UKOLN News

In her presentation to the recent national Freedom of Information group meeting in Birmingam, Maureen Pennock, DCC Research Officer at UKOLN, spoke on email curation as it relates in particular to the Freedom of Information Act and FoI requests. Slides from her presentation are now available.

Based on their work on video streaming at last year”s IWMW Web Managers” Workshop, Emma Tonkin and Greg Tourte of UKOLN recently presented a paper entitled “Video Streaming: remote participation and engagement in the conference environment” at the IADIS International Conference in Salamanca, Spain. Slides from their presentation are now available.

Brian Kelly will give a talk entitled “Deployment Strategies for Web 2.0″ at the University of Nottingham on 12 March 2007. In his presentation Brian will review Web 2.0 and its potential benefits and also address the concerns which institutions may have in seeking to exploit it. He will outline deployment strategies for Web 2.0, based on an understanding of possible risks, organisational cultures and the threats and opportunities perceived by different groupings within the institution.

Since March 2004 the Digital Curation Centre has provided a focal point for research, advice and support to UK institutions in the field of digital curation and preservation. Now in March 2007, the DCC begins work on Phase 2 of its activity in which it will be
concentrating on the curation of scientific data. The funding until February 2010 approved by JISC will permit the DCC to strengthen its service in support of research. UKOLN work in the DCC is in Community Development. It will include developing closer partnerships with Data Centres, e-Science Programme Projects and Centres, Research Councils and external organisations in the UK and beyond.

The next national Freedom of Information group meeting will take place in Birmingham on Wednesday 7 March. It will include a session on email curation particularly as it relates to the Freedom of Information Act and FoI requests. The session will be led by Maureen Pennock, DCC Research Officer at UKOLN.

Following the recent conference Scientific Publishing in the European Research Area which attracted 445 delegates, comes news of the adoption by the Commission of the “Communication on Scientific Information in the Digital Age: Access, Dissemination and Preservation”. This Communication, available in pdf, will contribute to the debate within the European Parliament and the Council.

Brian Kelly has been invited to give a talk on “Web 2.0: What Can It Offer the Research Community?” on Wednesday 7 March 2007 at a PPARC First Wednesday Forum at PPARC, Swindon.

The Technical Committee of the Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange Project has recently published a report on its meeting in January which outlines the objectives, scope and use cases of the OAI-ORE work, and its relationship to Web architecture. UKOLN will be collaborating with this important new project through the Director (ORE Advisory Committee) and the Deputy Director (ORE Liaison Group).

At the recent Open Repositories 2007 conference, held in San Antonio, Texas over 23-26 January 2007, Julie Allinson provided an update on the deposit api activity being co-ordinated by the Repositories Research Team. In the same session, Carl Lagoze talked about the new OAI ORE initiative. Slides from Julie”s presentation, co-authored by Rachel Heery (UKOLN), Martin Morrey (Intrallect), Christopher Gutteridge (University of Southampton) and Jim Downing (University of Cambridge), are now available.

The Information Environment Metadata Schema Registry (IEMSR) Project, now progressing into its third phase, has released a marketing proposition. It is based on a set of clearly defined stakeholder usage scenarios and business cases while supporting the prioritisation and focus of the Project”s development.