Rachel Heery
My JISC colleagues and I were very sad to learn that Rachel Heery, formally of UKOLN, died last Friday after a long term illness. We will miss her and I am certain she will be missed by many in our community.
Rachel has contributed an enormous amount to the work of JISC over the years. She has helped to shape JISC strategy, programmes, projects and services. Most recently she worked with us in the area of digital repositories. Rachel’s contribution is so great that this sad occasion must not go by without acknowledgment of that, and acknowledgment of both her professionalism and friendship. Everyone I know that worked with Rachel enjoyed doing so.
Despite having to retire in December 2007 on the grounds of ill health, she continued to be an active member of the Repositories and Preservation Advisory Group and all that it entailed, as well as undertaking some pieces of consultancy for JISC.
The Information Environment Team was fortunate enough to spend a few days with Rachel this May in Birmingham at our Repositories and Preservation programme meeting. Rachel was there to present on her latest piece of work; the Digital Repositories Roadmap Review: towards a vision for research and learning in 2013. This piece of work represents for me some of the fabulous qualities of Rachel and why working with her was such a delight. She was able to really understand the context of work from the perspective of different stakeholders, she always seemed to understand the policy and the strategic drivers, she acted as a bridge between the technical people and the planners, she understood vision and pragmatism, she could assimilate diverse and complex trends and issues and make sense of them. This report is still current for us and we are using it as part of our planning processes.
Rachel has been involved in a long history of JISC related work, and in particular that relevant to the Information Environment programmes and services. She was involved in the e-Lib programme, the MODELS workshops, the Distributed National Electronic Resource and the subsequent Information Environment. At a recent meeting where we were discussing the Information Environment Rachel made a point that I felt was a good one that succinctly helps to articulate where we are now in relation to the DNER. The DNER (and subsequently the Information Environment) has been about access to distributed heterogeneous resources, Rachel made the summation that now we are concerned with both heterogeneous resources and heterogeneous services. A simple point, but an example of how good Rachel could be at getting to the nub of the matter and clarifying things.
What follows is just a few highlights from Rachel’s significant contribution to JISC work and that of the digital library community; these highlights come nowhere close to being comprehensive. They only cover some of her more recent work.
In 2005 she undertook an examination of the status of digital repositories in collaboration with Sheila Anderson. This helped lay the foundations of our programmes of work in this area. In 2006 she wrote the Repositories Roadmap with Andy Powell of the Eduserv Foundation. Andy had previously worked alongside Rachel at UKOLN where they were both Assistant Directors. As referred to above she recently reviewed this roadmap for us. These reports have had significant impact on the JISC investment in the area of repositories.
The Augmenting Interoperability across Scholarly Repositories meeting was held in New York in 2006, hosted by the Mellon Foundation and Microsoft. It focused on common areas of key interoperability and Rachel was a major contributor to that meeting. She presented on what was termed the ‘put’ interface. After discussion amongst colleagues in the UK, including CETIS, this was seen as a key technical solution to the population of repositories. What resulted from this was the creation of the SWORD protocol (Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit). This work continues to date and has had wide adoption, well beyond repositories.
When we returned from the New York meeting we were very aware of the significance that Hebert Van De Sompel’s work on OAI-ORE would have in terms of interoperability across repository content. Our funding timetable did not match direct involvement at that stage and Rachel and I discussed how we could try and ensure the UK digital repository community could continue discussion and be engaged in the issues of common repository interfaces and specifications. This resulted in the establishment of the Common Repositories Interface Group (CRIG) led by Jim Downing and Les Carr. The course of the Group changed somewhat but it has been the basis of discussions around specifications and the Dev8D event that proved to be very successful.
Rachel’s influence is still present in a lot of the work we now have underway. She was always robust and willing to be critical, and she would always pull out the stops to help when we might be up against it in terms of time for the issue of funding calls. As recently as December 2008 she gave our “12/08″ circular a critical eye and improved it immensely prior to it’s issue. We are lucky to have worked with Rachel and to have benefited from her expertise, humour and friendship. We miss her.
Our thoughts are with her family and friends.
Rachel’s publications.
[edit: I have seen a number of tributes to Rachel, Stu Weibel’s mentions a phrase that really does remind me of Rachel, “Hang on…” she did often use it when she was questioning something.]
Sharing and re-use of catalogue records: what are the legal implications?
As part of making library resources as visible as possible in the Web environment, libraries are increasingly interested in making their catalogue records available for use in Web applications and indexing by Web search engines.
The records in a university library catalogue typically have many different origins: created by the library, obtained from a national library or a book supplier etc. So, who ‘owns’ them? And what are the legal implications of making them available to others when this involves copying, transferring them into different formats, etc.?
The JISC has just commissioned a study to explore some of these issues as they apply to UK university libraries and to provide practical guidance to library managers who may be interested in making their catalogue records available in new ways. Outcomes are expected by the end of 2009.
The specific objectives of the study are to:
• Establish the provenance of records in the catalogues of a small but representative sample of UK university libraries and in the national Copac and SUNCAT catalogues;
• Identify any rights or licences applying to the records and assess how these apply to re-use in the Web environment. This work should include clarifying the legal status of MARC records and copies of MARC records, and the legal implications of translating records between different formats such as MARC and MODS XML;
• Provide practical guidance to UK university libraries about the legal issues to be considered in making catalogue records available for re-use in Web applications such as social networking sites - drawing on the findings from the sample;
• Make recommendations to the JISC and the UK higher education community about any initiatives which could usefully be undertaken to facilitate the re-use of catalogue records in Web applications in a way which respects legal rights and business interests.
Modelling the library domain: outcomes of a workshop on 19th June 2009
Earlier this year, the JISC TILE (Towards Implementation of Library 2.0 and the e-Framework) project proposed a draft high level ‘library domain model’ which could be used to further thinking about the functions and processes that library systems need to support in future.
A workshop to discuss the Model took place on 19th June 2009.
A draft report from the workshop is now available for comment.
Most of the presentations from the day are also available.
At the top level, the Model consists of three ‘realms’:
Corporation: organisations managing ‘assets’ and making them available
Channel: means of accessing the ‘assets’
Clients: those who want to use the ‘assets’
Participants discussed the relevance and applicability of these concepts and also how they might be applied in practice using a number of different scenarios.
A community support project for higher education developers coming soon…..
In February of this year JISC put on an event called dev8D aimed at software developers throughout Higher Education and in other relevant sectors. This event was very full and productive, the main strand of the event focused on developers working with end users to come up with ideas for technology to solve user problems or answer their needs. The outputs of the event and interviews with participants were recorded on the event blog.
Yesterday in an internal JISC innovation group meeting, Ross Gardler of OSS Watch issued the challenge that while dev8D was good, what is following up on what was started there?
Fortunately I was able to say that DevCSI is picking up what dev8D started and, with impeccable timing, Paul Walk of UKOLN announced the JISC funded devCSI project last night: http://devcsi.ukoln.ac.uk.
Keep your eyes on the DevCSI page and the twitter tag #devCSI for further news.
User Behaviour Observational Study: analysis of usage data
In support of the study carrying out detailed observation of how individual students and researchers in Business and Economics use electronic information resources (my post of July 2), CIBER at UCL have provided an initial analysis of their e-book and e-journal usage data in Business and Economics as a working paper.
To quote from the Conclusions to the paper:
“Only tentative and draft conclusions are offered here because the study is ongoing and more data are to be evaluated. However, on the basis of the data we have evaluated it is clear that Business/Economics stands out in regard to e-book use in that:
1. these subjects are major and significant users of e-books in that they view them more, spend longer viewing titles and undertake much busier and intensive sessions
2. their e-book users tend to search off campus and are more likely to access the books via VLEs
3. a high proportion of e-book use comes from the newer universities (this is true for other subjects too)
In regard to e-journals, where a good deal more data evaluation has to be completed, it appears that Economists:
1. are significant users, especially so the ones from universities with big business schools
2. tend to search more out of hours and on weekends
3. have a strong preference for tables of contents and abstracts
4. read relatively low impact factor journals and have a tendency to favour current material”
CIBER’s main report will be included as an appendix to the report from the User Behaviour Observational Study later this year.
Information Environment programme start up meeting
We held a start up meeting for the projects in the Information Environment Programme 2009-11 and VRE phase 3 in Leicester on the 7th and 8th of July.
The event was focused around getting projects to network with each other and passing on some information that was important for projects to know. From my point of view the event was a success there was a great atmosphere, people partcipated in the sessions with enthusiasm and there were lots of interesting conversations happening. Here are some more impartial records of the event:
Presentations from the event are now up on the JISC website. The list is not complete yet but will be added to as the presentations are available.
The videos of the 30 second pitch that each project gave at the event are available on youtube and on the individual project pages on the JISC website. Again, not every video is up there yet but they will be added by the programme mangers shortly.
We used the tag inf11 for the event and you can view the twitter conversation for the event and the delicious bookmarks. We will continue to use the inf11 tag throughout the programme for twitter, blogs, bookmarks, videos, pictures etc. You can see an aggregation of all this content on the public netvibes page for the programme. The project blogs will be aggregated on netvibes too.
A developer competition focused on library data
A JISC project called MOSAIC has set a competition for developers to develop a web app using library activity data. Full details are below:
The JISC MOSAIC project has gathered together data covering user activity in UK Higher Education libraries. The data, which is freely available for you to reuse, represents circulation records linked to the course affiliations of the borrowers.
The project is holding an open competition to discover what you can do with that data. This is your chance to impress the world with your ideas as well as your coding and to win one of three prizes of £1000, £250 and £100 …
- If you have a yearning to see library information put to best use and displayed to best effect
- If you like developing compelling applications and interfaces regardless of the domain
- If you’re into mash ups – but note that this competition is about any application, not restricted to mash ups
To enter, simply produce a browser based application that makes use of some or all of the MOSAIC library activity data by the closing date - Monday 31 August 2009.
Full details, open access to the data and competition rules
More about the JISC MOSAIC (Making Our Shared Activity Information Count) project
Reflections on the Repositories and Preservation Programme
Some of you will recall that back in May, we invited those of you who participated in the JISC Repositories and Preservation Programme #rpmeet (2006-2009) to come along to the Aston Business School to reflect on what the programme achieved, what knowledge it generated, what value it delivered and what we learnt from it.
Judging by the feedback we got and our own perceptions of the event, it was a highly productive meeting and certainly gave us JISC programme managers food for thought. We thought it would be useful to combine those thoughts with some of the helpful comments we received in the feedback forms and share them with the community in the hope that we might continue to generate commentary and opinion about some of the themes that were raised at the meeting.
The full document is available on the JISC website at: http://bit.ly/nJQW2
The document (5 pages) is in 6 sections and refers to a total of 38 issues. These issues are clustered in sections as follows:
1. Meeting Planning
2. Programme Design
3. Dissemination Issues
4. Knowledge
5. Strategic Ideas
6. Potential Areas of Work
To give you an idea of the content, the last two sections follow …
5. Strategic Ideas
* A small working group might be convened around the subject of ‘research information management’.
* Some further work is required to secure the sustainability of software outputs, where those outputs are designed to be more substantial offerings to the community than simply trials or demonstrators.
* Corporate business requirements (rather than research and learning imperatives) can also drive the success of a repository. They can help clarify the aims of repository work by showcasing implementations, workflows and the amassing of content. There are a number of drivers acting upon institutional repositories and this diversity should be supported.
* There will be an increased requirement to link research outputs with data and this will need collaboration between JISC, Research Councils and HEI’s.
* The top 3 issues discussed in the ideas room, in order of popularity were:
- how do we increase the content in repositories?
- what does a successful repository look like?
- what features are missing from repositories?
Delegates ideas to address these issues were captured in writing and on video and represent important input for JISC in scoping further work.
* Discussion of the preservation and curation of learning materials largely hinges around roles and responsibilities. The drivers to preserve in this area are precautionary rather than for the purposes of active re-use. Preservation specialists may profit from directing their attention to those with administrative rather than teaching responsibilities.
* Text-mining is potentially a powerful core tool for repositories.
* Further exploration is required around the business models and benefits of individual and shared model repositories using cloud based strategies.
* Further development may be needed for repository solutions that support rich local requirements and further integration with the Web.
* Some raised awareness of the issues around quality assessment of repository content may be valuable. National data centres do not accept everything they are offered but institutional repositories operate within a diversity of contexts. It may be sensible for some IR’s to accept all deposits whilst others may be selective. Assessing the quality of research outputs is a complex problem.
6. Potential Areas of Work
* Demonstrating the value of embedding the repository into the workflow of research and learning is very important, rather than simply relying on a consensus opinion that it makes sense to do so.
* The startup and enhancement element of the programme has, in some cases, had a demonstrable impact on the status of staff within institutions (i.e. project staff have been made permanent). It may be useful to try and find out how participation in the programme has affected the career and professional prospects of those involved; this is also an issue that could be explored more generally across programmes.
* The repository roadmap is an important document that will support further phases of strategic input; the issue of meaningful measures and metrics regarding proportion, quality, use and other impact is a particular challenge that needs to be further addressed.
* More work needs to be commissioned to help institutions set up internal systems for managing learning materials.
Do library catalogues and repositories talk to each other?
The Centre for Digital Library Research at the University of Strathclyde is currently investigating the links between university library catalogues and digital repositories as part of a JISC funded study.
Can library users find resources in their university’s digital repository through the library catalogue? Do library catalogues and repositories share records for the same items?
If catalogues and repositories generally aren’t linked in these sorts of ways at the moment, could they be?
These are some of the issues being explored by the study. The team are surveying repository managers and others about now - so, if you receive a request to respond to their online survey, your response would be much appreciated.
For further information about the study, please visit the project’s Web site and the project’s Web page on the JISC site.
How do people use electronic information resources?
Research funded by the JISC, RIN and others over recent years has helped to increase understanding of how students and researchers use electronic information resources. Analysis of Web logs - such as the work done for the e-Books Observatory Study by CIBER at UCL - has proved a fruitful line of inquiry.
A new study - which has now been underway for a few months (so apologies for this late post) - seeks to add to this evidence through detailed observation of how individual students and researchers in Business and Economics use a number of information resources in their area (such as Business Source Premier).
The aim is to observe how individuals react to and use particular interfaces and then to explore those behaviours through structured interviews.
The work is being conducted by Middlesex University and is being complemented by an analysis of Web logs for a selection of Business and Economics e-books and e-journals by CIBER.
A report of the findings is expected during the autumn.
For further information, please visit the project Web page on the JISC Web site.