Supporting Further and Higher Education Collection description as Middleware The Information Environment Service Registry (IESR) Rachel Bruce, Information Environment, Team Leader CDF, Showcase,25 March, 2003

Supporting Further and Higher Education Talk overview The JISC Information Environment (IE) & middleware/shared services Information Environment Service Registry (IESR) – pilot Challenges & why

Supporting Further and Higher Education What is Middleware Middleware, or "glue", is a layer of software between the network and the applications. This software provides services such as identification, authentication, authorization, directories, and security. In today's Internet, applications usually have to provide these services themselves, which leads to competing and incompatible standards. By promoting standardization and interoperability, middleware will make advanced network applications much easier to use. Internet2 Middleware Initiative

Supporting Further and Higher Education What is the JISC Information Environment? to build an on-line information environment providing secure and convenient access to a comprehensive collection of scholarly and educational material JISC 5-year strategy

Supporting Further and Higher Education JISC IE Architecture Provides a set of standards & protocols that support the development & delivery of integrated network services – allows the user to discover, access,use and publish digital & physical resources for their learning & research [teaching] Andy Powell, UKOLN

Supporting Further and Higher Education Web Content (local and remote) End-user End-user needs to join services together manually - as well as learning multiple user interfaces Current situation-difficult to find Authentication Authorisation

Supporting Further and Higher Education Future - easier to find Content End-user Portals Authentication Authorisation Collection Description User Profiles End-user is “automatically” presented with relevant resources through relevant channels Thesauri Service Desc.

Supporting Further and Higher Education Shared Services What are they?= machine readable services between the presentation layer and the content layer of the IE (middleware) User profiling – so the right services can be delivered to the user Collection description – high level description so portals, VLEs can locate relevant resources Service description- technical metadata – to allow machines to know if they can interoperate with services Other types of high level description- subject, educational levels, rights – high level finding aids for machines Authentication & authorisation- right user, access rights Terminology services-subject, place, help find the appropriate resource

Supporting Further and Higher Education Portals What are they?=’doorways’ to diverse content – provide cross-searching of distributed and otherwise discrete resources. All experimental –how well do they address the discovery mechanism? User centred discovery – for Learning & Teaching Subject centred –humanities, engineering,leisure and tourism Format & media type - Image Building ‘portlet’ technology –plug it in to an institutional VLE?

Supporting Further and Higher Education IESR-pilot Service Registry – machine readable catalogue of high-quality resources MIMAS, Cheshire, UKOLN Completes end December 2003

Supporting Further and Higher Education Descriptive metadata- derived from RSLP schema Technical metadata- being finalised – does a collection have a Z target, is the associated metadata available via OAI etc.

Supporting Further and Higher Education Descriptions from who? Initially: AHDS, EDINA,Essex Data Archive etc. Some publishers

Supporting Further and Higher Education Pilot stages Consultation with stakeholders (Content providers,shared services,end users etc.) Development of software Development of schema Develop Interfaces Populate Evaluate

Supporting Further and Higher Education Challenges Keeping it economic and sustainable Building, while still designing and researching Cultural & organisational change Granularity of collection Integrating the IE with learning environments, the Research Grid and

Supporting Further and Higher Education Why? Portal (aggregator) surveys the environment Seamless & integrated access Awareness of collections More use Improved learning, teaching & research

Supporting Further and Higher Education Further information -JISC IE: -IESR, Project Manager: