blue. People who are blind may use screen reading software to convert pages to plain text which is then either converted to Braille or read aloud via a speech synthesiser.

Fortunately, the Web is well-suited to meeting the varied needs of different groups of users, because Web pages can be defined in terms of a logical structure rather than physical layout. For example, a certain word can be defined as a 'heading,' rather than as a text having a particular font and size (e.g., Times 12). Documents that are designed using logical definitions give the end user a high degree of control over how the page actually appears.

Features that will help make our new Web pages more accessible are:

• A text version of all pages that contain tables, and the provision of alternative text for all images.
• The use of relative font specifications rather than absolute font sizes. This means that Web pages still look good even if a user changes the default font size on their browser.
• Use of colour in a way which does not cause difficulties for people with colour-blindness or low vision.
• The labelling of list items with letters or numbers so that people using screen reading software can tell where one list item ends and another begins.

Along with features to improve accessibility, the re-design will also bring changes to the structure of the information on our Web pages to clarify the topic content and provide links to related sources.

We hope that all our users will find our new Web pages attractive and easy to use. Work on the re-vamp is still in progress, but for more information and a preview of the new design, please see http://edina.ac.uk/dev/index.html We would welcome your comments.

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EDINA sets its sights on SiteSearch 4.0

EDINA has been selected by OCLC (the On-line Computer Library Center) as one of five field test organisations -- the only one in Europe -- for SiteSearch 4.0. OCLC SiteSearch is a database system that EDINA currently uses to deliver two of its on-line services across the World Wide Web. PCI-Web was the first EDINA service to be run using SiteSearch version 3.1 as an alternative to the PCI Telnet service. The more recent Art Abstracts service is available only as a WWW service, again implemented with SiteSearch 3.1.

SiteSearch version 3.1

However, it is the next few components, collectively known as WebZ (pronounced Web-Zee -- it's American) that make up the interface seen by the user's Web browser. WebZ consists of HTML pages with an embedded entity language called WZEL (pronounced Weasel). Several of these Web pages are tied together by CGI scripts, and a Formatting Control Language (FCL) that formats the BER/MARC records returned by Newton (via Irpserv). Following so far? Good, because with SiteSearch version 4.0 most of this changes. . . .

SiteSearch version 4.0

Replacing Irpserv is ZBase, a server that manages Z39.50 sessions more flexibly, and allows connections to Newton databases, to remote Z39.50 servers and possibly to other types of database. Having a full programming language such as Java at the interface designer's fingertips enables flexible control over the appearance of the interface and record formats, and facilitates improved features such as outputting records, customising the interface appearance and saving search requests between sessions.

EDINA as field tester

Future developments at EDINA

We will also be updating our PCI-Web and Art Abstracts services to make use of many of the new features available in SiteSearch 4.0, including retrieving old searches, marking and outputting records, and individual profiling so that a user can control some of the appearance of the service which he or she is using.

Possible future services to be run using SiteSearch 4.0 include WWW versions of Palmer's Index to The Times and BIOSIS Previews.

We expect SiteSearch 4.0 to be in operation at EDINA before the end of the academic year.

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ATHENS update for 'sitereps'

In response to feedback, the timetable for EDINA's move to ATHENS3 has been made more flexible. The existing stock of EDINA cards may now be used to register users until the end of this academic session. It is still intended that all users have an ATHENS3 ID by the start of the academic year 1998/99. Please contact us as soon as possible if you wish to discuss your timetable or other concerns.

Selection of frequently asked questions:

For questions relating directly to EDINA (e.g., transition timetable, etc.) contact the EDINA helpdesk. We may also be able to put you in touch with institutions that are using ATHENS3 successfully.

FAQs are available from the ATHENS Web pages at http://www.athens.ac.uk, and from the EDINA Web pages.

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New improved BIOSIS!

BIOSIS Inc., who create and supply us with the data for the EDINA BIOSIS service, are about to make improvements to their data format. The 'Universal Electronic Format' will result in more detail within each record than before, but also some changes in the way the information is presented. This will inevitably affect the appearance of the service to users.

The new information will include, among other things:

• CAS Registry Numbers (R) (a widely-used numerical coding of chemicals devised by the Chemical Abstracts Society)
• Medline's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terminology
• author email address and URL
• book or article title in original language
• book publisher address

Some questions which you might have: When is this going to happen? What do I need to know? What about the data already in the database -- will it change too?

BIOSIS Inc. are about to start giving us database updates in the new format; they will continue to give us updates in the old format, and will do so until the end of June. In addition, they are planning to supply 'backfiles' in the new format, of existing data back to the start of 1993, but not earlier.

Users of EDINA BIOSIS may know that we store each year's data in a separate database; in fact we have 14 databases in all, from 1985 to 1998. Since the data changes are such as to require a modified database format, this means that in future we will have old format databases (1985 to 1992) and new format databases (1993 onwards). One implication of all this is that, while the interface will be changed to accommodate the new information provided, it must still be able to interwork effectively with the old format -- indeed searches could straddle old format years and new format years. The changes in the user interface will be in the nature of additional search options, or perhaps a rewording of existing search options to reflect the new data, but they will not amount to a radical change in the structure: for example, all fields which are currently searchable will continue to be in the future.

Timetable: We are still working on the details of the new database format and the modified interface. We plan to have a field testing phase after Easter. (Please email edina@ed.ac.uk if you would like to take part.) We will then finalise the changes and put the new format into service before the start of July.

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UKBORDERS™ gets a spring clean

1. a more flexible, easier to use interface
2. context-specific on-line help
3. a new generalisation algorithm tailored specifically for Census digital boundary data
4. MapInfo MIF/MID data produced much faster via MapInfo Corp translator software
5. the ability to preview retrievals graphically (on the Web) before downloading the data
6. guidance of user choice to valid options.

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EDINA site visits

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Art Abstracts

Free 30-day trial

A 'preview' of the service is also available from the EDINA Web pages, in the form of a slideshow.

Pricing policy

Institutions are grouped into tiers according to the number of full time staff and students in subject areas immediately relevant to the resource, plus half the number of full time staff and students in related subject areas.

In introducing this variable-pricing scheme the JISC followed the recommendations of the Committee for Electronic Information Working Group on charging, which reported last autumn.

Edinburgh Data & INformation Access

EDINA services are:

• EDINA Art Abstracts
• EDINA BIOSIS
• Ordnance Survey Strategi^TM
• EDINA PCI (Periodicals Contents Index)
• EDINA Palmer's Index to The Times
• SALSER (Scottish Academic Libraries SERials)
• UKBORDERS™

EDINA Contacts

EDINA Subscription and Registration

For Art Abstracts, BIOSIS, the Periodicals Contents Index and Palmer's Index to The Times, licence agreements must be obtained from Eduserv Chest (email chest@chest.ac.uk) and a subscription fee must be paid. Individual users must also register locally at their library.

For UKBORDERS™, there is no fee for academic institutions within the UK, but a licence agreement must be signed (email edina@ed.ac.uk) and individual users must sign an End User Licence.

For Ordnance Survey Strategi, each institution is required to hold a current and valid Ordnance Survey Educational Copyright Licence in addition to a subscription to EDINA. Contact EDINA in the first instance (email edina@ed.ac.uk).

SALSER is a completely free service, with no subscription fee. No licence or prior registration is required.

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