A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Making Effective Use Of Electronic Resources Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath URL UKOLN is supported by: Slides available at

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 2 Contents 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 your Web services Questions and discussion

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 3 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 Based at the University of Bath About 30 staff Mix of technical support and development, advisory and research activities See About UKOLN

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 4

5 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 Usability Legislation Re-using and sharing materials Learning object, data, article, image, program Interoperability using common standards and protocols Support Learning from others ??? The Issues

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 6 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 The Issues

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Portals

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 8 Portals “ a secure, single point of interaction with diverse information, business processes and people, personalised to a user’s 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 Exemplars

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 9

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 10 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 / don’t 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 Exemplars

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 11 Current Developments Developments for PORTAL: Web services Portlets Standards e.g. WSRP SAKAI Universities of Michigan, Indiana, Cornell etc. Currently Java-based Integrated access to Learning Management Systems Exemplars Message: don't start from scratch. Learn from others.

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 12

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 13

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Embedding Content

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 15

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 16

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 17

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 18

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 19

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 20

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 21

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 22

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 23

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 24 Ariadne Issue 35, 2003 Syndicated content….

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 25 7 x RSS Recommendations 1.Adhere to the standards 2.Ensure persistence 3.Don’t use too many feeds < 6 items 4.Ensure currency 5.Each feed should have a purpose 6.Register your RSS feed 7.Create your textual content carefully Exemplars

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 26

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 27

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 28 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) Exemplars

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 29 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 Exemplars

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Web Developments

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 31 Providing Web Good Practice Guidance UK Web Focus: Provided by Brian Kelly Promotes standards and best practices to the FE and HE communities JISC W3C representative Regular column in Ariadne e-journals Web testing tools Web Watch surveys:  Accessibility  Search engine software  HTML compliance  … See

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 32 Ariadne Issue 38, 2004 Standards and compliance….

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 33 Benchmarking Web Sites Workshop Benchmarking Web Site Workshops for RSCs (Eastern, South-west, Yorkshire, …) Home pages: size, entry points Validation, accessibility, broken links Statistics Looks at: Auditing and testing tools Limitations of tools and procedures Procedures for addressing problems See < events/workshops/#benchmarking > See < events/workshops/#benchmarking >

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 34 Quality Assurance QA Focus: Project to develop QA methodology for JISC's digital library programmes Has developed simple QA methodology and range of support materials Resources are being adapted to support FE needs See < > See < >

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 35 Events and Dissemination UK Web Focus organises annual Institutional Web Management Workshop: This year's event (8 th in series) takes place at University of Birmingham on th July 2004 Aimed at members of institutional Web management teams Provides talks, parallel sessions, etc. Also provides valuable social & networking opportunities (canal trip this year) Theme is Transforming the Organisation See < events/workshops/webmaster-2004/> See < events/workshops/webmaster-2004/>

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 36 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 Reuse: make use of resources, tools, expertise, etc. which is readily available Standardise: make use of open standards in order to maximise access and interoperability More information is available at