July 2004: Volume 9.2
> All stories on one page
In this issue:
by Emma Sutton
In early April, JISC and the Ordnance Survey (OS) announced the renewal of the agreement which provides access to a range of OS products for the higher and further education communities. The new agreement will be for a period of five years.
EDINA Digimap, launched in January 2000, will continue to provide students and academic staff in UK universities and colleges with web-based access to OS mapping. Registered users can produce high-quality maps and download data files to use in local application software. With some 17,000 active registered users from 85 universities and colleges, Digimap is now successfully embedded as a research and teaching tool in the academic sector, broadening the use of geographic information and encouraging research that previously would have been difficult for reasons of access and data costs. Digimap is used all day and every day, with around 12,000 sessions per month. Over the last 12 months users have created 130,000 maps for printing. In 2003 the commercial value of data downloaded through Digimap was estimated at £6 million.
Information about subscribing and registering under the new terms will be posted on http://edina.ac.uk/digimap/access/.
The range of products to be offered through Digimap will increase under the new JISC/OS agreement. Two new raster data sets and a new, more detailed, height dataset will be available:
More information on each of these products can be found on the Ordnance Survey website or on the EDINA Digimap products description web page.
Those who follow developments at the Ordnance Survey will know that the OS Land-Line product is being replaced by the OS MasterMap® topographic layer. OS MasterMap 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 organised and structured in a very different way and is provided in a very different format. This represents a fundamental change in the way in which OS spatial data are available. More information on MasterMap can be found on the Ordnance Survey web site.
The new 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.
No decision has yet been made by JISC on how and when the OS MasterMap datasets will be delivered to the academic community. Check the EDINA Digimap web site for news as it emerges. In the meantime, if you have any queries about the supply of MasterMap, please contact Lorraine Estelle at JISC.
During the summer of 2004, EDINA intend to add a map-based selection facility to the Digimap Download interface. Other enhancements planned include adding simple map analysis to Carto, improvements to Code-Point Download to provide greater flexibility in data selection, and access to earlier versions of map data products through Digimap Download.
by Richard Loup
Substantial new collections are increasing the scope of the film and video download service Education Media OnLine (EMOL). The user interface is also being refreshed in time for the start of the new academic year 2004/2005.
The main change to the user interface, which will be introduced into the service in August, is a more contemporary look-and-feel, but there are also some significant improvements in functionality. These include a simplified Standard Search, an improved Advanced Search (that enables users to explore the service by country of production, production year and duration without also entering a search term) and an integrated Browse Collections function (that enables users to read background information about the collections and to view all the titles in a collection).
As for the new collections, earlier this year the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) authorised further moving image and sound content to supplement the original ten collections. The content is identified, cleared, digitised and metadata produced by the JISC Managing Agent and Advisory Service (MAAS Media Online) at the British Universities Film and Video Council.
In June, the first films from the Amber Films and Open University Worldwide (OUW) collections were added.
Established in 1968 in the north-east of England, the Amber Film Collective was one of the first independent, regional co-operatives deliberately set up to operate outside the mainstream, London-centred film industry and is one of the few survivors of the workshop movement still producing films today.
Amber's films cover shipbuilding, mining and the miners strike, local and national politics, the process of change in local communities and industries, issues relating to nuclear energy, and fishing.
The Amber collection consists of both documentaries and feature films and will be of interest not only to media studies departments, but also to those interested in the political and social history of Britain since 1968. More information about Amber Films.
The OUW films are science documentaries from the Open University Worldwide s extensive catalogues. There are titles relating to psychology, the human body, mental illness, healthcare in the developing world, skills in communication and counselling in medicine, and the logging of patients medical information. Discovering Science is a series of ten programmes providing a wide-ranging introduction to science, which will be added by the end of summer 2004.
Both the biomedical and science material is suitable for use in sixth-form FE courses as well as by first-year undergraduates.
Further collections (some of which are still the subject of negotiation) will follow throughout the rest of the current service term, ie until 31 July 2005.
In the near future there will be added the first of another 50-hour batch of films from the Educational and Television Films (ETV) collection. Also expected in the coming months are films from the Biochemical Society, Royal Mail and Digital Himalaya collections.
Details of new collections,as they enter the service, will be available on the EMOL description page and in the EMOL service pages.
Education Media OnLine will continue to be free of charge to UK Further and Higher Education Institutions via Athens accounts until at least 31 July 2005, after the completion of an institutional sub-licence document.
by Andrew Bevan
As of 1 August 2004, CAB Abstracts users will have a choice of interfaces for this important service. EDINA will continue to offer the Ovid interface, and in addition, offer a new EDINA interface.
To arrange a 30-day institution-wide trial access to preview either or both interfaces, please contact EDINA at edina@ed.ac.uk.
The underlying service will be offered from the EDINA servers in Edinburgh. This guarantees resilience, in line with standard EDINA service level definitions.
Features include:
The underlying service will be offered directly from the Ovid Regional Data Centre (RDC), which will offer:
CAB Abstracts is a bibliographic database compiled by CABI Publishing. It 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.
by Andrew Bevan
EDINA are pleased to announce the continuation of the following services, in conjunction with Ovid technologies, for the academic year 2004/05: EconLit, MLA International Bibliography, PAIS International, Inspec and CAB Abstracts. This develops the partnership with Ovid dating back to 1998.
There are also service improvements occurring over the Summer. The underlying databases are switching directly to the Ovid Regional Data Centre (RDC) in Manchester. The current service URLs will, however, remain the same for each of the services, e.g. edina.ac.uk/mla. This will bring noticeable improvements, such as quicker database updates, extra software features, and a consolidation of all subscribed Ovid databases on a single menu.
Further details, including trial information.
by Tim Riley
EDINA recently launched the Web Map Viewer service - providing visualisation of global satellite data from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The Web Map Viewer is one result of EDINA's investment in interoperability standards development which offers access to new data.
This free service accesses and displays Landsat 5 and 7 imagery published through an Open GIS Consortium (OGC) compliant web map server at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. In due course, EDINA plans to provide further Viewers that link to other servers around the world.
The Web Map Viewer includes on-line help describing how to use the application and descriptions of the datasets available.
by Sandy Shaw
The JISC has made a substantial commitment to adopt Shibboleth technology as the principal framework for authentication and authorisation within the JISC Information Environment. In support of this, EDINA is leading a group of partners within the University of Edinburgh to advance this work under the Shibboleth Development and Support Services project (SDSS).
This project is funded by the Core Middleware Technology Development Programme which is supporting a total of 15 projects to develop and explore this technology. SDSS will act in an enabling role for these projects by providing prototype elements of the infrastructure necessary for this national activity. These elements include:
It is intended that these prototype services will eventually be replaced by industry-strength solutions before the end of the project in 2007. Meantime, they will provide a live testbed which will enable interworking between other Core Middleware projects within a service environment.
by John MacColl
EDINA held its first general information event for the HE and FE communities on Tuesday 11 May. EDINA Exchange took place in the National E-Science Centre at the University of Edinburgh.
After an introduction by EDINA Director Peter Burnhill, the morning session began with presentations on the various subject and resource type clusters in which EDINA is active.
Christine Rees, Team Manager for Bibliographic and Multimedia Services, explained that EDINA bibliographic services are primarily based around abstract and index (A&I) databases. Coverage at EDINA is strong in several areas. In health, agricultural and life sciences there are BIOSIS Previews, Update and CAB Abstracts. In the arts, humanities and social sciences EDINA offers Index to the Times, EconLit, PAIS and MLA. INSPEC covers engineering, informatics and physical sciences.
Two significant bibliographic infrastructure projects have been Xgrain and ZBLSA, both funded by JISC to provide services based upon new digital library technologies at the national level to support institutional-level use. These two projects have produced two products for deployment in the JISC IE, GetRef and GetCopy respectively. GetRef searches across a range of A&I databases - both free and commercial - as well as the British Library s ZETOC table of contents service, and can be deployed either via an EDINA-hosted interface, or as a local portlet. GetCopy takes users from citations to full-text by acting as an OpenURL resolver. EDINA calls it a 'lightweight broker', since there is no institutional installation required. GetCopy will tell users about services to which they have rights of access.
Rick Loup, Multimedia Services Development Officer, gave a presentation on the Education Image Gallery and Education Media Online.
David Medyckyj-Scott, Team Manager for Geographic Data and Research Services, gave the next presentation on what EDINA currently offers for its well-known geospatial data services.
UKBORDERS acts as the primary platform for census boundary data in the UK. Recent developments include the Easy Download service for pre-built datasets, and a new boundary selector facility is currently in testing.
The latest developments for Digimap can be found in this edition of Newsline.
Other services in development will deliver data for Great Britain from the British Geological Survey, and from the UK Hydrographic Office. EDINA is also looking to expand into global and regional map data, looking for the first time beyond Great Britain. (See the Web Map Viewer article in this edition for a look at EDINA's new Web Map Viewer service.)
Stuart MacDonald, Assistant Data Librarian, gave a presentation on agcensus, the Agricultural Census service. EDINA staff have developed algorithms to convert the census data into grid square estimates. The new service offers both data downloads, suitable for use with GIS packages, and data visualisation.
Geospatial projects include the Go-Geo! geo-data portal, and geoXwalk, a digital gazetteer service.
Geospatial teaching materials in a number of subjects are now available through the E-MapScholar project. These have been developed by academics across the UK for use in real teaching contexts. Learning and Teaching Projects Co-ordinator Moira Massey described how St Helen's College is producing case studies using E-MapScholar.
Moving into the realm of historic data, Helen Chisholm, User Support Team Manager, described the Statistical Accounts of Scotland, which comprises contemporary of accounts representing an early exercise in population survey and record in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. Teaching modules based on the Accounts are planned for delivery, and indexes to the tables are in preparation.
Data Librarian Robin Rice described EDINA's contribution to the newly-established Digital Curation Centre (DCC). 'Digital curation' represents an approach to data management which embraces both digital preservation and data curation. A national centre has been established because it is considered that the challenges involved are too great to leave to institutional solutions alone. Digital data curation embraces the needs of both the static documentary world and the new world of massive and dynamic data generated by eScience.
See the DCC web site for more information.
The intention is to launch the Centre in early November 2004.
Moira Massey described EDINA's work in supporting learning and teaching. EDINA is a partner in the National Learning Network delivery service, along with MIMAS, JISC and Becta. The JISC Online Repository for Learning and Teaching Materials (JORUM) will become a service from August 2005. This is designed to meet JISC's need for a repository for the learning materials it has commissioned in the past, and those it will commission in the future. It will provide a library of learning resources, and the upload and publication of academics own learning materials will be strongly encouraged.
IT Team Manager Alan Ferguson described the Shibboleth project on which EDINA has just embarked as part of JISC's Core Middleware programme. Shibboleth is an authorisation and authentication framework for access to web resources which is currently gaining international momentum.
In the afternoon, delegates divided into groups to discuss a range of issues relevant to EDINA services and projects, and came up with a number of salient points and questions. Many of the questions pushed on boundaries and spheres of influence between various institutions and services, at both local and national levels: where should the boundary lie between JISC and EDINA when it comes to promoting EDINA services? And similarly, where does it lie between EDINA and local institutions?
The relationship between local and national solutions to particular problems is a relatively new one when it comes to learning objects and discovery tools - although a well-known one in respect of bibliographic and other data-hosting services. EDINA has been at the forefront of the solution to the data hosting needs of the community for many years. The EDINA Exchange event highlighted the new challenges which lie ahead as EDINA moves towards its 10th birthday in 2005.
Presentations and notes from the sessions, in addition to a link to a web survey form which will help us to plan future events can be found at the EDINA Exchange web page. Newsline readers' input into the process is encouraged.
EDINA has an exhibition stand at the following event:
The latest information on events and courses can be found on the EDINA web site at the News and Events page.