UKOLN is supported by: Enhancing access to e-resources Dr Liz Lyon, UKOLN, University of Bath, UK JISC RSC-SE Workshop April 2004, Epsom. a centre of expertise in digital information management

JISC RSC SE Workshop2 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

JISC RSC SE Workshop3 About UKOLN Core funding from JISC & MLA Museums, Libraries & Archives Council 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

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JISC RSC SE Workshop5 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 using common standards and protocols Training & support ???

JISC RSC SE Workshop6 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 secure, single point of interaction with diverse information, business processes and people, personalised to a users need and responsibilities IBM, 2003.

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.

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JISC RSC SE Workshop10 JISC Fair PORTAL project Exploring a wide range of issues relating to institutional portals, and the integration of national resources with institutional information and services. Deliverables: –Stakeholder requirements: what they want / dont want –Survey >600 responses + f2f consultation –Literature review of outputs –Review of metadata standards for portal users e.g. eduPerson, IMS LIP –Mapping services to organisational structures –Beginners guide to uPortal

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JISC RSC SE Workshop23 Ariadne Issue 35, 2003 Syndicated content….

JISC RSC SE Workshop24 7 x RSS Recommendations 1.Adhere to the standards 2.Ensure persistence 3.Dont use too many feeds < 6 4.Ensure currency 5.Each feed should have a purpose 6.Register your RSS feed 7.Create your textual content carefully

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JISC RSC SE Workshop27 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 Tested with 2 pilot colleges (Hammersmith & West London College & The Sheffield College)

JISC RSC SE Workshop28 Embedding RDN resources summary Working with the RDN –RDN-include and RDNi-Lite –> 100 downloads –RDN-Channel-Lite –RDN SRW interface Embedding RDN services into VLEs – RDN4FE project

JISC RSC SE Workshop29 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 –

JISC RSC SE Workshop30 Ariadne Issue 38, 2004 Standards and compliance….

JISC RSC SE Workshop31 Events and dissemination Institutional Web Management Workshop 8 th Annual event July 2004 University of Birmingham Theme: Transforming the Organisation Open call for speakers and facilitators

JISC RSC SE Workshop32 Benchmarking your Web site: is it up to scratch? Workshops for RSCs (Eastern, South-west, Yorkshire & Humberside) –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

JISC RSC SE Workshop33 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

JISC RSC SE Workshop34 Thank you. Questions …….