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Vol 6.1: Spring 2001 |
In Newsline 6.1
BIOSIS at EDINA
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Peter Burnhill, Director of EDINA
BIOSIS will continue as a JISC-funded EDINA service beyond this July.
During the next academic year, 2001/2002, EDINA BIOSIS will likely be one of a number of offerings, each having its own particular strengths and weaknesses; but as you might expect, we are aiming to encourage continuity and increase uptake of BIOSIS via EDINA. New functions are being added to our web-based service, for preview by site representatives during April: to preview the new service please contact the EDINA Helpdesk.
For 2001/2002, Eduserv Chest has announced that the data licence and service provision are separated for the new agreement. Details of the data licence fee are published on the Eduserv Chest web site. The previous agreement, for both data and service provision, formally came to an end last December; the period to 31st July 2001 is being considered as an interim period, with EDINA as the sole service provider. Thereafter, as indicated, it seems likely that institutions that take out a data licence will have a choice of service provider; this will include EDINA and possibly one or more of the commercial suppliers, at prices yet to be announced.
The JISC decision process for the renewal of the BIOSIS service was meant to have an element of market-testing for the EDINA BIOSIS service. As far as the testing is concerned, the feedback on the quality of our service has been positive, as was the review of the EDINA BIOSIS user interface. One special quality noted of EDINA was that it was 'responsive to requests for improvement', and in keeping, we would like to thank the JIBS User Group Committee for their feedback to the review: we have responded by developing the new features reported here.
Other aspects of the experience associated with the formal Invitation To Tender and the subsequent JISC decision to reject the proposals from the JISC National Data Centres have seemed more trying than testing. One unfortunate consequence was the confusion and uncertainty during the winter about what user interfaces would be available in the next academic year and what the costs of the service provision would be.
Notwithstanding, there is still a job to do, and as with the arrangement for access to Inspec, the staff at EDINA do recognise that you will have a choice. At the time of writing, the JISC have not informed us what price will be levied for access to EDINA BIOSIS. What we can tell you is that we value both BIOSIS and our customers. EDINA BIOSIS will be on offer, and we intend that its functionality and pricing will mean that it is a good option.
The old format data for the years 1985-1992 has been loaded into the database and can be searched along with the UEF format data for 1993 to the present. The old format data has a Keywords field which was replaced by the various Subject indexes in the UEF data.
A 'Saved search' facility has been added which allows the user to specify that a search is saved between sessions.
Automatic alerting is also available. The user may indicate that a particular search should be run each time the database is updated. The results of this search will be mailed to the user automatically. (See 'Alerts with EDINA' below for other EDINA services with automatic alerting.)
John Riley, TRILT Project Manager, BUFVC
The British Universities Film and Video Council (BUFVC) has been awarded project funding under the JISC 5/99 Programme to provide a Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching. The TRILT project will broker access to a comprehensive database of broadcast programmes, add metadata relevant to learning and teaching, and deliver it online as part of the JISC DNER.
Following a competitive tender among the data centres, EDINA is to host the TRILT database and will be working in partnership with the BUFVC on the TRILT Project. Both Murray Weston (Director, BUFVC) and Peter Burnhill (Director, EDINA) have expressed delight and full support for this partnership, which bring together the complementary strengths of a specialist data service and a national online data centre.
For many years, UK radio and television has broadcast a vast amount of material of huge potential value to students and teachers in further and higher education. Many FE/HE institutions have recognised this and some hold thousands of such recordings, although it was only in May 1990 that recording programmes for academic use was formally legitimised under Section 35 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Finding and accessing copies of broadcasts can still present difficulties: radio resources can be under-represented; relevant programmes may have been overlooked; general programme output has not been catalogued and indexed from a learning and teaching perspective; different institutions catalogue their collections using different systems and access to such catalogues as do exist may be limited. TRILT will address many of these questions. The online service to be hosted by EDINA will be based on a combination of in-depth online television and radio listings and an archive of programme information, both searchable by numerous criteria, as well as indicating sources of copies of programmes.
TRILT aims to become the most comprehensive online listings of television and radio programmes on all major channels receivable in the UK, including regional variations. Access to programme information will be available five days in advance of transmission. Access will also be given to a post-broadcast archive of information on programmes broadcast since 1997. Selected programmes of value to higher and further education will be evaluated by subject specialists. There will be links to the broadcast programme equivalent to 'document delivery services' of post-transmission videotapes, including the BUFVC's own off-air recording backup service, with consideration now being given to an eventual digital media-streaming service.
The TRILT team visited EDINA in March and both parties were pleased at the extent of agreement on TRILT's potential and the features that might be developed. The TRILT team subsequently visited the data suppliers, Broadcasting Data Services, for another productive meeting and a second batch of test data is scheduled to arrive shortly, prior to regular supply.
The end of April sees the first meeting of the TRILT Steering Committee, a group made up from a wide range of interested parties, where we aim to demonstrate a trial version of the TRILT database.
Late April is also the target for an internal review of a test version of the database containing all available information for a month of broadcasts. Despite that being less than two months away EDINA felt that this was eminently achievable, much to the TRILT team's relief. What impressed us all at the BUFVC was that, even at this early stage, EDINA had a real grasp of TRILT and were able to make some very useful suggestions both for achieving the existing specifications and for adding to the service.
The short-term aim is for a trial service to be available later this year. Information on progress will be posted on two sets of web pages: on EDINA's new projects page and on the BUFVC's TRILT page.
There is also an e-journal on the project and you can subscribe to it by email or through the BUFVC website.
For users who have particular searches they run routinely the introduction of the feature commonly known as autoalerts is a boon. This is now available for most EDINA services and functions in the following way - users set and store search profiles and matching new additions to the databases are emailed directly to them after each update, whatever the frequency.
The EDINA-Ovid services (CAB Abstracts, EconLit, Inspec, MLA, PAIS and Ulrich's) have had this facility from their inception; the CSA services (ESPMD, LLBA, Social Services Abstracts and Sociological Abstracts) have had it recently introduced; for the remainder of the updatable bibliographic services (BIOSIS, Compendex, Art Abstracts and AGDEX) it is being added henceforth. All of which means that before the Summer break, and beyond, users will be able to set their favourite searches and wait for new results to arrive in their email boxes without the need to log on again.
Hugh Buchanan, EDINA
Since the launch of Digimap in January 2000, the geodata software team in EDINA have been working on migrating the Digimap service to Laser-Scan software called Gothic Integrator Java Edition (GIJE). This GIS software, which was selected during 1999 after an open tendering exercise, will provide greater capacity within Digimap, and will take the place of the current Arc/Info software.
For users, there will be a number of noticeable benefits associated with this change:
Simultaneously to these changes in the mapping content, we are making two significant improvements to the user interface:
These improvements are in final testing for Digimap's basic facilities, and will be released in early April. The implementation of Digimap Carto, offering greater flexibility and functionality in map making for confident users, is progressing well, again using Laser-Scan software to provide the mapping capability. This is due for release in late May, and will be the subject of a later Newsline article.
We hope you like these changes. Our logs show that the service is still being very well used, with in excess of 5,000 users from 51 different institutions. We always welcome feedback from users and site representatives on how we can further improve our services.
Helen has a background in Agricultural Zoology and worked previously for Edinburgh University Computing Services as a User Support Team Manager with specialist knowledge in statistical computing. As EDINA User Support Services Manager she has overall responsibility for the EDINA Helpdesk, training and information provision.
Peigi spent 12 years in libraries, eight of those in systems and was Assistant Systems Librarian at Edinburgh University for four years. She changed direction in 2000 and re-trained to be a trainer. As the EDINA Training Officer she will co-ordinate the EDINA training programme by identifying training needs, organising events, preparing material and delivering training.
We at EDINA are sad to say goodbye to John after five years. Having joined to help launch EDINA in January 1996 and to take charge of software engineering for our bibliographic services, John has moved on to become Manager of the Information Services Section of Edinburgh University Computing Services. John's contribution to EDINA's success through his leadership and keen sense of quality service-orientation has been greatly appreciated, by both EDINA staff and our user community. (Though the truth is, he is in the same building, two floors below, so we can still ask him the difficult questions.)
EDINA recently completed a series of four Art & Humanities Online seminars along with several other JISC/AHRB funded resource providers at Manchester University on 22 March. Earlier events had taken place from December to February at the British Library in London, then Bristol and Edinburgh Universities. In total some 240 people came along to learn about developments in Arts & Humanities Online service provision from presenters and exhibitors representing 12 university-based services.
EDINA have been involved with similar ventures previously, e.g. UKOLUG seminars, and envisage participating in similar, subject-based events in future. Watch this space for news of those.
EDINA is exhibiting or giving papers at the following events. Further information and bookings via the URLs listed.
GISRUK 2001 (GIS Research UK): 18-20 April at Glamorgan Business Centre.
IASSIST conference "Data in the Digital Library": 14-19 May in Amsterdam
JISC Working in Partnership: 17 May at the Cafe Royal, Regent Street, London.
ARLIS Art Libraries Society: annual conference - 28 June - 1 July at Queen Mary & Westfield College, London.
DRH (Digital Resources for the Humanities): annual conference 8-10 July at SOAS
For the latest events information, including dates of workshops, see
EDINA, based at Edinburgh University Data Library, is a JISC-funded national datacentre. It offers the UK tertiary education and research community networked access to a library of data, information and research resources. All EDINA services are free of charge at the point of use. For information on institutional subscription fees, visit the EDINA web site, or contact us by email.
EDINA services are:
EDINA contacts
Helpdesk: Helen McVey, Paula Cuccurullo, Stuart Macdonald, and Barbara Morris,
Helen Chisholm (EDINA User Support Manager)
Alison Bayley (Manager, EDINA National Services)
Peter Burnhill (Director of EDINA)
Tel: 0131 650 3302
Fax: 0131 650 3308
Email:
edina@ed.ac.uk
URL:
http://edina.ac.uk
EDINA subscription and registration
Most EDINA services require the completion of a licence agreement before those services can be made available to users. Free 30-day trials are available for most of these services. Please see the EDINA web site for details of the requirements of individual services.
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.
SALSER and the Statistical Accounts for Scotland are completely free services, with no subscription fee. No licence or prior registration is required.
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EDINA Newsline is published four times a year by the University of Edinburgh Data Library. Suggestions and comments on Newsline may be sent to edina@ed.ac.uk. The next issue of Newsline will appear in Summer 2001. Editor: Paul Milne |
