UKOLN is supported by:

Introduction to UKOLN

Dr Liz Lyon, Director

UKOLN, University of Bath, UK

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005

www.bath.ac.uk

a centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 2

About UKOLN • “a centre of expertise in digital information management”• Funding

– Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) + Museums, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA)

– Portfolio of R&D projects

• 27+ staff• Inform the library, information, education and cultural heritage

communities– Policy and advisory role at national level– Build innovative Web-based systems & services– Research and development– Dissemination: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/– e-journal Ariadne – Events: ECDL 2004

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 3

Common Information EnvironmentSupporting cross-sectoral engagement

www.common-info.org.uk/

MLA

JISC

British Library

NHS

Culture Online

DFES

Becta

eGov Unit

eScience

UKOLN

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 4

Infrastructure + IIE

• Building shared services for the IIE– Informing strategic development– Demonstrators and prototypes– IE Service Registry– IE Metadata Schemas Registry– A common framework?

• Embedding open standards– Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) UK Affiliate Managing Agent– W3C representative – OAI Technical Committee– NISO MetaSearch

• Reviewing approaches to Resource Discovery• Digital repositories study

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 5

eLearning activities

• Collaboration with CETIS Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards– Technical Framework to support e-Learning (ELF) – Shaping an approach to Persistent Identifiers

• Partnership with Resource Discovery Network and Learning & Teaching Support Network – Enable greater records sharing– Shared vocabularies

• Advising Jorum+ learning object repository team• Facilitating interoperability with digital libraries (IMS)• Developing eLearning tools (GroupLog Project)• Supporting the FE community

– Regional Support Centres workshops: RSC Wales, RSC SE

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 6

eResearch activities

• JISC Committee for the Support of Research• Facilitating knowledge transfer

– Digital library, computer science and disciplinary communities– National eScience Centre / UKOLN workshops

• Developing Virtual Research Environments (VRE)• Supporting the arts & humanities AHRC expert group• Digital Curation Centre partner • Changing nature of scholarly communications• Research and development projects: eBank UK

The scholarly knowledge cycle.

Liz Lyon, eBankUK article. Ariadne, July 2003.

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 7

Learning & Teaching workflows

Research & e-Science workflows

Aggregator services: national, commercial

Repositories : institutional, e-prints, subject, data, learning objects

Institutional presentation services: portals, Learning Management Systems, u/g, p/g courses, modules

Harvestingmetadata

Data creation / capture / gathering: laboratory experiments, Grids, fieldwork, surveys, media

Resource discovery, linking, embedding

Deposit / self-archiving

Peer-reviewed publications: journals, conference proceedings

Publication

Validation

Data analysis, transformation, mining, modelling

Resource discovery, linking, embedding

Deposit / self-archiving

Learning object creation, re-use

Searching , harvesting, embedding

Quality assurance bodies

Validation

Presentation services: subject, media-specific, data, commercial portals

Resource discovery, linking, embedding

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 8

eBank UK: building the links between research data, scholarly communication and learning”

• JISC-funded from September 2003• Phase 2 February 2005• UKOLN at the University of Bath (lead), University of

Southampton, University of Manchester• “Exemplar: e-Science testbed ‘Combechem’

– Grid-enabled combinatorial chemistry– Crystallography, laser and surface chemistry examples– Development of an e-Lab using pervasive computing

technology– National Crystallography Service

• Resource Discovery Network / PSIgate physical sciences portal

• http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/ebank-uk/

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 9

Advisory & support roles

• Institutions and the community– Focus posts: Web, Interoperability– Promoting best practice, briefing papers– Creative Commons, collaborative technologies, mobile working– Resource Discovery Network technical support & development– Events: Institutional Web Managers Conference– Dissemination: Ariadne e-Journal

• JISC Executive, Development Team, Services– International Frameworks activity– Information Environment technical advisory role – Digital repository support posts– Events: JISC/CNI Conference

• Museums Libraries & Archives Council– Peoples Network Service– Collection Description work

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 10

Strategic partnershipsCollaborative and cross-sectoral• Metadata for Education Group (MEG) : forum• eGovernment Unit : eGovernment Metadata Standard• RCUK : Policy for Scientific Publications• National eScience Centre : knowledge transfer• British Library : staff development lectures• Digital Preservation Coalition : Current Awareness

Bulletin• JISC/NSF : strategic discussions• EU Delos Network of Excellence for Digital Libraries :

Knowledge Extraction & Semantic Interoperability cluster

                                                             

Grand Challenge Meeting, June 2005 11

www.ukoln.ac.uk