A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Enhancing access to e-resources.
Dr Liz Lyon,
Director, UKOLN
RSC-SW Meeting, Taunton.
2nd July, 2003
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Overview
• About UKOLN• What are the issues to consider?• Some exemplars, tools and good practice
guidelines– Portals: what is their role?– Embedding content: digital libraries and VLEs– Web-based developments: how to improve them
• Questions and discussion
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
About UKOLN • Core funding from JISC & Resource• Cross-sectoral remit• Our audiences include:
– HE / FE (L&T, research, admin)– Cultural heritage (museums, public libraries, archives)– National libraries (British Library)– e-government (Office of the e-Envoy)– NHS / health sector – International digital library research community
• University of Bath• 30 staff• Mix of technical support and development, advisory and research
activities• http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
What are the issues?• Finding (good) “stuff”
– Overload: the Google factor
– Relevance– Provenance – Quality-assurance
• Providing a full range of resources – User requirements– Selectivity– Cost-benefits– Licensing – Management information
• Accessing resources– Accessibility
– Legislation
• Re-using and sharing materials– Learning object, data,
article, image, program
– Interoperability or using common standards and protocols
• Training & support• ???
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
How can you help learners to access e-resources more easily?
• Portals: what is their role in presentation?• Embedding content:
– Seamless access to quality-assured content– Integrating digital libraries and VLEs
• Improving Web development activities– The importance of standards– Benchmarking principles
• Exemplars and tools from UKOLN projects and services
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
“a secure, single point of interaction with diverse information, business processes and people, personalised to a user’s need and responsibilities”
IBM, 2003.
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
“ an online service that provides a personalised, single point of access to resources that support the end-user in one or more tasks.”
JISC, 2003.
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
JISC Fair PORTAL project• www.fair-portal.hull.ac.uk • Exploring a wide range of issues relating to institutional
portals, and the integration of national resources with institutional information and services.
• Survey >600 responses + f2f consultation• Stakeholder requirements
– What they want / don’t want
• Literature review of outputs• Review of metadata standards for portal users e.g.
eduPerson, IMS LIP• uPortal guide to follow shortly
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Ariadne Issue 35, 2003
Syndicated content….
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
7 x RSS Recommendations
1. Adhere to the standards2. Ensure persistence3. Don’t use too many feeds < 64. Ensure currency5. Each feed should have a purpose6. Register your RSS feed7. Create your textual content carefully
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Creating more RDN resources for FE
• RDN4FE project (JISC X4L funding)• Record enhancement tool• Backend feature to increase records tagged for FE
community• FE tagging
– FE notes– FE subject (LearnDirect scheme)– FE level
• FE colleges can – categorise and export their own records into RDN – import RDN records for local use
• Testing now with 2 pilot colleges (Hammersmith & West London College & The Sheffield College)
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Embedding RDN resources summary
• Working with the RDN http://www.rdn.ac.uk/publications/workingwithrdn/
– RDN-include and RDNi-Lite– > 100 downloads – RDN-Channel-Lite
• Embedding RDN services into VLEs http://www.rdn.ac.uk/publications/rdnvle/
• RDN4FE project• [email protected]
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Providing Web good practice guidance
• UK Web Focus – Brian Kelly• Promotes standards and best practice to the
FE and HE communities• JISC W3C representative • Ariadne regular column
– Web testing tools– Web Watch survey of server software– HTML standards compliance
• Annual conference 11-13 June 2003 Theme: Supporting our users
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Ariadne Issue 35, 2003
A standards-based culture….
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Benchmarking your Web site: is it up to scratch?• Workshops for RSCs (Eastern and South-west)
– Home pages: size, entry points– Validation, accessibility, broken links– Currency– Hits (popularity)– Statistics– Performance
• Tools e.g. Bobby, WAVE, Dr Watson, NetMechanic, WebSiteGarage, Nedstat, DejaVu
• http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/rsc-eastern-2003/
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
How you can help learners to access e-resources more easily
• Portalise: make the presentation of resources user-friendly and attractive
• Integrate: make access as seamless as possible through embedding tools
• Standardise: use open source tools to fine-tune Web development activities
• More info at www.ukoln.ac.uk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Questions and discussion…….