Following the closure of the Jisc Innovation Support Centre on 31 July 2013, UKOLN has entered a new phase. As part of this, the UKOLN Web site is being archived, meaning that its contents will be available long into the future but will no longer be updated.
The project-based activities of UKOLN continue under the name UKOLN Informatics, for which a new web presence is being prepared. More information is available in a statement from Director Liz Lyon on the UKOLN Web site.
The final version of the TechWatch report entitled Preparing for Effective Adoption and Use of Ebooks in Education is now available.
Updated in light of feedback received from a preview version released in September, this report is a primer to help academic librarians, managers, and members of faculty respond effectively as ebooks become mainstream and the percentage of academic publications delivered as ebooks rises steadily.
The report aims to support the adoption of ebooks by:
Published by JISC Observatory and written by commissioned author James Clay (Gloucestershire College) with production editing and project management provided by UKOLN Innovation Support Centre, this is the fourth in a series of TechWatch reports published since 2011.
Brian Kelly of UKOLN will be giving a series of talks around the UK on open practices and social media for researchers during Open Access Week. Further information is available from his posting on the Innovation Support Centre site.
A few places remain on the forthcoming Open Data Hack Days event organised by the new UK Open Data Institute and DevCSI. Open Data Hack Days will take place at the Open Data Institute, London over 25 – 26 October 2012.
In association with the JISC Observatory, the Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN has announced a call for comments on the latest TechWatch report to be produced. Preparing for Effective Adoption and Use of eBooks in Education is now available in its preview version together with a summary of its content and significance in a blog post on the ISC Web site. Further details are available in a news feature on the UKOLN Web site.
This week the Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN has published a series of interviews with innovators. Adrian Stevenson of Mimas discusses work using Linked Data, David Shotton of the University of Oxford discusses work extending semantic publishing to enrich research literature and research data, and Andrew Laughland of the University of Hertfordshire discusses the potential for academic researchers to transform data-gathering via smart phone technology.
A complete list of talks and interviews is available from the ISC Web site.
The JISC Observatory has published a report on “Preparing for Data-driven Infrastructure” which offers institutions advice on approaches to managing the increasing demands on their business and other data.
The report describes ways in which institutions can respond to strategic drivers in order to adopt a more data-centric approach across a range of development activities. The report includes a description of data-centric architectures, an overview of tools and technologies including APIs, Linked Data and NoSQL, together with a review of architectural approaches which institutions will need to consider when responding to requirements for greater transparency in their business processes.
Ariadne Issue 69 has been published with a range of features, event reports and reviews, whose content is now far more accessible since the advent of the new Ariadne platform. Further information on work in this area as well as a report on the recent JISC RIM CERIF Workshop run by UKOLN is available from a post on the Innovation Support Centre site. Additionally, further information is available on event reports by UKOLN staff from a post on the Informatics Research Group site. For full information on the main features offered in the new issue, please see the news feature on the UKOLN Web site.
A talk entitled What Does The Evidence Tell Us About Institutional Repositories? has been accepted for presentation at the Internet Librarian International Conference (ILI 2012). Details on the talk and its relevance to previous associated work are available in a blog posting on the Innovation Support Centre Web site.
Two papers presented at Open Repositories 2012 were co-authored by staff of the Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN. The papers were entitled Open Metrics for Open Repositories by Brian Kelly, Nick Sheppard, Jenny Delasalle, Mark Dewey, Owen Stephens, Gareth Johnson and Stephanie Taylor and Can LinkedIn and Academia.edu Enhance Access to Open Repositories? by Brian Kelly and Jenny Delasalle. Full details are available from a blog posting on the ISC Web site.