1. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Development of an Information Environment for UK Learning and Teaching NOF-Digitise GIS workshop, 3 September 2001 Dr Caroline Ingram JISC/DNER Learning and Teaching Programme Manager

2. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education What is the Information Environment? A key aspect of the JISC 5 Year Strategy...to build an on-line information environment providing secure and convenient access to a comprehensive collection of scholarly and educational material... How does it relate to the DNER? We can characterise an Information Environment as the set of network services that support publishing and use of information resources... – DNER refers to distributed learning and research resources – The Information Environment is needed to enable students and staff to access and use those resources in ways meaningful to them

3. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Web Content (local and remote) End-user End-user needs to join services together manually - as well as learning multiple user interfaces Current searching architecture Authentication Authorisation

4. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Web Searching in the Future Content End-user Portal Broker Authentication Authorisation Collect’n Desc. User Profiles End-user is “automatically” presented with relevant resources through relevant channels Thesauri Service Desc.

5. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education GIS - definitions and relationship to JISC/DNER Geographical Information Systems (GIS) – information linked to a particular geographical location – allows mapping, management and analysis of spatial data effective presentation for the user Although not directly developing GIS software and applications, a number of current projects and services use GIS...

6. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Current JISC/DNER programmes Infrastructure programme – enhancements to architecture enabling cross searching – portal development projects – development of article infrastructure services Learning and Teaching Programme – enhancements to JISC services – development of new collections – learning and teaching packages routes into databases ways of incorporating electronic resources into teaching interactive content (learning objects)

7. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education JISC/DNER and geospatial data Guidelines – GIS Guide to Good Practice http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/project/goodguides/gis/ JISC/DNER Projects and Services – UK Borders TM – Demonstrator services for geospatial data Geospatial Gazetteer Service Geospatial Portal Service – CHCC - Census project – Digimap and the eMapScholar project

8. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education GIS Guide to Good Practice provides a source of useful generic information on the creation, maintenance, use and long-term preservation of GIS-based digital resources.GIS Emphasises: – the processes of long-term preservation, archiving and effective data re-use – the importance of adhering to recognised standards and the recording of essential pieces of information about a given resource Designed: – to smooth the transition of the digital resource into an archive environment – to ensure that it can be re-located and re-used in the future.

9. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education UK Borders TM Service Access to digitised boundary datasets of the UK Used – to map Census and other datasets – to aggregate records into conventional areas (counties, districts, wards etc) Available in many GIS formats for users to download Web access Institutional and individual registration available Maps are based on data provided with the support of the ESRC and JISC and use boundary material which is copyright of the Crown, Post Office and the EDLINE consortium. http://edina.ac.uk/ukborders/

10. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Development of a Geospatial Gazetteer A gazetteer is a list of place names together with their associated geographic location (e.g. latitude and longitude co-ordinates, geographical place name)  The demonstrator gazetteer service will illustrate:  the use of a gazetteer to enhance the geographic searching of one or more existing DNER services  the use of a gazetteer to assist in the semi-automatic geographic indexing of descriptions of DNER resources.  reference use through the provision of a command driven web-based interface, to show the types of queries that could be answered by a well-populated service.

11. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Development of a Geospatial Portal A Geo-data Portal provides the user with the means to find related resources of use, adding functions that add value to the data identified and retrieved. These resources can be either local to the portal or found by searching the DNER and other on-line information services.  The Portal would provide a number of simple query interfaces  also map based search facility  possible to search for geo-spatial data and resources by subject (topic), date, resource type and, most importantly, by geographic location  would also help users make effective use of data and resources that have already been collected/produced

12. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Web Position of Portal for users Content End-user Portal Broker Authentication Authorisation Collect’n Desc. User Profiles End-user is “automatically” presented with relevant resources through relevant channels Thesauri Service Desc.

13. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Developing the Collection of Historical and Contemporary Census Data (CHCC) and Related Materials The project aims to develop -Learning and teaching resources for teachers and students (e.g. tutorials, exercises, exemplar based case studies) -A Census Gateway with cross-searchable metadata to facilitate discovery of census data and associated materials -Improved interfaces to and enhancement of the CHCC suitable for student use Oct 2000 - Sep 2003 http://www.chcc.ac.uk/

14. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Digimap Service Delivers Ordnance Survey digital map data to UK HE Users can – view and print maps of any location in Great Britain at predefined scales – download data for use with GIS or CAD software Digimap also allows advanced cartographic tasks – user specified scale – combining datasets on a map – large format printing Only institutional registration, UK HE only, current pilot in FE http://edina.ac.uk/digimap/

15. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education Adding learning and teaching materials and extra functionality to the Digimap service Digimap provides access to online Ordnance Survey digital map data and high quality mapping products e-MapScholar will provide teaching case studies; tools and learning materials in working with digital map data, data integration, and 2D & 3D visualisation; and virtual placement Jan 2001 - Feb 2003 http://edina.ac.uk/projects/mapscholar/index.shtml

16. Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting Higher and Further Education More information... http://jisc.ac.uk/dner – for more information on JISC services and projects, including links to project webpages and e-mail addresses for project staff Caroline Ingram – caroline.ingram@kcl.ac.uk http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/project/goodguides/gis/ – for guidelines on GIS resources