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.
Newsline from EDINA
July 2004: Volume 9, Issue 2
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.