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From this page you can download the entire report (roughly 114
pages if printed in 12 point Times or similar) or read/download the
detailed accounts of individual presentations which make up the complete report.
Download the whole report from the CNI website in Washington, D.C.,
U.S.A. in
Word 6
(~441K file size) format, or select an inidvidual paper from the contents of
(U.K. site) http://www.ukoln.bath.ac.uk/fresko/net_info:
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
- THE SPONSORING ORGANISATIONS
- SUMMARY
- Marc Fresko Principal, The Marc Fresko Consultancy
PRESENTATIONS
- UNIVERSITIES LIBRARIES REVIEW GROUP, TWO YEARS ON: ACHIEVEMENTS, PLANS AND PROBLEMS
- Sir Brian Follett Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick
- THE BRITISH LIBRARY AND NETWORKING RESEARCH
- Terry Cannon Assistant Director, The British Library Research and Development Department
- BUILDING THE DIGITAL LIBRARY
- John Mahoney Director of Computing and Telecommunications, the British Library
- CHANGING COSTS OF INFORMATION IN THE NETWORKED WORLD
- Richard West Vice-Chancellor, California State University
PROJECT BRIEFINGS
Electronic Journals
- THE CLIC ELECTRONIC JOURNAL PROJECT
- Henry Rzepa CLIC Project Director, Imperial College, UK
- INTERNET ARCHAEOLOGY: OVERCOMING THE OBSTACLES AND USING THE OPPORTUNITIES
- Seamus Ross Assistant Secretary (Information Technology), The British Academy
- FROM EPHEMERAL TO INTEGRAL: COLLABORATIVE MANAGEMENT OF ELECTRONIC JOURNALS
- Barbara McFadden Allen Director, CIC Center for Library Initiatives
Teaching and Learning
- NEW LEARNING COMMUNITIES IN THE NETWORKED ENVIRONMENT
- Jana Bradley Assistant Professor, Indiana University - Purdue University of Indiana
- TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LANGUAGE LEARNING: A CONSORTIUM APPROACH
- Graham Chesters TELL Consortium, University of Hull
- IT POINT: NETWORKING IN THE COMMUNITY
- Gulshan Kayam IT POINT Manager and Sue Turner Library Manager, Chelmsley Wood Library
Management and Service Issues
- COLLABORATION: PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN LIBRARIANS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGISTS
- Joan Lippincott Assistant Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information
- INFORMATION SERVICES: THREAT OR OPPORTUNITY?
- Richard Field Vice-Principal for Academic Services and Information Strategy, University of Edinburgh
- EMPOWERING THE MILLENNIUM CITIZEN: PUBLIC LIBRARY NETWORKING INITIATIVES - THE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION MILLENNIUM PROJECT AND PROJECT EARL
- Philippa Dobson Public Libraries Network Adviser, LA/EARL/UKOLN
Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval
- THE SUBJECT APPROACH TO NETWORK NAVIGATION
- Nicky Ferguson Project Director, SOSIG
- RESOURCE ORGANISATION AND DISCOVERY
- Lorcan Dempsey Director, UKOLN
- A SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS OF CNI'S NIDR RESEARCH INITIATIVE
- Clifford Lynch Director, Library Automation, University of California
Technical issues
- ELECTRONIC SUPPORT FOR SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION: DEVELOPING AN ELECTRONIC COMMUNITY
- Dov Gabbay Imperial College, London and Jürgen Ohlbach Max Planck Institut für Informatik, Saarbrücken
- ADMINISTRATIVE COMPUTING MEETS THE WEB: DISCOVER THE POSSIBILITIES
- David Koehler Director of Distributed Management Systems, Princeton University
ANNEXES
ANNEX 1: PROGRAMME
ANNEX 2: DELEGATES
ANNEX 3: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS AND TERMS
Copyright Information
The Coalition for Networked Information was founded in March 1990 to promote
the creation and use of networked information resources and services that advance
scholarship and intellectual productivity. The Coalition is a joint project of the
Association of Research Libraries (ARL), CAUSE (see below), and Educom. A task force
of over 200 institutions and organisations provides the Coalition with insights,
initiatives, and resources to pursue its mission. Members of the task force include
higher education institutions, publishers, network service providers, computer companies,
library networks and organisations, and public and state libraries. It is a truly
diverse partnership of institutions and organisations with a common interest in
realising the promise of networked information resources and services.
CAUSE is the association for managing and using information resources in higher education.
An international non-profit association, CAUSE's mission is to enable the transformational changes
occurring in higher education through the effective management and use of information resources
- technology, services, and information. The CAUSE membership includes more than 1,300 campuses and
other educational organisations from all regions of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and several
other countries - as well as 73 corporate members. Nearly 3,700 individuals participate in CAUSE
as member representatives from their institutions.
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and contains over one hundred and fifty
million items representing every age of written civilisation. The British Library exists to serve scholarship,
research and innovation. It is the national archive of monographs and serials received by legal deposit.
It provides Reading Room and enquiry services, as well as a range of document supply services for remote users.
The Library's Initiatives for Access programme is looking at how new digital and networking technologies can
expand the use of its rich collections.
The British Library Research and Development Department is the main UK funding agency for research in
the library and information field. It supports and disseminates the results of a wide range of projects.
The Department has a number of other activities, including administering grants for cataloguing and preservation,
research in the book world and special initiatives for the Department of National Heritage.
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) was established on 1 April 1993 by the Higher Education
Funding Councils for England, Scotland and Wales, and is now also supported by the Department of Education for
Northern Ireland (DENI). The mission for JISC is "to stimulate and enable the cost effective exploitation of
information systems and to provide a high quality national infrastructure for the UK higher education and research
councils' communities".
The main objectives of JISC are:
- to exercise vision and leadership in bringing about benefits to the higher education sector by the exploitation of information systems;
- to ensure the provision of a pervasive network infrastructure to the higher education and research councils' communities;
- to ensure the provision of central data services where this is sensible on economic grounds;
- to promote the exploitation of new technologies as a service provision to the higher education community;
- to encourage and facilitate the development of information strategies in the higher education community.
The UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN) and its antecedent organisations have been based at
the University of Bath for the last 18 years. It supports the UK library and information communities through research,
co-ordination and awareness, and information services in the area of network information management. It has
recently expanded and developed a work programme around distributed library and information systems, resource discovery
and metadata, bibliographic management and public library networking. At the same time it is expanding its network
information and event organisation services. UKOLN is funded by the British Library Research and Development Department
and by JISC. Further information about UKOLN and its activities can be found at URL: http://ukoln.bath.ac.uk
MARC FRESKO, Principal, The Marc Fresko Consultancy
Background
As Sir Brian Follett reminds us in his opening presentation, the bits and bytes which constitute networked
information are no respecters of international boundaries. Any issues concerning the effective use of
network-based information or resources truly are best dealt with internationally; and there is no
shortage of issues. This conference confirmed the high level of interest in issues to do with production,
distribution, management and preservation of digital resources; and that there is a strong desire to identify,
face and overcome these issues. Fortunately, the wish to resolve such problems is as international as the
problems. As Lynne Brindley pointed out in her welcoming address, the significance of the event was marked
symbolically in two ways: first by the international connotations of the venue, Heathrow; and second by the
integrative nature of the programme being represented by the sponsorship of the event by five leading institutions:
The British Library, CNI, CAUSE and JISC.
The conference presentations
The main part of the conference consisted of 18 formal presentations (see Annex 1 for the complete programme).
Four were on general topics, giving perspectives of some important developments in the UK and the complex and
changing cost modelling issues which concern us all. The other presentations described a varied sample of specific
projects. The projects cover a range of subjects; they are grouped under the following five headings:
- the development of electronic journals (exploring the multitude of cost, technical and organisational questions they raise);
- teaching and learning initiatives (demonstrating some of the approaches which can be used inside and outside the academic community);
- management and service issues (exploring the relationships between information science and other disciplines, and describing an adventurous proposition for new services);
- networked information discovery and retrieval issues (examples of projects in implementation and research on futures and trends);
- specific technical concerns (describing a novel model for networked scholarly communication, and, in complete contrast, explaining how networked information can encompass administrative systems).
The presentations, and the conference as a whole, was marked by impressively high levels of energy and participation,
as Paul Evan Peters remarked. I hope that this report conveys the sense of excitement and progress which was evident
during the conference.
About this report
The remainder of this report consists primarily of accounts of the conference presentations. The accounts were
prepared by consultants. They are not formal papers written by the speakers, though in many cases notes, slides
and other materials were provided by the speakers. In all cases, speakers were offered the opportunity to review
the account of their presentation.
In keeping with its subject matter, the organisers have decided to publish this report primarily on the Internet
rather than on paper. This has the benefit of allowing us to represent speakers' references by means of hyperlinks
rather than by mere static footnotes on paper. As some of the references will evolve during the period in which this
report is of interest, this adds value by ensuring that the most up to date material is available. Of course, there
is an accompanying potential disadvantage, namely that some of the referenced material will be taken off the network
or will be moved to a different URL; an apposite illustration of one of the significant issues facing users of
networked information!
The Future
The use of networks, and the amount of information on the Internet is growing very rapidly; by some measures
at a rate which is more than logarithmic [1] . There is general agreement that scholarly resources are used
internationally. However, it is notable that although many projects and initiatives presented at the conference
could have world-wide relevance, interest and impact, the majority are essentially national in their organisation.
This underlines the importance of an international event such as this conference; it provided a valuable opportunity
for practitioners from several countries to share experiences. Paul Evan Peters expressed, in the closing session,
the hope that the discussions which took place might give rise to joint initiatives building on the strengths of the
existing national projects; this conference was one way in which synergy can usefully be encouraged , and others
should actively be sought in order to maximise and distribute the benefits of work in this field.
Acknowledgements
Finally, I want to express thanks to the speakers who all tolerantly supplied notes, slides and other materials
to help generate this report. I hope that they find their ideas are expressed accurately, and that they will
forgive any omissions by abbreviation. Thanks are also due to my colleague Mike Arblaster, who assisted in the
preparation of several of the accounts; to Isobel Stark, who applied the HTML tags; and to Hazel Gott of UKOLN
who, as chief organiser of this conference, patiently contended with a stream of requests for details and
clarifications during the preparation of this report.
[1] See, for example, URL http://www.nw.com/
SIR BRIAN FOLLETT, Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick
This account was prepared for this report by The Marc Fresko Consultancy. It is an edited version of a paper supplied by the speaker.
ABSTRACT
This presentation starts by covering some of the background to the University Libraries Review.
Next it examines some of the follow-up activities resulting from the Libraries review focusing
especially on the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) and the Anderson report. It concludes with
a brief look at future hopes for the programme.
INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
This paper is presented in the context of an international conference. Development of the Electronic Library
(or the Digital Library) must be an international activity. Individuals need passports and visas to get into
or out of Britain. Our goods and chattels need customs clearances. But our bits and bytes respect no formalities,
going where we send them, and sometimes where we do not. Our laws and our institutions are territorial, bits and
bytes are not. We must work together to ensure we can understand and use them.
Ariadne, a new electronic journal for libraries, was launched earlier this year in the UK.
The original Ariadne, daughter of a king of Crete, features in a mythological tale which involves Theseus.
In this tale, Theseus gratefully uses information supplied by Ariadne to find his way through the Minotaur's
labyrinth, but he later is unwilling to pay the price, and abandons Ariadne. Vice-Chancellors and Funding Council
members might sometimes be compared with Theseus, having often been viewed as unwilling to pay the price to maintain
university libraries. The launch of Ariadne, however, signifies that they are prepared to pay their share, as
explained below.
BACKGROUND
In 1992 the newly formed Higher Education Funding Councils asked the speaker to chair an enquiry into
libraries in higher education. At that time universities were in a time of tremendous expansion.
The number of students in UK universities increased by 57% between 1988 and 1992. This was very welcome,
but it exacerbated the pressures for university libraries, for during this period, library provision increased
very little. How could we support these students? At the same time, the ex-polytechnics became universities.
How could they meet their research aspirations without research libraries? Meanwhile, the infamous journals price
spiral was threatening research collections even in well-established universities.
The review group decided to report quickly and pragmatically, rather than going back to basics. After 12
months work by the Review group and its 3 sub-groups, it reported in November 1993 with what has become known
as the Follett
Report. It came up with 46 recommendations to the
Funding Councils covering virtually all parts of the library from space issues to the electronic future.
The four higher education funding councils accepted virtually all the recommendations, turning down only one:
funds for inter-library co-operation. In all they set aside close to £100 million for implementation, and we have
been very busy over the last two years. HEFCE "believes the report was a very successful document, suggesting
pragmatic solutions for some of the major issues facing UK HE libraries". The speaker suggests it worked because
the report not only identified an area of worrying neglect but also offered some practical solutions. The outcomes
of the report are described below.
OUTCOMES
Buildings Programme
Perhaps the most visible and enduring result of the report will be the buildings programme.
Across the country about £200 million was spent on 70 projects (about £150M from universities plus about
£50M from the funding councils). This will produce spaces for about 250,000 readers, many IT-equipped, in 70
institutions. The first of these, in Southampton, is to open officially in March 1996.
Special Collections and Archives
The Review concentrated internationally on Arts and Humanities subjects; the focus was small to ensure that
the results would be valid. Many libraries contain special collections of great importance to researchers in the
humanities, but which are not widely known. In this part of the programme, we are funding projects to conserve,
catalogue and preserve some of these collections. We will also do work on making information on archives accessible
over the network.
The total cost of this over 5 years comes to £32 million. There is a provision to review the programme
after 3 years, since many important collections are still not being funded.
National Journals Site Licensing Pilot
As mentioned above, the journals price spiral was one of the motivators for the Review. One of the options
explored was for the licensing of copyright material under more favourable conditions. This would include unlimited
copying on site, including for course packs, as well as electronic access.
The funding councils agreed to set up a UK-wide Pilot Site Licence initiative for three years starting in
January 1996. The publishers selected for the pilot include Academic Press, Blackwells Publishing, Blackwells
Science and Institute of Physics Publishing. In exchange for a central payment by the funding bodies, all the
journals would be made available in both print and electronic form at a substantial discount. This initiative
has a particularly democratic aspect: all universities, old and new, will have the same access.
This has been one of the most controversial proposals. The funding councils were rather sceptical.
Librarians have been extremely suspicious. Publishers not involved are furious about it.
Final negotiations have proved very difficult. Undoubtedly there will be problems, and it may well
not be the right way to go. But it is worth a try. Let this pilot be used to find out what the pros and cons
really are.
Copyright
Problems of copyright raise difficult and controversial issues.
We were extremely encouraged by the reports from the AAU/ARL working parties on intellectual property
that came out last year. We hoped for a while that if we in the UK also took a similar line, that we might
be able to do something about the copyright paradox. That is, universities paying to create the work,
giving it away, then paying publishers again to buy it back for our libraries.
The speaker visited the AAU in May last year with two colleagues. It was clear from that visit that both
sides of the Atlantic are finding these issues intractable. It is a difficult area for university Presidents
or Vice-Chancellors to take concerted action. We need a continuing dialogue with our American colleagues.
I strongly doubt that CVCP (Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals) can take effective action on its
own so we need some sort of forum for international action.
Given this lack of progress , the publishers still have us over a barrel. It is crucial that arrangements
are made that recognise the delicate economic balance that exists between players in the HE community.
If this is not recognised, universities and academics are very likely to by-pass traditional scholarly
communications methods altogether.
Recently, things seem to have got worse, with the publication in the US of the White Paper on Copyright
and the NII. This report appears highly oriented towards the rights holders and away from the traditional
balance of copyright. We are very concerned that the proposed legislation in the US should not form a
precedent for other parts of the world.
We have recently published a collection of papers on copyright, on the network as well as in print.
As usual, this collection provides more questions than answers.
IT ACTIVITIES: JISC
Most IT-related activities of these took place under the aegis of the Joint Information Systems
Committee, otherwise known as JISC.
JISC's main role is to organise JANET/SuperJANET, our academic network, but it already had a
substantial programme funding datasets and datacentres. An early endeavour was BIDS, which started
with the national site licence for the ISI database several years ago. Next came MIDAS, hosting
statistical and similar datasets, and more recently EDINA, a second site for bibliographic and other datasets.
Arts and Humanities Data Service
JISC recommended that funds should be provided to establish an Arts & Humanities Data Service (AHDS).
This will be a distributed service, with an executive based at King's College, London and headed by Dan Greenstein.
The resources provided will be hosted by the universities where they originated, and where the expertise to maintain
them lies. This corresponds to a "classical" digital libraries format, where materials remain in universities and
are accessed by Internet.
We expect that a significant component of these resources will be images, and will be linked to other work
relating to images in the electronic libraries programme.
CURL Database Extensions
The Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL, a group of a dozen or so of our larger university
libraries) has for years been bringing together the bibliographic databases from its members. However, the
resulting database needed a lot of work. We persuaded the funding councils to provide funds for the development
of this database as a national resource, with an associated document delivery service. This work is underway at
Manchester.
Retrospective Conversion Study
We wanted to know if a major national retrospective catalogue conversion programme was justified.
The report we commissioned is quite convincing on the benefits of that conversion. We have about 11
million records in electronic form in our university libraries. We need to convert over 25 million more.
In theory this means that more than two thirds of the material in our libraries can be discovered only by
inspecting card or other hard copy catalogues.
The problem is the cost. This is estimated at £50 million, made up of £25 million from central sources
plus matching funding from the universities. This is going to be difficult to fund given the funding pressures
and we are not sure how to cope with this, beyond spending a small amount each year attacking key parts of the
problem. One thing is certain: decisions of this nature need to be linked to a national strategy. Initiatives in
this area will give shape to prioritising collections for conversion and help to emphasise collections of national
significance.
ELECTRONIC LIBRARIES PROGRAMME
Now we come to one of the most significant developments, the Electronic Libraries Programme, eLib
(a digital libraries programme as it might be called in the United States).
eLib is managed by an Implementation Group for IT (FIGIT), chaired by Lynne Brindley. FIGIT is a
sub-committee of the JISC. The programme is directed by Chris Rusbridge, who has chosen to base himself at
Warwick, where he is supported by Kelly Russell.
FIGIT has released two calls for proposals: one in July 1994 and one in November 1995. The initial call
was divided into seven programme areas, and the second call into four areas.
Elib projects are quite different from the NSF/NASA/ARPA digital library projects. These are six huge,
integrated projects each looking at many different aspects of the digital library. In contrast eLib, about the
same size in cash terms, has funded over 50 projects to date. These are mostly small - aiming for deliverables
over the next three years or so. The projects involve more than 85 different HE institutions. Overall it is a
pragmatic programme, with relatively short term projects. With this scope, eLib could represent an important
step toward broad based cultural change.
FIRST CALL
The programme areas of the first call are examined below.
Document Delivery
Having concentrated in part on the arts and humanities, we also initiated document delivery projects,
some of which are particularly relevant to science and technology.
In document delivery, we aimed first of all to test different models in a networked, distributed environment.
Most document delivery in the UK is sourced from the British Library's Document Supply Centre at Boston Spa.
We wanted to make more use of our own resources. LAMDA is a project using RLG's ARIEL software to undertake
document delivery between universities in the London area and a group in Manchester.
We are also funding two major systems development projects for paper-based documents. One of these is dual
language: English and Welsh. We have also agreed to join with Australian and New Zealand partners to commission
enhancements to ARIEL. Finally in this area is the InfoBike project, which will provide document delivery from
electronic-sourced documents.
Electronic journals
In the electronic journals area, we are funding twelve projects. Two of these, CLIC and
Internet Archaeology, are described in other papers in this report. Others range from support for learned
society publishers moving to electronic formats, to the second SuperJournal project. This has a consortium of 20
publishers, in various disciplines. The project plans to test a selection of off-the-shelf interfaces, carrying
out a series of user behaviour studies. These studies will then be evaluated to determine the way users interact
with clusters of journals from these publishers.
Digitisation
Digitisation has proved to be a difficult area, and it has taken time to clarify and develop thinking in this
area. We thought we might be able to release some space by digitising long runs of out-of-copyright material.
Despite getting a good number of proposals, we have only funded two digitisation projects to date, and only one
of these (from Oxford and Leeds) deals with early journals. The second deals with recent journals in the area
of design. The motivation here is not space but conservation. Students in this area apparently steal not just
pages or volumes, but entire runs of journals! We can only hope that they will not resort to stealing instead
PCs or workstations...
These modest test projects have been funded to provide experience and insight into the technological and
economic issues of digitisation. It seems clear now that the most appropriate model is a central digitisation
facility (possibly in co-operation with the private sector) which would negotiate copyright clearance and
provide off-site expert evaluation services. We would like to fund such a centre, though it is not yet
certain that all necessary technologies are mature enough.
On Demand Publishing
On Demand publishing is the practice of printing short runs of publications - sometimes extremely short runs
- when they are needed, rather than the more traditional practice of printing large runs and keeping stocks awaiting
demand. An examination of this area shows how conservative, book-oriented, teaching is currently.
On Demand Publishing is one programme area where the major emphasis throughout has been on the teaching and
learning benefits. We have funded seven projects. Most have a print-on-paper emphasis, but a few, notably the
ERIMS project in management studies and the Liverpool John Moores project in the humanities, have an electronic
basis. These projects are generally all having difficulties with getting publishers' rights cleared at a
reasonable price. Publishers seem determined to kill off a promising market.
Training and awareness
We have always believed that training and awareness is a vital area. We have funded six projects here,
generally quite different from one another. Netskills is our main skills improvement project, based on
the group at Newcastle who provided training through the Mailbase project. We also have EduLib, aiming
to upgrade the educational competencies of librarians. There are three projects which are practically based,
but essentially studies.
Finally there is the recently-launched Ariadne. This is a print and network-based newsletter which was
initiated earlier in 1996. It aims to stimulate discussion in the library community, and should achieve that,
from its first issue.
Access to Network Resources
It is notoriously difficult to find resources on the Internet. One approach we are taking is the
creation of subject-based gateways. Another paper in this report describes the SOSIG gateway project;
there are a further six gateways and one technology project in this area.
Supporting Studies
We always expected there would be useful work which was difficult to categorise. The supporting
studies area brings these together. We have three projects, looking at the economics of document delivery,
at cultural change, and at problems of resource discovery (refer to the paper on ROADS herein). There have
also been shorter studies on existing digitisation projects, on the need for an images data service, and on
technologies for copyright management.
Images
Images have been mentioned more than once above. FIGIT received quite a number of image-based proposals
in its first call but chose to wait for an images scoping study it had funded. That document is now out for
consultation, and FIGIT has taken it as a framework for awarding three significant projects, covering very
different areas: digital maps, medical images and photographic images of historical interest. These are
very new.
SECOND CALL
The second call asked for proposals in pre-prints and grey literature, in quality assurance and in
electronic reserve. These areas were addressing gaps where the initial response was not felt adequate.
Pre-prints or grey literature lend themselves particularly well to an electronic environment. None of their
timeliness is lost in processing or postal delays. We have agreed four projects in this area, and this is the
first public announcement of support for a pre-print service in the cognitive sciences, directed by Stevan Harnad.
This is an area in which the UK may take a world-wide lead.
Quality assurance projects will work to develop working models for refereeing in an electronic environment.
The successful project is concerned more with streamlining peer review in than new models of quality assurance.
It could prove very complementary to work in electronic journals and pre-prints. One can perhaps envisage
further work on a system that moves materials directly from a pre-print via a refereeing environment into an
e-journal.
The electronic reserve projects take our on-demand publishing work one stage further. There are some very
interesting projects here, including some vital software for tracking access to copyright materials.
There is also a project on delivering access to music and video as electronic reserve materials, for dance
ELIB INFORMATION
Naturally, there are numerous sources of information about eLib:
A famous British writer, Terry Pratchett, has written a whole series of science fiction stories
about his imaginary Discworld. This world has many extraordinary parallels with our own. In these stories,
the Librarian at the Unseen University has been changed through some unfortunate magical accident to an
orang-utan. He could be changed back, but the magical books he looks after are so dangerous that he chooses
to remain as an orang-utan. It may be hard to communicate when you entire vocabulary is Ook, but I have
heard of librarians in our universities who feel that very long arms and orange fur would help in dealing
with their clients!
In one story (Guards! Guards!) the Librarian uses a thread, like Theseus, to find his way back from an
expedition deep into his library. The density of knowledge is so great that it distorts space-time. He
manages to find his way to a point a week ago, before a critical book had been stolen. After reading it he
carefully replaces it and retraces his step to the present, following the thread. Presumably some of our
librarians wish they could do that, too!
In another book (Small Gods), he makes the suggestion that this distortion of space-time is so great that
all Libraries everywhere are connected, in "L-space". The Librarian is thus able to rescue some books from
the centre of a burning library in another city.
ANDERSON REPORT
This idea that all Libraries are - or should be - connected, is one of the central ideas of the
Anderson Report. Michael Anderson looked at the problem of support for research, and essentially decided
that we absolutely have to co-operate and collaborate. We have highly competitive institutions, but we must
find ways to develop some sort of national strategy for co-ordinated support for research - a strategy that
includes the national libraries. This is especially important in the UK with our numerous smallish universities
and libraries. This idea underpins out thinking on the national distributed collection (print and electronic).
We know also that we must go far beyond connecting OPACs in providing simple means to find our information resources.
The Anderson Report also raised the issue of preservation of digital information. We are all familiar with the
fate of the fabled Alexandria Library, and probably also the medieval monastic library in Umberto Eco's book
The Name of the Rose (this library was also a labyrinth, this time to protect the monks from the
knowledge in some books). It was not clear until a few years ago that digital information might be similarly
vulnerable. Now we realise that the move to digital information - an inexorable move, it seems - brings new and
unique problems in preservation. In the US, the Commission for Preservation and Access has been considering this
for some time. They wrote an excellent draft report with the RLG [1]. We have now taken our first
steps to play our part in resolving these difficulties, with a workshop at Warwick last year [2].
Unless we continue to support this work vigorously, it will inhibit taking advantage of the new methods of
scholarly communication.
THE FUTURE
So where do we go from here? We have a significant programme of projects under way. The projects are
sometimes described as a set of experiments. We now have to start looking for ways to make these experiments
practical realities in our libraries. We must look wider than the UK, and try to integrate our work with
overseas projects - whatever we can find that is useful.
So the first plank of our future strategy is to select some projects, then to embark on scaling up,
integration and implementation, with wide dissemination and real efforts at cultural change. We should aim
to get the results implemented across many or all libraries. In order to maintain the flow of funding,
we shall have to "deliver results".
The second plank is to build on the ideas from the Anderson report. We must try to increase library
collaboration. We want to be able to find documents wherever they are.
The third and final plank of the strategy is to try to make some real progress - backed by real money -
in the emerging area of digital preservation.
We have not got all the funds we need to implement this strategy.
SUMMARY
As a result of the Libraries Review, we have some very substantial programmes funded. This may not be
everything we could wish for, but there is plenty to get on with. The eLib programme is the key development.
It will have a major effect on cultural change in universities. We need to go further with this if we can
get the funding to do so.
The organisation of HE in the UK means we can have a national strategy. Electronic library developments
will only happen in this way.
We want to see eLib and other national programmes such as TLTP, etc. developing an holistic approach to
teaching and learning. At the same time, we have to try to collaborate more in support of research.
It is important to keep relationships with the USA strong - particular areas include digital preservation,
licensing and copyright.
We could view our world as a multi-dimensional labyrinth. In different ways as funders, Vice-Chancellors,
Librarians and as users, we are all faced with a different maze of difficult choices. How do we find our way?
We need whatever guides we can find. Let us hope we treat our Ariadne better than Theseus did.
Footnotes
[1] Draft report available at URL
http://www-rlg.stanford.edu/ArchTF/
and by FTP at server lyra.stanford.edu/pub/ArchTF/
[2] Report available at URL
http://ukoln.bath.ac.uk/fresko/
TERRY CANNON, Assistant Director, The British Library Research and Development Department
This account was drafted for this report by The Marc Fresko Consultancy. It is based on notes
taken during the presentation and notes supplied by the speaker.
ABSTRACT
For many years the main support agency for Information Technology applications in library information services,
The British Library Research and Development Department, has had a long-term interest in networking. The
founding of UKOLN, by the addition of networking to the existing bibliographic management research centre at
Bath, set up a powerful facility for awareness, advice, research and standards. UKOLN initially concentrated on
the academic sector, but, with encouragement from The British Library, has since extended its operations to all
types of library. The Research and Development Department itself has undertaken a number of projects in non-academic
libraries and its plans for the future give a high priority to this area.
FUNDING
The British Library is the main United Kingdom funding agency for research in the Library and Information field.
Even so, funds are limited - the 1995/6 budget being only £1.6 million. They are also spread over a wide range of
topics, such as information policy, user studies, education, training and awareness, and across all communities, not
just the academic. In addition, technology is applicable to information handling in all information services, not
just libraries. The British Library has had to live with dwindling resources in real terms (the equivalent to the
1979 level of funding would be £3.6 million today) and the trend looks set to continue. Much tighter focusing in
the future is therefore inevitable.
In view of the funding position, collaborations and partnerships with other funding sources are always very
welcome. The Library has also become involved in functions which are tantamount to management of research and
development funds for other bodies - in particular, various public library development schemes for the Department
of National Heritage.
The Follett initiative to put resources into university library research and development is very much appreciated,
especially at a time when the smaller scale projects of the type generally supported by The British Library in this
area were no longer sufficient to address needs.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Nevertheless a great deal of library research projects have been supported, which in retrospect can be seen as
precursors to the present eLib programme. Some of these are described below.
The BLEND Project
BLEND, the Birmingham and Loughborough Electronic Networking Development, was undertaken in the first half of the
1980s and constituted a very early attempt to set up an electronic journal. Although the technology was crude by
today's standards, many new ideas were tested. The basis of the project was an electronic conferencing system,
which set up a community linked together by communications (with all of the attributes of a present-day networked
community), including e-mail, and the journal arose as a by-product.
QUARTET
University College London and the University of Hertfordshire joined them in a subsequent project, the former
bringing expertise in integrating text, sound and graphics in electronic documents, the latter bringing extensive
research on optical media. The quartet of universities combined to investigate electronic document handling, with
a view to developing practical applications from the research. One of these was a researcher's workstation, but
in the event this was superseded by external developments resulting from the rapid progress of technology, currently
rendering products obsolescent every two years or so.
More recently the University of Loughborough, with Institute of Physics Publishing, has delivered an electronic
physics journal, and University College London has networked the American Chemical Society Journals.
Electronic Library
The De Montfort University set up an electronic library on the Milton Keynes campus, with support from The
British Library, eLib and the European Commission. They also collaborated with the Nara Institute in Japan and with
NACSIS, which provides an academic network similar to JANET.
Multi Media
A call for proposals in 1987 led to a range of research projects investigating retrieval from image databases.
Networking
Many information technology projects have a networking aspect, and by 1989 its importance had been recognised
by university libraries and by The British Library. At that time a considerable amount of early work concerned
with applications, surveys, awareness and publicity was undertaken.
UKOLN
In 1992, UKOLN, the United Kingdom Office for Library and Information Networking, was fully established at
the University of Bath, with half of its funding from The British Library Research and Development Department
and half from JISC, the Joint Information Systems Committee. It is now a major vehicle for dissemination of
information on electronic libraries, supporting events such as the Follett Lectures, seminars conferences and
publishing. In particular, UKOLN has demonstrated networking power by implementing and offering a wide range of
Web services.
ARIADNE, the Internet magazine for librarians and information specialists, is the latest outcome of
collaboration with eLib and in January of this year it attracted over one hundred thousand accesses.
The Conference on Long Term Preservation of Electronic Materials, held at Warwick University in November 1995,
engendered various possible study areas, including:
- preservation of technology vs emulation of "old" software vs migration;
- "post hoc" rescue of high value material;
- integrity of media/error detection (earlier R&D on this topic was supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation);
- skills with, and awareness of the needs for, digital archiving.
Sectors outside the university environment - where research is a main raison d'être - have been less fortunate,
with no Follett grants and consequently less awareness of information technology or networking matters, and on the
level of research in general. The British Library Research and Development Department is therefore concentrating
efforts on the Public Library and other relevant non-academic sectors.
PUBLIC LIBRARY SECTOR
After long neglect, Public Libraries have a window of opportunity which must not be missed. Initiatives such
as EARL, Electronic Access to Resources in Libraries, and Millennium funding must be promoted. A strong movement
is developing to "empower the people" through public access to information superhighways. Political statements,
such as the following issued recently by the Labour Party are very encouraging:
"Access: We wish to ensure that participation in the information revolution is available to all and not
just to the privileged few. There must be equality of access through an integrated national network which covers
all parts of the country, reaching as extensively and as affordably as possible, in which each network system links
with others. We seek to empower individual citizens as participants and consumers and also to ensure equal access
to the providers of services."
Currently, rather than Public Libraries being the focus of Governmental networking efforts, priority is being
given to wiring up schools and hospitals. Thus, to support the Secretary of State for National Heritage's statement
concerning uptake of the Internet in Public Libraries, UKOLN commissioned a rapid review of this subject, using
telephone survey techniques to contact all Public Libraries. The results, with a 100% response, revealed that:
- 53% of Public Library authorities have some form of Internet connection;
- only 17% have public access;
- only 3% of service points have Internet connection;
- only 0.7% of service points have public access;
- only 282 workstations are dedicated to this end in the entire country.
The survey shows a low take-up and a need for investment; though leading-edge research (for example, CLIP,
the Croydon Library Internet Project, IT-Point, the Solihull Library Access Project) and consortia such as
EARL cannot transform Public Libraries. They can, however, point the way to larger scale endeavours, such
as the Library Association's Millennium bid, and influence political strategies backed by hard cash - be it
Government financing, Local Authority sources or public/private sector partnerships.
THE FUTURE
The British Library Research and Development has a new Director, taking his appointment at a time of immense
change.
The Secretary of State has appointed a new Libraries and Information Commission to co-ordinate information
issues between sectors, to review the United Kingdom's international role, especially in regard to the European
Union, and, in particular, to develop research policy in Library Information Systems. The new Director will be
involved with the Research Sub-Committee of that Commission.
Meanwhile, the cuts in funding are expected to continue and both The British Library and its Research and
Development Department will not be exempt. Accordingly, The British Library is re-structuring and the Research
arm will follow suit. There will inevitably be a re-focus of effort, with perhaps less directed at higher
education, though liaison with that area will remain of paramount importance (universities are still the logical
contacts for high technology). Interest will grow in private sector input into research, probably via partnerships
and joint funding.
It should be emphasised in this context that it will be the hand of friendship that The British Library Research
and Development Department will be extending and not the begging bowl. Research will continue at The British Library.
FURTHER INFORMATION
For further information, contact the speaker at terry.cannon@bl.uk
JOHN MAHONEY, Director of Computing and Telecommunications, the British Library
This account was drafted for this report by The Marc Fresko Consultancy.
It is based on notes taken during the presentation and slides used.
ABSTRACT
As one of the world's great research libraries, the British Library has served scholarship, research and
innovation for over four hundred and fifty years. Now, tremendous changes are taking place at a rapid, and
increasing, rate. Some of these transformations arise from the demands of users who are themselves influenced
by new phenomena, such as the Internet; some are due to the sweeping changes affecting equipment, particularly
computers and communications. The British Library is preparing for this new environment, not only by initiating
programmes to exploit information technology, but by forging new partnerships to meet the challenges ahead.
THE BRITISH LIBRARY
As well as being the national library of the United Kingdom, the British Library is one of the world's great
research libraries. With an annual budget of £110 million, it employs a staff of 2,300 people and houses over
one hundred and fifty million items.
Its main purpose is to serve scholarship, research and innovation. In this respect the Library is not primarily
providing resources for undergraduate teaching, but acts rather as a research material provider. Its strategic
objectives are exemplified in the following quotations from the Library's Strategic Objectives for the Year 2000
report:
- "By the year 2000, the British Library will be a major centre for the storage of and access to digital texts required for research.";
- "By the year 2005, our digital collection will be enormous and growing at a huge rate.";
- "...becoming a major centre for the capture, storage and transmission of electronic documents...";
- " we are seeking to make our collection better known and more widely available by exploiting the increasing use of computer networks ".
USER-DRIVEN CHANGES
Computer literacy is becoming more and more commonplace, from the schoolroom to the workplace (a library
example of how much this aspect has changed is in the OPAC, the On-line Public Access Catalogue, which was
originally feared to be too complex for the public user and is now considered to be too simple). This process
has been encouraged by the exponentially increasing use of the Internet.
In its own services and collections, The British Library is sure that digital materials will not replace all
traditional library materials and that people will continue to want to use them traditional materials. In parallel,
there is an inexorable rise in the demand for digital materials.
There is also a definite trend for users to want desktop type of access, whenever they want and wherever they are.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN CHANGES
Information Technology (IT) is polarising in respect to its equipment and activities. Convergence on a global
scale is manifest in computers and communications, media and publishing (where many organisations are merging) and
education and entertainment. The same technology trends are catalysing great individuality, creativity and variety.
Access to electronically held information is distance-independent and in the near future the cost of using
powerful communications over long distances will be negligible. At present, one hour of such use would cost about
five cents. Although this might be perceived as relatively low and although it will undoubtedly fall, the level
of charge is currently two orders of magnitude above costs and significant changes are perhaps unlikely over the
next five years. Nevertheless communications is now viewed as a global commodity, though the infrastructure is
not in place as yet in many parts of the world.
Software tools are becoming increasingly inexpensive, easy-to-use, powerful and sophisticated. This, combined
with the development, price reductions and availability of hardware advances, such as massively parallel processing,
will allow desktop computers to interact very quickly and a great deal more naturalistically.
The British Library is preparing for the new environment, where access will be a primary factor. It has initiated
the Initiatives for Access programme of pilots and demonstrators to exploit IT, test new services, examine
organisational implications and provide a vehicle for collaboration and Public Relations - including PR on exactly
what a great Research and Development library is capable of.
The change of technology has been viewed by some as a change of purpose, but this is not so. That remains the
same as it has been for the last four hundred and fifty years.
THE DIGITAL LIBRARY
The vision of the British Library is of integrated access to its digital collections and those of other
organisations. It will, therefore, be organised, and indexed, for such access and will work towards increasing the
access, both in terms of people and materials, while maintaining availability of digital archives.
Other aspects of that vision will include staff having "digital competencies" (all staff will have need of these,
not just a few "digital librarians"), establishing a balance between the requirements of Intellectual Property Rights
and fair dealing with information and the commitment of substantial investment, from both the Library and its partners,
be they government or private sector.
The priorities will be:
- the extension of United Kingdom legal deposit legislation to electronic materials (microform and digital);
- the expansion of British Library document supply services, built on article alerting and improved delivery;
- the expansion of patent services, based on Patent Express (all patent offices issue patents on CD-ROM and it
is unlikely that any patents will be on paper beyond the next five years);
- improved access to the British Library's historical collections via services to researchers, schools and the
general public (the Library's issue of such documents on CD-ROM exceeded sales forecasts and won major awards; more importantly, it gave students direct access to manuscripts in full colour to the extent that copies could be printed, relevant details cut
out and inserted directly into project portfolios - a process which is impossible with original documents)
PARTNERSHIPS
Collaboration has always been part of library provision and this has been encouraged by lack of resources,
especially on a national level. The global digital library clearly requires co-operation, not least on standards,
protocols and on services based on access to digital collections. Different kinds of partnerships will encompass
agreements on standards, collaboration with other digital collection owners and joint ventures with the private sector.
Different partners could be derived from the academic community, from industry and commerce and from public libraries.
Partnership will provide opportunities for developing improved, more comprehensive services and a means of sharing
development costs. In addition to nationally-based partnerships, the British Library will be seeking to extend
collaboration with relevant organisations in both the European Union and the United States
It will also seek to utilise the United Kingdom government's Private Finance Initiative, acknowledging its key
points (transfer of risk to the private sector, value for money for the taxpayer and open competition in the
selection of partners) in respect to its three main models (financing public investment, private initiative and
joint venture).
Overall, the great changes now taking place world-wide and at an accelerating rate will transform the nature of
all libraries and the British Library will not be exempt from that process - far from it. That is the challenge
over the next few years, a challenge for which the British Library is preparing and which it is looking forward
to meeting.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Information is available from john.mahoney@bl.uk
and at URL: http://portico.bl.uk/access/
RICHARD WEST, Vice-Chancellor, California State University
This account was drafted for this report by The Marc Fresko Consultancy.
It is based on notes taken during the presentation and slides used.
ABSTRACT
The costs of scholarly information are based on long experience with a print-based creation and distribution system.
The global Internet, however, is already changing the economics of the information distribution system. Understanding
networked information and its potential effect on universities' costs for acquiring, storing and delivering information
is essential in today's information and technology-oriented world. New approaches to allocating institutional funds to
recognise networked information are required if scholars and students are to benefit from new information technologies.
Examining the functions of the scholarly information distribution process will indicate where changes in role and
investment are required by universities if networked information is to be used successfully.
THE KNOWLEDGE INFRASTRUCTURE
We can describe the knowledge infrastructure in terms of collection(s) of materials, methods of access, means of
storage, channels of distribution and technologies for printing and display. In functional terms, it can be considered
as equivalent to a traditional library. By contrast however, the Knowledge Infrastructure is radically different from
conventional libraries in procedural and conceptual terms. In effect, we have the two completely different models of
information management co-existing in parallel.
For any meaningful analysis on the Knowledge Infrastructure, we shall have to assume the existence of the Internet
(or something like it). We will also find that the Knowledge Infrastructure demands close collaboration between
traditionally separate constituencies such as campus organisations, technology groups and librarians.
CHANGES IN THE INTERNET IN THE US
The US has seen a major transition in management of the network over the last 18 months or so. The change has
involved the emergence of the Internet as an entity in its own right. The models for its overall management and
technical approach are being changed as it moves away from Federal Government control (under the NSF) towards a
private market approach. Some academics feel some sense of loss as this privatisation proceeds; but the full
financial and technological impacts of this evolutionary change - and of the rapid growth which triggered it - are
still far from complete.
Today, the Knowledge Infrastructure is a priority for the current administration and Congress. The national
technological infrastructure effectively extends down to the workstation level, but policy fails to recognise
the demands of integrated functionality. The level of regulation is being debated; some want a competitive
environment, though a regulated environment has real advantages. The Telecommunications Reform Act - a major
piece of legislation - is an attempt to reconcile some of these conflicting demands; but competition will be
central to the policy.
The current network operates on data packets, and is moving towards a market-managed technological environment.
There are regulated local voice network services and also regulated local video distribution services. The trend
is towards integration of these in the near future.
This change and debate inescapably raises the question of what the higher education community's interest should
be in the evolving national networking infrastructure.
AN ANALYTICAL MODEL FOR SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS
Any model of scholarly communications must extend from the creation of information to its use, and must take in
all steps in between. This can be done by expressing a model in terms of functions and performance attributes.
The functions can be summarised in the following list:
- Information Generation
- Preservation and Archiving
- Acquisition and Access
- Authoring
- Information Management
- Storage
- Informal Peer Communication
- Location and Delivery
- Distribution
- Editorial and Validation
- Recognition
- Utilisation of Information
- Ownership, Privacy, Security
- Diffusion
Note that a digital Knowledge Infrastructure has to provide equivalents to all of these functions if it is to be
successful. Along with these key functions, we have to consider the following performance attributes:
- Ease of Use
- Timeliness
- Responsiveness
- Accuracy
- Authenticity
- Predictability
- Adaptability
- Relevance
- Eligibility
- Cost
- Recovery
- Innovation
- Extensibility
Analysis with this model suggests that new roles and changed institutional behaviour will be required. It is also
clear that there is a desperate need for investment in the technological infrastructure.
The success and survival of the Knowledge Infrastructure must be examined in the light of this model. We can,
for example, analyse electronic journals, comparing haw they perform along the entire chain from creator to user,
compared to the conventional paper scheme. One of our challenges is to make sure that all functions are performed well.
THE MARKETPLACE FOR SCHOLARLY INFORMATION
The marketplace for scholarly information is evolving rapidly.
The concept of intellectual property rights (IPR) is central; and the issues it raises are controversial.
Fundamentally, we can identify three kinds of information:
- "free" information;
- public information;
- private information;
Note that the paper model combines these three kinds of information successfully. There are two ways in which
information is used, namely:
- compensated use;
- uncompensated use.
Fierce debate rages around what usage should be compensated and what should be uncompensated. The mechanisms
for dealing with IPR for electronic materials are not yet fully developed, and where international transactions
are concerned the level of development is even lower. The concept of "fair use" is creating a controversial dynamic;
if anything, there is a trend towards a more conservative, more restrictive interpretation of fair use.
While issues and mechanisms are immature, we can be confident of one thing: there is no free ride in this electronic
environment; we will get what we pay for!
Resource Sharing
Librarians have long been great sharers of information. Possibly because of this, perceptions about resource
sharing are based on concepts allied to the paper model, and these perceptions are changing but slowly. Accordingly
there is a tendency towards the premise that any savings will result from an extension of the inter-library loan model;
and equally a tendency to view the acquisitions budget as likely to show savings. In fact however, due to the
continued strength of private property rights in scholarly literature, libraries acquisitions budgets are likely to
increase rather decrease.
Substitution
To use the language of classical economics, the marketplace for journals is imperfect. The imperfection is due to
the fact that there are no substitutable goods for many journals, as evidenced by the fact that librarians tend to
reduce the numbers of subscriptions rather than subscribing to alternative titles when faced with price rises which
exceed budget increases. The last few years have seen increases of !0% - 15% every year in the cost of journals.
We can guess that increases cannot continue indefinitely; something is bound to change.
Information Pricing
Electronic media allow for a diverse range of pricing methods and policies. The question of how we will pay for
information is now considerably more significant than it was with paper publications. The pricing schemes include:
- per copy acquired (ie traditional pricing);
- per use;
- site licence;
- licence based on specified number of simultaneous users.
There may be other variables too; for instance, costs for the same information may vary according to how new or
old the information is when it is used.
It is important for us to recognise that the different approaches can lead to considerably different total costs.
We can have some influence on costs, at least in some cases, by co-operating with other users to reap economies of
scale. And it is clear that the general trend is towards licensing rather than acquisition. However, other issues
are less clear cut: for example, if a licence payment is arranged, what happens when the licence expires? What
happens if users are by that time "hooked" on using the information? Libraries should beware of low initial costs
for licences.
COST CENTRES AT AN INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL
Electronic information requires less storage space than information on paper (though realistically, at best we
can only hope that it will reduce the rate of growth of library storage space). Furthermore, the cost of storing
information electronically is less than the cost of storing the equivalent on paper (at least in the short term).
So electronic materials can lead to savings in costs for storage, access and circulation of scientific and technical
materials. We should look to these cost centres to provide additional funds for content acquisition.
In the US, the concept of needing to pay for archiving and preservation is still relatively young (because the
history of the US is relatively so short). But archiving and preservation must be recognised as being of paramount
importance, and funded accordingly.
Two conceptual changes will be enabled by emerging electronic technologies:
- a reconceptualisation of how scholarly research is carried out, without any paper;
- a removal of the assumption that scholarly communications require paper at some point.
Most so-called "electronic" strategies today rely on the use of paper at some level. A good example is the
SPIRES High Energy Physics pre-prints initiative, which is operating successfully on a large scale. Although it
allows the production, circulation and storage of papers in electronic form, the authors still demand that the
papers be published in paper form. The real savings of these technologies will only start to be realised when
there is no paper stage.
Implications
All of these factors will lead us to revise our thinking about the relative importance and sizes of traditional
library cost centres. Making investment decisions for electronic information rights in a networked world are complex.
Content costs will almost inevitably increase, and there is little that librarians alone can do about it.
We therefore will need to find ways to accommodate the increased costs of information content. Possibilities may
include:
- seeking increases to the materials/collections budgets;
- charging services fees;
- time value pricing;
- rationing;
- benefiting from productivity savings in other cost centres.
Finally, the cost structures may affect collection policies, as there will be pressures to let these policies be
dictated by usage more than before.
NEXT STEPS
The above has outlined several of the issues and scenarios which will shape the future. Just when a new
electronic models will rule is not known; certainly we do not expect any single model to dominate the scene for
the next twenty years. Over that period the differing models will exist in parallel. This will lead to
"unnecessary:" duplication of some activities - and hence higher costs. Consequently we will need funds processes
to support all the models at once, and recognition of this increasingly expensive and complex environment is an
essential element of any new strategy.
To close, there are some actions we can take to advance the situation positively. The actions are:
- support the creation of competitive marketplaces for all components of data networking and scholarly
information content, in order to take advantage of the market pressures to drive costs to a minimum;
- support the "fair use" concept for intellectual property in electronic form (but do not expect this to
reduce costs overall);
- explore co-operative "content" agreements that maximise economies of scale with content providers
(taking care to minimise long term risks of high expenditure);
- keep public information in the public domain (ie resist efforts to make public information private
by means of repackaging such as the addition of an attractive interface);
- invest in local campus networking capability (to ensure that the 25% - 30% of faculty who are not
yet connected to the Internet gain full access);
- promote efforts to maximise public and private periodical information in electronic form
HENRY RZEPA, CLIC Project Director, Imperial College, UK
This account was drafted for this report by The Marc Fresko Consultancy.
It is based on notes taken during the presentation, slides used, and text adapted from a
WWW presentation on CLIC which is referred to at the end of this account.
ABSTRACT
Molecular science is both a very visual and "three dimensional" subject, and one that is very rich in precise
semantic content and standard definitions. The CLIC electronic journal project has as its objectives the parallel
printed and electronic publication of a flagship chemistry journal, that will use some very recent publishing
technologies to deliver to the reader the three dimensional visual element along with textual information.
BACKGROUND
Chemistry is one of the most visual and "three dimensional" of sciences. For many generations, communication
of the subject has been rooted on the printed pages of chemical journals, with even colour a rare event.
Partially because of such limitations, the subject has evolved a complex and arcane symbolism for its written
representation. The complexities of this "chemical nomenclature" in turn result in substantial risk of the
propagation of errors and misinterpretation of results. A refereeing system exists to catch both errors of
science and transcription errors, but the reality is that referees have few "tools" to assist them to catch
errors on the printed page other than then own eyes and minds.
For the first time, electronic tools to allow the cost-effective dissemination of three-dimensional information
are now at hand. We can envisage distributing electronic documents which represent three-dimensional objects
(molecules), and which allow readers to "manipulate" them to examine the objects from all angles. Electronic
publications also allow other features, such as linking and access statistics. This combination of features has
created the opportunity which the CLIC project is exploring.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The main objective of this eLib project is to develop parallel electronic and printed forms of the established
journal Chemical Communications. An electronic version will provide such information to the reader, with what
might be called "semantic integrity" and accuracy of the information. We even envisage providing mechanisms for
readers to comment on the individual articles, and thus to interact with the original authors. To this extent,
this aim differs from some other electronic journals, where the paramount objective is to achieve what is called
"page integrity" with the original printed version. Whilst semantic and page integrity are not necessarily exclusive,
to achieve both requires significant extra effort in storing the basic content of the journal, and its presentation to
the user. Thus the CLIC project will concentrate on developing standards for storing, transmitting, displaying and
applying molecular information.
This is being achieved in three stages:
- by introducing graphically enhanced contents pages. This was available from August 1995;
- electronic delivery of complete articles, using SGML and HTML, enriched with additional information: expected to be available later in 1996;
- addition of features unique to the electronic edition, being introduced from 1995 to 1997.
From March 1997, a number of complete issues of the journal will be available electronically, with some
enhancement.
Awareness Raising Objectives
Not the least task is educating the audience to actively participate in this method of information retrieval,
and indeed persuading authors to contribute information in the appropriate form in the first place. The CLIC
project thus aims to increase awareness in the chemical community of the possibilities and advantages of electronic
publications. This is being achieved by:
- training packs;
- conferences (eg ETOC-1, June 1995 and ECHET96, June 1996);
- international meetings (Chemistry on the Infobahn, Chicago August 1995);
- a discussion list and Webmasters forum;
- local IT briefings;
- informative articles in relevant publications;
- installation in chemistry and central university libraries, including structured feedback and evaluation
from students and staff.
The project team is particularly pleased to note that a number of chemistry software vendors are now producing
freely distributable software for use with the CLIC journal. In general, this is in the form of "cut-down" versions
of commercial products, made available for network use by the vendors. One product specifically designed for
such an e-journal has recently been announced (Chemscape Chime from MDLI). Another notable success is the
popularity of the e-conference: over 15,000 different people have connected to the conference in the last
ten months (note that this is comparable to the number of attendees at a major ACS conference, but at a fraction
of the cost!)
For more information on these activities, refer to the URL at the end of this account.
Chemical Objectives
The project also has objectives which are specific to the nature of the discipline of chemistry.
Primarily, it seeks to achieve "future-proof" electronic delivery mechanisms. This is problematic, as many
necessary standards simply do not exist yet. One approach being investigated is the use of SGML to HTML conversion
with chemical DTDs. Another hopeful prospect is the results of the Hyper-G project, namely its distributed servers
and index engines. We are also monitoring the progress of the PURL (Persistent URL) initiative.
Another domain-specific requirement is the preservation of chemical semantics. The team is pursuing a number of
alternatives including chemical MIME (for the multimedia delivery of molecular content), virtual reality techniques
(using VRML), Java and CML (Chemical Markup Language).
THE CLIC CONSORTIUM
The CLIC consortium comprises groups in three university chemistry departments (Imperial College, Leeds and
Cambridge Universities) and a learned society (The Royal Society of Chemistry).
PRACTICAL POINTS
At present, the team approaches authors to request electronic copies of their papers; they then convert them
and apply the electronic enhancements. The process of preparing and publishing electronic papers is faster than
paper publishing, but at the moment both electronic and paper issues are published at about the same time.
One part of the publication process which is easier and faster is refereeing. In one case, a paper was
submitted and refereed electronically within eight hours! We are considering "commentable" or "discussable"
papers too, but this raises questions about the nature of moderation; the best answers are not yet clear.
The electronic medium is ideally suited to the gathering of access statistics; this can act as a valuable
form of peer reviewing.
FURTHER INFORMATION
This presentation, plus more background information including demonstration of some of the special
features such as viewing three dimensional molecules, is available at URL:
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/clic/talk_1.html
Project contacts are:
Cambridge Site of the Royal Society of Chemistry:
David James (Project Manager) jamesd@rsc.org
Leeds University:
Ben Whitaker benw@chem.leeds.ac.uk
and Chris Hildyard chrish@chem.leeds.ac.uk
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine:
Henry Rzepa (Project Director) rzepa@ic.ac.uk
and Omer Casher hoc@ic.ac.uk
Cambridge University:
Jonathan Goodman jmg11@cus.cam.ac.uk
and Dave Riddick dar25@cus.cam.ac.uk
CML:
Peter Murray-Rust p.murray-rust@mail.cryst.bbk.ac.uk
SEAMUS ROSS, Assistant Secretary (Information Technology), The British Academy
This account was drafted for this report by The Marc Fresko Consultancy.
It is based on notes taken during the presentation and slides used.
ABSTRACT
Archaeology is a particularly appropriate subject to promote the use of electronic media. Much archaeological
work is by its nature destructive; archaeologists therefore need to preserve access to primary data in order to
repeat and test conclusions. Traditional publishing methods have not provided the functionality that archaeologists
require to manipulate the data types involved. The Internet Archaeology project aims to establish both a new
definitive electronic publication and a model for subsequent developments. Key issues are touched on, with
proposed approaches.
THE PROJECT
It is clear that electronic publications can be more flexible and more effective than paper publications
could ever be. One brief example illustrates this: during the 1920s, an archaeologist painstakingly
reconstructed the design of a theatre which had been excavated. His reconstruction was widely accepted
until it was re-examined during this decade using solid modelling tools. Because of the facilities offered by
solid modelling, this re-examination proved that the earlier work was not completely feasible, and ideas about
the form of the theatre were revised. This probably would not have happened without the use of powerful
computer-assisted techniques.
Objectives
Accordingly, the main objective of this project is to develop a fully electronic, regular, online only,
refereed journal. Internet Archaeology aims to become one of the world's archaeological journals of record,
by publishing refereed papers of high academic standing which also use the potential of electronic publication
to the full.
Subsidiary objectives are to:
- produce a detailed description of the process of establishing and managing an electronic journal;
- define a suite of access and navigation tools which will allow readers to use the journal;
- contribute to cultural change through the increased use of electronic media.
The Consortium
The project consortium is led by the University of York. The other members are:
- Council for British Archaeology;
- The British Academy;
- University of Durham;
- University of Glasgow;
- University of Oxford;
- University of Southampton.
The project is constituted as a charitable trust, with a formal management structure including a steering committee,
an editorial board and a technical panel. The chair of the committee and Honorary Editor is Professor Barry Cunliffe,
from Oxford.
WHY ARCHAEOLOGY?
Archaeology is well suited to the application of advanced electronic techniques. It is multidisciplinary subject, which makes calls on many different skills and methods of analysis. One instance of this is its use of many different data types - text,
images, numerical data, GIS modelling etc. Practitioners already make use of electronic tools, and a body of experience in multimedia publication is growing.
WHY AN ELECTRONIC JOURNAL?
An electronic journal will be an ideal vehicle to convey archaeological information. It will provide new tools to
allow archaeologists to say things about the past in ways which where not previously possible. It will allow access
to primary research data, enriching it with additional functionality so that readers can manipulate this data,
allowing readers to make use of, and do justice to, the rich diversity of information.
Finally, an electronic journal has some special logistical benefits which make it well suited to the dissemination
of academic works. Its network orientation makes distribution both easy and inexpensive; and the distribution can
include unusual or bespoke programs which add value to the data.
Unfortunately, some drawbacks accompany these benefits. In particular, the costs of preparing papers have been
higher than anticipated, partly because of the many different data types with which archaeologists work. The team
has also found that the complexities and difficulties of running an electronic journal are greater than expected,
but remains convinced that it offers a valuable method of publication for archaeological work.
CONTENTS
The journal will feature:
- general articles on archaeological issues, including theoretical. methodological and analytical research;
- excavation and fieldwork reports, including finds studies;
- reports on the applications of new technologies such as software tools and visualisation methods;
- reviews of technological applications available over the network.
ISSUES
Revenue Generation
The annual running cost of Internet Archaeology is projected to be about £60,000. Clearly, an equivalent
revenue stream is needed. This may arise from diverse sources including subscriptions and access charges.
Various models are being considered; they include personal subscriptions, multiple access subscriptions and
so on. One option will be to offer personal subscriptions which allow greater functionality than site licences.
The final model is not certain; but it has been agreed that the first issue will be free for a period of one year.
We also intend that keyword searching and contents information will remain free of charge.
Intellectual Property
As in any publication, protection of intellectual property is a concern. In this domain, there is the added
complication that some of the data is commercially valuable (eg to companies which offer services connected
with environmental archaeological impact assessments).
Refereeing
Refereeing is essential for quality control and academic credibility. It has proved difficult because not
all archaeologists are sufficiently familiar with the relevant multimedia formats. A two-stage refereeing process
is being developed. The stages are:
- concept refereeing: carried out by an archaeologist;
- product refereeing: verifying the user interface, software etc.
In practice, this turns out to take place over the network as an iterative process.
Licensing
Careful construction of the reader licences is essential so that the right balance is struck between
usability and fair use on one hand and excessive sharing on the other. Rules for citations are envisaged.
Long Term Preservation
Somehow, the long term survival of the journal contents must be assured. How this will happen is as
yet unclear. Evidently, standards will have a part to play here; and the Arts and Humanities Data
Service may also be involved. This is a complex issue which is not yet resolved.
FURTHER INFORMATION
More information about the project and a sample electronic paper which displays many of the unique
features of the electronic medium are available at URL:
http://intarch.york.ac.uk
Members of the project team include:
Dr Michael Heyworth, Council for British Archaeology
m.heyworth@bbcnc.org.uk
Dr Seamus Ross, The British Academy seamusr@britac.ac.uk
Dr Julian Richards, University of York jdr1@york.ac.uk
The editor of Internet Archaeology is Dr Alan Vince, University of York
editor@intarch.york.ac.uk
BARBARA McFADDEN ALLEN Director, CIC Center for Library Initiatives
This account was prepared for this report by The Marc Fresko Consultancy.
It is based on an edited version of a paper supplied by the speaker.
ABSTRACT
The members of the CIC (Committee on Institutional Co-operation) are presently engaged in the collaborative
development of the largest fully managed collection of electronic journals available on the Internet. The project
directly addresses the growing need to develop, test, and implement networked information tools and resources
which use collaborative, multi-institutional, efforts. This paper outlines the development of this resource,
and concludes with a discussion about the future environment which will be necessary if projects such as this
are to become commonplace throughout the higher education community. To place the project in context,
descriptions of the Committee on Institutional Co-operation (CIC), the CIC universities, the CIC Center for
Library Initiatives, and CICNet, Inc., are given.
THE CIC UNIVERSITIES
As noted above, the "CIC" stands for the Committee on Institutional Co-operation, a 35 year-old collaboration
among the following universities:
- the University of Chicago;
- the University of Illinois;
- Indiana University;
- the University of Iowa;
- the University of Michigan;
- Michigan State University;
- the University of Minnesota;
- the Pennsylvania State University;
- Purdue University;
- the Ohio State University;
- Northwestern University;
- the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Today, there are over 75 separate and unique co-operative activities operating under the aegis of the CIC.
Collectively the CIC universities account for more than 17% of the doctorates awarded annually, more than
$2.5 billion in externally funded research annually, and over 17% of the holdings of the Association for Research
Libraries. They represent an aggregate total of over 500,000 students, 33,000 faculty, and 57 million volumes
within their libraries.
Like all of the nation's major institutions of higher education, the CIC universities depend on the availability
of reliable, high quality resources of all kinds, ranging from those available through their libraries and
faculties to the most advanced technologies in their laboratories, computing environments, and related teaching
and research facilities. What is unique about the CIC universities, however, are the many initiatives within
and among them which depend on a reliable and advanced networked infrastructure and on staff, facility, and
financial investments focused on true programmatic Co-operation. Collaborative initiatives have evolved which
require stable inter-institutional technical standards and support mechanisms and, increasingly, the availability
of shared, reliable information resources and services. Indeed, there are now some initiatives which might not be
possible without such infrastructures.
THE COMMITTEE ON INSTITUTIONAL COOPERATION
The Committee on Institutional Cooperation is made up of the Provosts of the above universities; it meets
four times annually. The office of the CIC is located at Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. It is professionally
staffed, with a director and nine FTEs. Its current operating budget is slightly over $4 million. It is
important to understand that there is core financial backing to the philosophical concept of the CIC in order
to understand the context of this paper. Additional funding, from member dues, research grants, and the usual
host of other sources exist for most of the initiatives which have evolved under the umbrella of the office
of the CIC.
The CIC has always been governed by its three founding principles:
- that no single institution can or should attempt to be all things to all people;
- that inter-institutional cooperation permits educational experimentation and progress on a
scale beyond the capability of any single institution acting alone;
- that voluntary cooperation fosters effective, concerted action while preserving institutional
autonomy and diversity.
These principles are critical to the successes of our programs. Among academic consortia, the
nature of the CIC institutions' collaboration is outstanding: individually these are some of the
greatest institutions of higher learning in this - or any - country. They are driven by different missions,
governed by separate boards and obtain their funding from a variety of separate sources. They are all
clearly autonomous organisations with no central funding or administrative body. Further, each of these
universities has unparalleled academic and research programs in a variety of fields; they sometimes compete
fiercely for funding, students and stature. Yet, co-operatively, they have been able to become a formidable
force in higher education.
CIC OFFICES: CO-ORDINATION AND LEADERSHIP
Two offices which have evolved under the umbrella of the CIC are the CIC Center for Library Initiatives
and CICNet, Incorporated.
CICNet, the regional TCP/IP network founded by the CIC in 1988, serves the internetworking needs of the
CIC universities, other academic institutions, not-for-profit organisations, and businesses. CICNet has had a
strong interest in the design and deployment of networked information services. CICNet is currently involved
in three major National Science Foundation-funded projects to bring Internet access to under-served communities,
namely:
- Rural Datafication, networking rural communities in the MidWest;
- the Great Lakes Regional American Indian Network, bringing the Internet to American Indians in the Great Lakes region;
- West Virginia RuralNet, helping K-12 science teachers and students in West Virginia take advantage of statewide resources.
These projects will enable constituencies that can most benefit from Internet access for communication to
take advantage of it. Funding for CICNet is primarily from three sources: member dues from the CIC universities,
specific projects funded by the National Science Foundation, and the sale of Internet connectivity and services to
for-profit and non-for-profit sectors.
The CIC Center for Library Initiatives (CLI) was established in September 1994, to support collaborative
efforts specifically among the CIC libraries. Co-operative resource sharing has long been a practice among
the CIC libraries, and the CIC has an enviable record of successful, funded R&D projects. Most notably, the
CIC libraries are now engaged in a Virtual Electronic Library (VEL) project, funded through a United States
Department of Education grant. The VEL project will develop the technical infrastructure required to provide
seamless interconnections among a range of OPAC systems within the CIC libraries, and demonstrate its
applications through user-initiated interlibrary loans and document delivery throughout the CIC. The VEL
will enable more than half a million faculty, staff, and students to explore and take advantage of vast
resources within the CIC. Inherent to the VEL project is the addition of an expanded set of electronic
sources to the VEL pool of information resources. The Center for Library Initiatives is funded by dues
paid by members of the CIC.
Thus the general framework for collaboration lies in the strong support at the highest levels of member
university administration as evidenced by the existence of the funded office of the Committee on Institutional
Cooperation and its subsidiaries. Relevant initiatives in support of the missions of the member universities
flow from within this framework. One such initiative, in this case involving the Center for Library Initiatives
and CICNet, Inc., is the Wide Area Information Resources Management (SEIRM) project, informally referred to as
the CIC Electronic Journals Collection or CIC EJC.
THE PROBLEM: UNMANAGED SCHOLARLY MATERIALS
Increasingly ubiquitous Internet access within the research university, combined with the popularisation of the
World Wide Web, has made on-line academic publication and research more desirable. The expansion of Internet-based
publishing provides opportunities and challenges for libraries interested in the shared development and management
of electronic collections. The low cost per increment of user access compared with print journals, regardless
of user location, argues strongly for building multi-institutional electronic collections. Internet tools and
communications methods also make it possible to distribute the collection development and management tasks across
multiple institutions. We are faced with two challenges:
- the growing number of scholarly journals, monographs, and pre-prints that are being published by the academic
community independent of (or in spite of) any commercial publishing organisation;
- the inherent lack of central co-ordination or management of such resources.
PREDECESSOR TO THE PROTOTYPE: THE CICNET E-SERIALS ARCHIVE
The development of the CIC Electronic Journals Collection (CIC EJC) grows out of collaborative efforts between
CICNet and the CIC library community, combined with CICNet's early work with WAIS and Gopher. In 1991, the CIC
library collection development officers asked CICNet to create an archive of the public domain electronic
journals which many of them had begun to collect locally but had no long-term means of archiving. CICNet went
beyond this original charge: archiving e-journals available at CIC member institutions, and sweeping the Internet
to collect all e-journals that could be obtained through an automated FTP process. The result, an undifferentiated
collection of some 700 titles in varying depths of retrospective coverage and completeness, was made accessible on a
CICNet server, and is now accessed approximately 35,000 times a day by users of the Internet.
The collection process was valuable in illustrating the range of materials available, but it became clear that
no entirely automated process could produce a collection that would satisfy the needs of most scholars. The
process of automatically sweeping the net could be used only to gather those items available through FTP. Many
new electronic journals are made available via Gopher or the Web. The current collection is best thought of as
a snapshot of materials available at a particular time in the history of the Internet rather than a comprehensive
resource, but the frequency of its use clearly indicates the need for a reliable managed collection of e-journals.
This collection is available at URL
gopher://gopher.cic.net:2000/11/e-serials/managed
A PROTOTYPE COLLECTION: THE CIC-EJC
In response to the need for a comprehensive collection of scholarly and research electronic journals,
the CIC Task Force on the Electronic Collection developed a complete plan for building a managed electronic
journal collection (CIC-EJC) based on the CICNet gopher server. The Task Force, which includes representation
both from CICNet and the CIC libraries, planned the collection from selection to maintenance. CICNet staff
then developed a prototype system based on the recommendations and input of the Task Force. The prototype
system is available on the World Wide Web at URL http://ejournals.cic.net and is intended to serve as an
illustration of the work which can be achieved by the librarians of the CIC universities and the staff of
CICNet. It includes some 50 electronic journals, with current bibliographic records, complete and current
holdings of all titles in the collection, a helpful World Wide Web interface which links the bibliographic
records to the e-journals (the journals remain on publishers' sites; the text is archived by CIC-EJC), and
consistent archiving of the materials in the collection. The prototype supports browsing by title and by
subject, and searching the bibliographic records. The titles are mainly in the areas of IT and science
subjects, but we hope to increase the Arts and Humanities coverage.
We have five broad objectives for this project:
- Create the largest professionally managed collection of public domain electronic journals on the Internet
today, providing access via the World Wide Web and Gopher to scholars, libraries, and individuals around the world.
- Engage both technologists and librarians in the development of this system, identifying and documenting
those areas where librarians can contribute to the increasingly difficult task of managing Internet resources,
while technologists design sophisticated access, retrieval, and archiving tools and processes.
- Identify optimum procedures for permanently archiving materials found in the collection thereby serving as
a testbed for the national electronic information preservation community.
- Serve as a model for any individual or organisation wanting to create a similar repository of electronic
information on the Internet. The development process will be fully documented and made available via the
World Wide Web and Gopher.
- Provide information to electronic publishers and authors in the important areas of distribution, use,
and security. Research and reports on the use of the system will be distributed throughout the project
via the World Wide Web and Gopher.
The work of the project has been divided and organised as follows:
Center for Library Initiatives:
- Co-ordination and leadership.
CICNet, Incorporated:
- Technical support, guidance, and implementation;
- Development and maintenance of all technical aspects of the system (hardware and software);
- Acquisition and archiving;
- Publisher relationships and permissions;
- Organise and display bibliographic data;
- Develop indexing and search utilities.
CIC Member Librarians:
- Evaluation of available information resources;
- Selection;
- Cataloguing;
- Monitoring (quality control).
DEVELOPMENT PLANS
We hope to begin aggressive development of this resource within the next six months including:
- Aggressive growth (adding hundreds of e-journals)
- Addition of commercially licensed e-journals, with concomitant security and authorisation systems
- Exploring the addition of multimedia publications
- Researching publisher and user behaviour in this new environment
- More sophisticated refreshing, archiving, and preservation processes and procedures
- Providing direct links between the OPAC records for these e-journals and the collection
Along the way, we hope to obtain insights into the answers for relatively fundamental questions, such as:
- is this approach a long term answer?
- should an initiative of this nature be national or international?
- how should multimedia objects be handled?
We will also consider natural functional enhancements, such as full text searching.
As we move forward with development of a viable virtual electronic library, the CIC EJC will serve both as
a testbed of inter-university collaboration and as an integral information resource for our users. The CIC
Center for Library Initiatives, in concert with CICNet, will continue the work of tying together discrete
projects and developments with an aim of providing flexible, desktop access and delivery of information
resources for the 500,000 students and 35,000 faculty and researchers of the CIC universities.
In the short term, we have submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation for support of the
CIC EJC. We will continue to refine specifications for interlibrary lending systems and concomitant
delivery mechanisms, and we will move aggressively into the production and dissemination of digital
resources. Our aim is to deploy a seamless access tool to allow users to navigate the wealth of CIC
library and information resources. Through such action, we will continue the tradition of excellence
in higher education upon which the CIC was founded - providing our students with the finest education
available, and providing our researchers with unparalleled access to information. And by providing the
CIC EJC to the Internet community we continue our great tradition of serving a vital role as contributors
of research results and products to the broader international education community.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Further information is available at URL:
http://www.cic.net/cic/cic.html/
The speaker can be contacted at bmallen@uiuc.edu
The prototype electronic journal collection (CIC-EJC) is available at URL:
http://ejournals.cic.net
JANA BRADLEY, Assistant Professor, Indiana University - Purdue University of Indiana
At the request of the speaker, this presentation has not been reported here in full.
Interested readers are referred to the URLs shown at the end of the paper.
ABSTRACT
This presentation described the innovative instructional projects that combine networked information
technology and resources, interdisciplinary teams for design and delivery of instruction and interests in
student collaborative learning. The descriptions were based on data from the ten project teams who
participated in the Coalition for Networked Information's second invitational Conference on New Learning
Communities, held at Indianapolis in November 1995.
NEW LEARNING COMMUNITIES
The first New Learning Communities conference was held in July 1994 in Phoenix and was furthered in a
subsequent conference in November 17-19 1995 at Indianapolis. Both were organised under the auspices of the
Coalition for Networked Information, CNI. The programme seeks to promote cross-fertilisation of the different
types of professionals in higher education who use networks to enrich their curricula and broaden students'
learning experiences.
To achieve this aim, the programme brings together institutional, or inter-institutional, teams of
varying compositions and roles, comprising faculty, librarians, information technologists, instructional
technologists and students. The exchange of ideas and exposure to different viewpoints will lead to a greater
understanding of the total perspective in terms of campus utilisation of networks and the development of a set
of "best practices" for the benefit of the wider educational community.
THE PROJECTS
From the propositions put forward in response to a call for projects issued by CNI early in 1995,
ten teams were selected to participate in the Indianapolis conference. The projects are:
- Collaboratory (University of Hawai'i at Manoa and University of Alberta)
- Collaborative Development of Web Pages for Students in a First Year Colloquy Series (Gettysburg College)
- Distance and Electronic Education Project: A Mini-Grant Program (John Hopkins University)
- LC Online (Louisiana College)
- UWired: Teaching, Learning and Technology (University of Washington)
- The California Young Scholar Program (California State Polytechnic, Pomona)
- Student Directed, Information Rich (SDIR) Learning (North Carolina State University)
- Fine Arts 121: A Model for Developing a Digital Undergraduate Curriculum (University of Southern California)
- Integrating Networked Information into Instruction (Mesa and Estrella Mountain Community Colleges)
- The Delta Project Integrated Database: Biological Sciences and Art (California State University System)
Further information can be obtained from the following URLs:
http://www.cni.org/projects/nlc/
ftp://ftp.cni.org/CNI/projects/nlc
gopher://gopher.cni.org.70/11/cniftp/projects/nlc
GRAHAM CHESTERS, TELL Consortium, University of Hull
This account was drafted for this report by The Marc Fresko Consultancy.
It is based on notes taken during the presentation and slides used.
ABSTRACT
Over 30 UK universities have joined together to produce and evaluate language learning courseware
in five European languages. The project is nearing completion, with over 40 packages coming on stream
in 1996. Issues such as consortium management, pedagogic design, formative evaluation procedures,
training and dissemination all suggest lessons to be learned.
THE TELL PROJECT
The focus of the Technology Enhanced Language Learning project (TELL) was the production of
courseware for language learning. The project was initiated in 1992, and was funded by the
Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP).
The objective was to produce courseware for French, German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.
All levels of learner were to be catered for, from beginner to final-year expert. The courseware
was developed to run on current desktop systems; as the project started in 1993, the basic
requirement is a PC with a 80386 processor or an equivalent Macintosh.
The project started in January 1993 and was formally completed in December 1995, with a total budget
of £1.35 million. Being funded ultimately by top-slicing from the funding councils, it was undertaken
in order to determine the value of computer-aided learning, and the place it should have, in this field.
PROJECT DELIVERABLES
The products to be delivered by the project were divided into three strands, namely:
- courses (ie development of material to complement existing language courses);
- resources (dealing with grammar, vocabulary etc);
- tools (for authoring, translation, etc).
For example, there is a translation environment, which provides help and hints etc; and sets of
grammar exercises to get students to apply their new knowledge.
In the end, the project has produced 43 packages. These include seven CD-ROMs and 36 networkable packages.
They are at present being commercialised, but are available to higher education institutions at cost.
PROJECT ORGANISATION
TELL was performed by a consortium led from the University of Hull, which is also the location of the
Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) Centre for Modern Languages. The project has thus benefited from
CTI expertise in requirements, its knowledge of appropriate developers, and experience in project management.
There were 15 development sites and 21 affiliate (evaluation) sites.
Project management was performed by the speaker (about 25% of time), a project manager (50%), and one
other (100%), with secretarial support. It turned out that project management was difficult and demanding,
for several reasons. The obvious reason is that tight production deadlines and academia do not necessarily
sit well together. Less obvious perhaps is the complexity of managing and distributing funds to so many other
institutions through the University of Hull. Finally, liaison with the funding councils was problematic in the
early days of the project, specifically in the area of co-ordination between projects (for example over the issue
of copyright).
Some of the motivators, or "adhesives", which helped the consortium work together effectively included payment
deadlines, and the requirement to complete tasks in order to get paid; reputation, which impelled contributors to
produce good quality work; and a degree of camaraderie with co-workers engaged in similar tasks.
COMMON ACTIVITIES
Co-ordination of work and standardisation of approaches was of course important with a consortium as
large as TELL. Within about six months of the start of work, we had agreed common guidelines (down to the
level of fonts and colours). As an evaluation of the value of tools of this type is an important part of the
project, we also agreed common evaluation procedures, including a particularly extensive exercise to monitor
students using software packages.
We undertook and planned widespread dissemination activities, using common materials. This included
workshops, site visits, and prospective user group meetings.
SUCCESSES
The project materials are now being promoted (copi
