The growth and use of digital content on the Web together with the digital deluge pose opportunities as well as challenges. How best are they both to be exploited and managed? UKOLN is organising the Survive or Thrive 2010 Conference
on behalf of JISC to address such issues. The Conference will take place at the Macdonald Hotel, Manchester over Tuesday 8 – Wednesday 9 June 2010. Further information is obtainable from the UKOLN Web site.
Archive for the ‘Funders’ Category
Keynote Speakers at JISC/CNI 2010
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010Liz Lyon will be a keynote speaker at the JISC/CNI Meeting 2010 recently announced by JISC and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) which will take place over 1-2 July 2010 and will be held at the Barcelo Carlton Hotel, Edinburgh. The conference will be organised by UKOLN and will bring together experts from the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom. The conference theme this year is Managing Data in Difficult Times: policies, strategies, technologies and infrastructure to manage research and teaching data in a fast changing technological and economic environment. Conference keynote speakers include: Dan Atkins, Professor and Associate Vice President, University of Michigan, Sayeed Choudhury, Associate Director for Library Digital Programs, John Hopkins University, Heather Joseph, Executive Director, SPARC and Liz Lyon, Director, UKOLN.
BRTF: Making the Business Case for Digital Preservation
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access (BRTF-SDPA), a new international initiative funded by JISC and other organisations, has recently released its report entitled Sustainable Economics for a Digital Planet: Ensuring Long-Term Access to Digital Information. Neil Grindley, programme manager at JISC, said, “This report takes a clear-headed and hard look at some of the ideas surrounding preservation ..” JISC is organising a free one-day symposium in London on 6 May 2010 where the Blue Ribbon task force will be presenting its final report alongside responses from the BBC, the Natural History Museum, the British Library, European Bioinformatics Institute and the European Commission. Further information is available.
Web 2.0 and the Social Web
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010Only a few places remain for the one-day workshop entitled An Introduction to Web 2.0 and the Social Web to be held in Nottingham on Wednesday 17 March 2010. This workshop is designed for members of the museums, libraries and archives communities. It will seek to demystify the terminology and the technologies as well as address the challenges which institutions may face in seeking to make use of Web 2.0 to support the needs of their users. The workshop will be facilitated by Marieke Guy of UKOLN. Details of the Nottingham event and how to book the last few places are available.
RDMF: Opening Bio-Health Data and Models Securely and Effectively
Monday, February 8th, 2010The Welcome and Introduction to the fourth meeting of the Research Data Management Forum (RDMF) to be held over 10 – 11 March 2010 at the University of Manchester will be provided by Liz Lyon, Director of UKOLN and Associate Director, DCC, and Stéphane Goldstein, Head of Programmes, RIN. They will welcome the opening keynote speaker Professor Iain Buchan, Professor of Public Health Informatics and Director of the Northwest Institute for Bio-Health Informatics (NIBHI), University of Manchester. Professor Buchan’s keynote address is entitled Opening Bio-Health Data and Models Securely and Effectively for Public Benefit. Further information is available.
UKOLN Response to Empower, Inform, Enrich Report
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010UKOLN has submitted a response (by Dr Liz Lyon and Ann Chapman) to the DCMS regarding the consultation report on the future of public libraries entitled Empower, Inform, Enrich.
Times Higher Highlights Web 2.0 Tools for Research
Monday, January 18th, 2010A recent item from the Times Higher Education covers the emergence of the Web 2.0 tools Mendeley and Zotero and their level of support and deployment in the management of research papers online. Cameron Neylon, University of Southampton, advocated their use: “You can use them to deal with the quantity of information scientists need to keep track of and identify collaborators with complementary interests.”
The author also turned to other organisations for their views, pointing to the study conducted by JISC and the Research Information Network (RIN) entitled Communicating knowledge: how and why researchers publish and disseminate their findings which stated that take-up by academics was lower than anticipated. Neil Jacobs of JISC indicated there were interesting examples of usage by researchers of such technologies but that, “what is appropriate in one field of research may not be appropriate in another”. Liz Lyon of UKOLN advised that a further obstacle to adoption lay in the area of trust: “Academics can be concerned that they will be ‘scooped’ and so there is a reluctance to share. You may find people will share information with known contacts, but are wary about opening themselves up on the Internet.” Branwen Hide, RIN, remarked that “academics like things to be quick and simple and if a product isn’t, they won’t use it”.
Cameron Neylon summarised the benefits of Mendeley and Zotero by adding, “.. Essentially, you’re doing the same things you would have done previously but much more quickly and with access to many more people and items.”
New Issue of Focus on UKOLN Available
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010Issue 21 of Focus on UKOLN, the electronic newsletter which provides news, opinion and information on the wide range of activities undertaken by UKOLN, was published recently.
New JISC-funded Shared Infrastructure Services Landscape Study Completed by UKOLN
Friday, January 8th, 2010Rosemary Russell and Ann Chapman of UKOLN were the authors of a JISC-funded Shared Infrastructure Services (SIS) Landscape study on the use of Web 2.0 tools and services in UK Higher Education. This 33-page report, which is now available on the JISC Information Environment (IE) Repository Web site, is based on a survey across the UK HE community on the diverse ways in which Web 2.0 technologies are being used to support teaching and learning, research and administrative activities.
Appointment of UKOLN Deputy Director
Friday, January 8th, 2010Paul Walk has been appointed as Deputy Director of UKOLN.
This post will provide technical leadership, vision and strategic insight across a wide range of digital library contexts, for education and research and across the range of UKOLN activities ensuring that UKOLN addresses the requirements of its user communities.
UKOLN, as a JISC Innovation Support Centre, has responsibility for the support of innovation and development in JISC-funded programmes and projects, especially within the Information Environment, and in this context, Paul will be providing leadership, strategic co-ordination and oversight of all JISC-funded technical innovation activity at UKOLN.
Paul joined UKOLN in September 2007, as Technical Manager and Team Leader for the Software and Systems Team. Paul had previously worked for fifteen years in Higher Education in London, primarily in the development and provision of technical library and Web services.
Paul says of his appointment, “I’m delighted to have been offered this opportunity. At UKOLN I am fortunate in having colleagues who are individually talented and who, collectively, offer an extraordinary range of expertise. I look forward to helping to lead them in facing the very real challenges which lie ahead.”