AEIOU – increasing the visibility of academic research in Wales

We are pleased to announce that the WRN consortium has been successful in their bid for further JISC funding.

The AEIOU (Activity data to Enhance and Increase Open-access Usage) Wales project will run for six months and starts this week. 

Project Summary
The AEIOU Wales project will provide a cost-effective and sustainable shared national service based on open standards that will benefit Welsh HEI partners by improving the quality, impact and productivity of their academic research.

Anecdotal evidence has suggested that the majority of user traffic into an institutional repository is generated through hits from Web search engines such as Google. Searchers will be directed towards a single item or record having no additional incentive to look for further relevant information within the repository.

The purpose of the proposed AEIOU Wales project is to increase the visibility and usage of all academic research by aggregating Welsh institutional repository activity data to provide a “Frequently viewed together” recommendation service, such as those used by Amazon and many other e-commerce websites.

The project will utilise existing relationships and build on the national repository infrastructure established through the WRN.

The project will create a shared recommendation service by aggregating activity data from each WRN repository. Searchers accessing an item within an institutional repository will be presented with recommendations to further Welsh research outputs and will be directed to those items via a Welsh Research Gateway. The recommendation service will also promote relationships between cross-institutional, collaborative research groups within Wales.

Evaluating the impact of SHEDL

This joint RIN and SCURL study looks at the initial impact of the SHEDL initiative, which aims to provide a common set of journals to all Scottish HEIs.

It looks at changes in patterns of usage in different institutions and in costs per download, as well as investigating the factors which may be affecting patterns of usage.

The report is available to download from the project page: http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/using-and-accessing-information-resources/evaluating-impact-shedl

SCONUL report on shared services on HELibTech: meeting 19th May

The HEFCE funded SCONUL report on ‘Shared Services’ is available to download on the Higher Education Library Technology (HELibTech) website.

A meeting is being held in London on 19th May to explore the study’s findings and proposals.

For more information and also a short article on Shared Services in general go to the HELibTech ‘Shared Services’ page: http://helibtech.com/Shared+Services You are welcome to edit the page and to join in the discussion started by SCONUL.

HELibTech contains a wealth of information about library technology. (See LGLibTech http://lglibtech.wikispaces.com/  for information on Local Government Library Technology-public libraries ).

‘Shared Services’ is one of the ‘Specific Themes’ listed on the HELibTech home page http://helibtech.com/ Other themes are Open Source and RFID. You are welcome to add others.

NewsBank UK

As of 1 January 2010 a new online newspaper service is available for all Welsh public, HE and FE and health libraries, the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Library of Wales.

Designed specifically for libraries in Wales, this new online Newspaper resource, Access Wales & UK Newspapers,  features popular titles from within Wales, providing in-depth coverage of local and regional issues and events. Well-known titles from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland are also included, further expanding the scope of this robust research tool.

Updated daily, Newsbank UK provides millions of current and archived newspaper articles that researchers can use to pinpoint sources, compare perspectives and track subjects historically and geographically. Users can quickly and easily search either a single Welsh newspaper or Welsh and UK titles simultaneously. Customised searches can be created and saved for future use or configured for email alerts.

An Information Literacy Framework for Wales

Our first event to investigate a cross-sectoral information literacy framework for Wales took place this week on Monday and Tuesday at Gregynog. Delegates came from HE, FE, public and school library services, and included other interested stakeholders such as DCELLS and CyMAL.

The conference was a great success - thanks to the excellent speakers and hard work from all the delegates!

To read a good report of the event, and a summary of the presentations, have a look at Karl’s blog post for RSC Wales: http://blogs.rsc-wales.ac.uk/lr/2009/12/01/an-information-literacy-framework-for-wales/

Much more information to follow – and, if you work in a library anywhere in Wales, you will have a chance to be involved!

Pictured left is Huw Evans, Head of Advice and Support at CyMAL, delivering the opening presentation of the event.

Pictured right is John Crawford, sharing experiences of the Scottish Information Literacy Project.

Y Porth – the gateway to Welsh-medium resources for the University sector

A national Welsh-medium e-learning platform for the Higher Education sector

Y Porth (literally “the Gateway”) is an innovative e-Learning platform for the Higher Education sector in Wales. Developed by the Centre for Welsh Medium Higher Education  it was formally launched at the National Eisteddfod on 4 August 2009 and attended by Jane Hutt AM, Minister for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills.

Owain Huw (Digital Technologies and E-Learning Manager for the Centre and Y Porth Project Manager) noted: “This is a credit to the collaborative working that has taken place over the past year between the Centre for Welsh Medium Higher Education and Welsh universities. The platform, which is based on Blackboard Learn, will offer a central repository of electronic resources for staff and students, as well as a virtual learning environment for collaborative modules”.

Dr Ioan Matthews, Director of the Centre added: “This development is particularly timely as it provides a means of delivering elements of degree courses collaboratively across Wales, within the frameworks for quality and standards that students and academics expect. The first resources available on Y Porth will be mainly aimed at those studying Education, Welsh, Drama, Geography, Nursing and Sports Science, but this will be built upon rapidly during the coming months”.

Welsh-medium students and staff from any HE institution in Wales will be able to register as users of Y Porth from the beginning of the 2009/10 academic year.

Y Porth offers:

• A publicly accessible portal showcasing Welsh-medium web-based HE resources.
• A central repository of electronic resources for Welsh-medium students and staff from every HE institution in Wales.
• A Virtual Learning Environment to host learning materials for collaborative modules and guide the learner in an effective way, irrespective of their home university.

Y Porth will both mirror the expected increase in the number of Welsh-medium resources and cross-institutional modules available and act as a catalyst to further development, by providing the sector with a central, publicly visible location for all current and future developments. The opportunity to bring Welsh-medium students and teaching staff together in a single virtual space, not only whilst studying/providing collaborative modules but also in other interactive shared spaces in Blackboard, has huge added value in terms of future collaboration.

http://www.yporth.org

Building on collaboration: the WHELF e-book deal

An article by Jeremy Atkinson and Paul Riley in SCONUL Focus, Number 45, 2009: http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/45/31.pdf

In December 2007, at an event at the National Library of Wales, WHELF launched its innovative e-book deal arranged with the Online Computer
Library Center (OCLC). During the launch event there were various presentations, including coverage of WHELF and its collaborative activities and an overview of the project. This article reviews developments to date.

SCURL visit to Cardiff

Colleagues from the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) visited Cardiff University on 4 June for a joint study day with WHELF.

SCURL is the principal association of research libraries in Scotland and has been working collaboratively and cross-sectorally for over 25 years. There are many activities and projects of mutual interest in Wales and Scotland, and we are all keen to continue to explore SCURL and WHELF collaborative approaches where appropriate.

Welsh Collaboration in Action

A Joint Event for Librarians Supporting HE in FE

On Tuesday 30^th June WHELF is holding a staff development event at the University of Wales, Newport (Allt-yr-yn Campus), aimed at libraries supporting HE in FE. 

The event will allow participants to share experiences, get up to date on recent developments and develop individual and shared programmes of action for the future.

Booking
There is no charge for attendance at the event, but places are limited. So early booking is advised.  Please book your place by 12^th June. 

How to get there  
To get to the Allt-yr-yn Campus, click on the Visit Us link on the University web page at http://newport.ac.uk/  

Programme

10am – 10.15am	Registration & Coffee/Tea
10.15 am – 10.20 am	Welcome
10.20 am – 11.30 am	FE  UpdatesAll to contribute  (no more than 5 mins each)
	Coffee/Tea available throughout the morning
11.30 am – 12.30 pm	HE Updates
12.30 pm – 1.15 pm	Lunch
1.15 pm – 2.00 pm	Implementation of a social learning space at Bath UniversityKate Robinson, University of Bath
2.00 pm – 2.30 pm	Dedicated HE Learning spacesAndrew Eynon, Coleg Llandrillo
	Coffee/tea available throughout the afternoon
2.30 pm – 3.00 pm	Students’ use of personal learning environments/e-portfoliosPriscilla Dawson, Swansea College
3.00 pm – 3.30 pm	Discussion and round up

For more information and to book a place, please contact Sally Skym saskym@glam.ac.uk

Open Source for Libraries

Over 20 representatives from Welsh HE, FE and Public Libraries gathered in Swansea in April to spend a day hearing about Open Source for libraries – theory and practice.

To find some excellent notes and links to all the slides, speakers and systems, take a look at the RSC Wales post at http://blogs.rsc-wales.ac.uk/lr/2009/04/22/open-source-for-libraries-day-at-swansea/

Speakers Mark Hughes, Ken Chad and Nick Dimant gave their perspectives on the background to open source in libraries – the current environment and reasons for and against looking at open source solutions. Jonathan Field from PTFS Europe gave a detailed demo and comparison of the 2 major open source systems: Koha and Evergreen. There was also an overview of the ongoing implementation of the open source VuFind system as part of the Virtual Academic Library project in Wales. VuFind is being used to provide a common interface for searching 3 universities’ print and electronic resource collections. The project is a good example of how Wales is leading the way on library collaboration and open source development.

Mark Hughes also publicised the useful work that has been done at Swansea with RFID, resulting in the Open RFID in Libraries Specification (ORILS) being published under a Creative Commons licence. This can be re-used by anyone undertaking an RFID procurement process and work is ongoing to build a community of practice to encourage interoperability between the different RFID systems.