JISC Innovation Forum

Earlier this week, this JISC Innovation Forum took place, with the aim of getting together projects and programmes to discuss cross-cutting themes and share experiences. I attended the theme on research data - 3 sessions in all each focusing on a different aspect:

Session 1 - Legal and policy issues
This session followed the format of a debate, with Prof Charles Oppenheim arguing for the motion that institutions retain IPR and Mags McGinley arguing that IPR should be waived (with the disclaimer that both presenters were not necessarily representing their personal or institution's views).

Charles argued that institutional ownership encourages data sharing. Curation should be done by those with the necessary skills - curation involves copying and can only be done effectively where the curator knows they are not infringing copyright therefore the IPR needs to be owned "nearby". He also explained how publishers are developing an interest in raw data repositories and wish to own the IPR on raw as well as published data. There is a real need to encourage authors from blindly handing over the IPR on raw data. He suggested a model where the author is licensed to use and manipulate data (e.g. deposit in repository) and the right to intervene should they feel their reputation is under threat. The main argument focused on preventing unthinking assignment of rights to commercial publishers.

Mags suggested that curation is best done when no-one asserts IPR. There may in fact be no IPR to assert and she explained that there is often over-assertion of rights. There is in general a lot of confusion and uncertainty around IPR which leads to poor curation - Mags suggested the only way to prevent this confusion is to waive IPR altogether. Data is more than ever now the result of collaboration relying on multiple (and often international) sources of data so unravelling the rights can be very difficult - there could be many, even 100s of owners across many jurisdictions. Mags concluded with the argument that it is easier to share data which is unencumbered by IPR issues and quoted the examples of Science Commons and CC0.

A vote at this point resulted in : 5 for the motion supporting institutional ownership; 10 against; 7 abstaining.

A lively discussion followed - here are the highlights:

• it's important to resolve IPR issues early
• NERC model - researchers own IPR and NERC licenses it (grant T&Cs)
• in order to waive your right, you have to assert it first
• curation is more than just preservation - the whole point is reuse
• funders have a greater interest in reuse than individual researchers - also have the resources to develop skills and negotiate T&Cs/contracts
• not just a question of rights but responsibilities too
• issues of long-term sustainability e.g. AHDS closure
• incentives to curate - is attribution enough?
• what is data? covered range of data including primary data collected by researcher, derived data, published results
• are disciplines too different?
• duty to place publicly funded research in the public domain? use of embargoes?
• can we rely on researchers and institutions to curate?
• "value" of data?
• curation doesn't necessarily follow ownership - may outsource
• proposal to change EU law on reuse of publicly funded research - HE now exempt - focuses on ability to commercially exploit - HEIs may have to hand over research data??

And finally, we voted again : this time, 6 for the motion; 14 against; 3 abstaining.

Session 2 - Capacity and skills issues
This session looked at 4 questions:

1. What are the current data management skills deficits and capacity building possibilities?
2. What are the longer term requirements and implications for the research community?
3. What is the value of and possibilities for accrediting data management training programmes?
4. How might formal education for data management be progressed?

Highlights of discussion:

• who are we trying to train? How do we reach them? The need for training has to appear on their "radar" - best way to reach researchers is via lab, Vice-Chancellor, Head of School of funding source.
• training should be badged e.g. "NERC data management training"
• "JISC" and "DCC" less meaningful to researchers
• a need to raise awareness of the problem first
• domain specific vs generic training
• need to target postgrads and even undergrads to embed good practice early on
• need to cover entire research lifecycle in training materials
• how is info literacy delivered in institutions now? can we use this as a vehicle for raising awareness or making early steps?
• School of Chemistry in Southampton has accredited courses which postgrads must complete - these include an element of data management
• lack of a career path for "data scientists" is a problem
• employers increasingly looking for Masters graduates as perceived to be better at info handling
• new generation of students - have a sharing ethic (web2.0) but not necessarily a sense of structured data management
• small JISC-funded study to start soon on benefits of data management/sharing
• can we tap into records management training? a role here for InfoNet?
• can we learn from museums sector? libraries sector?
• Centre for eResearch at Kings are developing "Digital Asset Management" course, to run Autumn 09
• UK Council of Research Repositories has a resource of job descriptions
• role of data curators in knowledge transfer - amassing an evidence base for commercial exploitation
• also a need for marketing data resources

Session 3 - Technical and infrastructure issues

This session explored the following questions:

• what are the main infrastructure challenges in your area?
• who is addressing them?
• why are these bodies involved? might others do better?
• what should be prioritised over the next 5 years?

One of the drivers for addressing technical and infrastructure issues is around the sheer volume of data – instruments are generating more and more data – and the volume is growing exponentially. It must be remembered that this isn't just a problem for all big science – small datasets need to be managed too although the problem here is more to do with variety of data (heterogenous) than volume. It was argued that big science has always had the problem of too much data and have to plan experiments to deal with this e.g. LHC in CERN disposes of a large percentage of data collected during experiments. In some areas, e.g. geospatial, data standards have emerged but it may be a while before other areas develop their own or until existing standards become de facto standards.

Other areas touched on included:

• the role of the academic and research library
• roles and responsibilities for data curation
• how can we anticipate which data will be useful in the future?
• What is ‘just the right amount of effort’?
• What are the selection criteria – what value this data might have in the future (who owns it, who’s going to pay for it), how much effort and money would you have to regenerate this data (eg do you have the equipment and skills to replicate it?)
• not all disciplines are the same therefore one size doesn't fit all
• what should be kept? data, methodology, workflow, protocol, background info on researcher? How much context is needed?
• how much of this context metadata can be sourced directly e.g. from proposal?
• issues of ownership determine what is stored and how
• what is the purpose of retaining data - reuse or long-term storage? Should a nearline/offline storage model be used? Infrastrucutre for reuse may be different from that for long-term storage?
• Should we be supporting publication of open notebook science? (and publishing of failed experiments). What about reuse/sharing if there’s commercial gains?

The summing up at the end concluded 4 main priority areas for JISC:

1. within a research environment – can we facilitiate the data curation using the carrot of sharing systems? (IT systems in the lab)
2. additional context beyond the metadata
3. how do we help institutions understand their infrastructural needs
4. what has to happen with the various dataset systems (fedora etc) to help them link with the library and institutional systems

Back in the library world

Have rejoined CILIP and had various bumph through today. The LMS study seems to have stirred things up a bit with some uncertainty about the way forward, but everyone seems to agree that sitting still isn't an option. Need to set aside time to read the study through again...

JISC away day : part 2

Oh dear, it's taken me a while to finish writing up the away day ... I blame it on the email backlog which was waiting for me when our away day finished.

Anyway, the most useful session (for me) was on the 2nd day - on the new JISC IPR policy. I understand this is going to appear on the JISC web site soon. It's been developed as part of the IPR consultancy. Professor Charles Oppenheim talked us through the background and the key principles behind the policy.

It was also a useful refresher of some of the issues around IPR and the implications for JISC and its funded projects. Charles referred to the 4 reports produced as part of the consultancy:

• software and IP
• derived data and IP
• web 2.0 and IP (http://www.web2rights.org.uk/)
• student IP

JISC Away Day part 1

Today was the first day of the annual JISC Away Day. Here are my very quickly typed up notes...

First up, Ron Cooke, the JISC Chair, gave an overview of some recent achievements and looked towards the future and JISC's role in the sector. Malcolm Read gave an overview of key challenges facing JISC and referred to recent market research (e.g. 100% of Russell Group unis have led on JISC projects but figures are lower for other institutions).

Particularly useful to hear from JISC Collections - have noted down the following to look up later: NESLI2SMP; Knowledge Exchange joint licensing; eBooks observatory; CASPER; extending licensing beyond HE (study ongoing); deals with Scottish HEIs. Also noted: JISC Publishers Action Group; paper ebook; Repositories UK; Flourish/TICTOCs as examples of the U&I programme; Emerge community; Web2Rights.

Attended a session on increasing the impact of JISC in the sector. The group discussed who we are trying to reach (funding bodies; institutions; change agents); what messages we need to get across (value for money, influencing strategy/policy); and how. I think an additional question might be when we engage with different stakeholders depending what we hope to achieve. Branding was a key topic and the need for brand management. It was agreed JISC also needs to work on improving understanding of JISC activities within the community, enabling feedback, and finding the right metrics to measure impact. Kerry mentioned that they are currently working on audience analysis to improve the web site - i.e. providing secondary routes to information. It was acknowledged that much of our information is written for experts - there needs to be a more basic level which is more contextual.

The group also discussed what is meant by impact. We need to distinguish between reach (e.g. hit on Google) and impact (affecting behaviour in the sector). What can we learn from service reviews? What can we learn from the Top Concerns work? What value does JISC add to the sector? Methods discussed included institutional visits; networks of moles/champions.

Geospatial resources use in tertiary education: shaping the future

Last week, I attended a workshop organised and run by EDINA, as part of the eFramework workpackage of the SEE-GEO project. The aim of the workshop was to inform future planning and to begin thinking about how geospatial resources might work in a future world. We were asked to look ahead around 5 years - the general consensus was that we would be seeing an evolution rather than a revolution in that time e.g. ubiquity of geo info.

Opportunities and Challenges

Social/political/economic:

• economics of information - IPR; FoI; access and exploitation
• what about the knowledge that doesn't lend itself to a digital format?
• how to handle digital persona - virtual communities and alternative economies
• divisive nature of technology - a new division of class according to access to technology? does it disenfranchise or empower?

Technological

• standards and interoperability - impact of Google/Microsoft/Yahoo?
• how to manage fast paced change and multiple devices
• still a need to teach and train experts - geo experts will be needed, deeper learning for experts
• domination of Google/Microsoft/Yahoo - driving technology but have also helped put GI in mainstream
• data deluge
• protection/privacy/access/reuse
• embedding (what does embedding really mean?)

Research

• need an underlying basic IT infrastructure (e.g. grid, visualisation, mobile) with a spatial infrastructure (e.g. spatial ontologies) overlaid on top
• Google/Microsoft/Yahoo challenge - raises expectations; discourages sharing?; how well does it transfer to academia?
• methodologies - lack of skills here - mashups are not research; need to develop more analytical skills in young researchers
• data - integrity; interoperability; creation (new, repurposed); sharing
• policy - IPR; funding; publication; RAE/REF; tracking development of information
• collaboration - technological, social, learning with industry

Enablers

Data/Content

• Data is currently in layers and "all over the place"
• What will INSPIRE achieve?
• funding for infrastructure: interoperability; storage; distribution
• role of community generated data
• quality and validation
• semantic enrichment
• where does Google/Yahoo/Microsoft fit?
• Research Council mandates are not enforced
• how does a researcher deposit a dataset/database?
• depth/breadth tension

Tools/Technology

• there is a disconnect between creator and dataset - need provenance info - data/process broker, intelligent catalogue
• (web) services lead to fundamental changes in models of use e.g. do you need processing power alongside the data - remote processing
• "handy" mobile needed - portable, light, multiple ports, GPS, wearable
• sensor networks and notion of central storage
• tools/portals enable virtual world immersion - deeper sense of telepresence
• can we learn from games technology?
• consolidated and converged technologies
• collaboration and sharing - less travel?
• different publication needs - raw data; code; published papers

Skills, knowledge, people

• wider promotion of geo info
• compulsory GI education
• funders to encourage outputs to be disseminated
• policy framework
• repositories, portals, databases
• need for academic level specialist support
• career development
• professional development
• networks and communities of practice

Legal/policy

• funding for methodological development e.g. spatial methods for Grid
• copyright and intellectual property - derived data, watermarking, commercialisation
• training - cross-disciplinary; quality
• data and standards development - involving user communities
• ethics - code of practice; awareness of issues; data integrity; monitoring
• support - policy to encourage networking
• data access policy - feasibility and extent of info in public domain
• access/usage permissions - who has the right to grant permissions? authentication in a global context
• collaborative support - policy to enable multi-centre, multidisciplinary, multisector, multinational activity

Social/institutional/economic

• social software/networking tools
• wider dissemination of metadata beyond traditional subject boundaries
• cultural change to cite datasets
• links between universities and schools
• changing demography e.g. >adult learners
• funding - different streams - staffing, content, experimentation
• benefits - clear roles/responsibilities
• free or pay to view infrastructure
• alternative (i.e. to OS) providers now available
• entrepreneurial drivers
• REF/RAE should effectively recognise complex and hybrid digital outputs
• institutional or subject repositories
• nervousness about depositing material
• support to clear confusion re IPR especially in relation to derived data

There was some discussion about the role of JISC and its Geospatial Working Group so some messages to feed back.

Also, as an aside, I talked with Dr Douglas Cawthorne from De Montfort Uni in Leicester - they are involved in a large project to map Leicester - the result will be a multilayered map, showing the current city, the Roman city, social maps, emotive maps etc and will incorporate user generated content e.g. photos. Something to watch out for...

JISC conference

Yesterday, the annual JISC conference took place in Birmingham - as usual, a very busy day and although I caught up with lots of people, I still managed to miss some of the people I was hoping to catch up with.

3 of my projects gave demos - 3DVisA, NaCTeM and ASSERT - and it was great to see the interest in the people attending. I went along to two parallel sessions: one on the Strategic eContent Alliance and one on rapid community building. Here are my notes from both...

The Strategic eContent Alliance aims to build a common information environment, a UK Content Framework and to gather case studies and exemplars. The UK Content Framework will be launched in March 2009 and will incorporate:

• standards and good practice
• advice, support, embedding
• policy, procedures
• service convergence modeling
• audit and register
• audience analysis and modeling
• exchange (interoperability) model development
• business models and sustainability strategies

There are a number of change agents to achieve the vision of the SCA...

• common licensing platforms
• common middleware
• digital repositories
• digitisation
• devolved administrations
• service convergence
• uk government policy review
• funding

Globally, there are other incentives e.g.

• service oriented architecture
• EU initiatives
• Google and Microsoft initiatives
• Open Content Alliance etc

The SCA has also engaged an IPR consultancy and Naomi Korn gave a brief overview of the issues of working in such a content-rich world. Naomi pointed out that it has never been easier to access content and referred to a number of key developments and standards to be aware of:

• Science Commons
• Digital Libraries i2010
• PLUS
• ACAP
• SPECTRUM (collections management)
• JISC registry of electronic licences
• Open Access Licensing initiatives

Simon Delafond from the BBC talked about the Memoryshare project which enables user-generated content to be recorded against a timeframe to create a national living archive. They plan to build on this project with the SCA to create Centuryshare to aggregate content and augment with user generated content - this will be a proof of concept project due to deliver in March 2009.

Meredith Quinn talked about the recent Ithaka report on sustainability. The paper tackles some of the cultural issues to be resolved to create the right environment for sustainability. Meredith outlined the 4 key lessons from this work:

1. rapid cycles of innovation are needed - i.e. don't be afraid to try new ideas and to drop ideas which aren't working
2. seek economies of scale - e.g. Time Inc required all their magazines to use the same platform - not such an easy task to achieve in the distributed nature of HE but maybe this is where shared services come in
3. understand your unique value to your user
4. implement layered revenue streams

The rapid community building workshop focused on the Users and Innovations programme and the Emerge community which has been set up to support the programme. Given the nature of the Web2.0 and next generation technologies this programme is dealing with, it was decided early on to adopt an agile and community-led approach. It was important to avoid imposing an understanding on the community and instead build a shared understanding across the community. So 80 institutions were brought together (some 200 individuals) face to face to start to build a community of practice - from there, the community developed further in an online environment, set up using Elgg.

The programme shared the success factors for community building:

• bounded openness
• heterogenous homophily
• mutable stability
• sustainable development
• adaptable model
• structured freedom
• multimodal identity
• shared personal repertoires
• serious fun

some of which are oxymorons! This is explained a little more at https://e-framework.usq.edu.au/users/wiki/UserCentredDevelopment. The approach is based on "appreciative enquiry" coined by Cooperrider and Srivastra in 1987.

It was interesting to hear their thoughts on benefits realisation which focuses on 3 strands:

• synthesis (of learning etc)
• capacity building
• increased uptake

The programme is also planning to create an Emerge Bazaar where projects can "share their wares" and offer services. This will also promote a kind of IdeasForge to encourage new activities which might lead to new funded projects. The Emerge Online conference is next week from 23 to 25 April.

As for the keynote sessions, key points from Lord Puttnam's speech were that we shouldn't try to solve problems with the same kind of thinking that caused them and that we are only scratching the surface of what we can achieve with technologies therefore should be more ambitious and keep innovation high on the agenda.

It was good to hear Ron Cooke highlight the data problem: "...my nightmare is the “challenge of super-abundant data” - not just its life cycle, but its superfluity with the new, unprecedented increases of data through Web 2.0 and user-generated content, including academic publishing in real time, blogging without control, and the quality and reliability of data. I am also concerned about the demands of skills it places on us - critical assessment is needed to deal with this data."

I missed Angela Beesley from Wikia but am pleased to see someone has summarised the talk http://librariesofthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/2008/04/15/jisc-conference-closing-keynote-speech-angela-beesley/ :-)

The SCA team have blogged the conference (far better than i have!) which you can read at http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/2008/04/15/.

The conference also saw the launch of the Libraries of the Future campaign (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/campaigns/librariesofthefuture.aspx).

SEE-GEO gets mention in latest OGF newsletter

http://www.ogf.org/News/newscal_newsletter.php#link2

NaCTeM developments

Really good to see the latest Mental Health demonstrator from the ASSERT project: http://nactem3.mc.man.ac.uk:8080/ASSERT_Refactored/. I really like the visualisation - I think this will really help social scientists get to grips with text mining and has the potential to facilitate and speed up the systematic review process.

And in a nice join up between two of my projects (NaCTeM and CO-ODE), NaCTeM has released its TerMine Plugin for Protégé. The plugin "uses text mining tools to extract candidate terms from a corpus of text and provides an interface for rapidly bringing these terms into an OWL ontology. It uses the TerMine term extraction tool provided by NaCTeM to extract concepts from text. The plugin accesses TerMine via a Web Service over the Internet."
The plugin can be downloaded from http://www.co-ode.org/downloads/protege-x/plugins/

Also worth mentioning the Kleio demonstrator http://nactem4.mc.man.ac.uk:8080/Kleio/ developed from Phase 1 of NaCTeM.

Projects addressing issues around research data

Yesterday, we had a meeting here at JISC to bring together current projects working in the field of research data. There's a lot happening and it's going to be really interesting to see what comes out of these studies:

• UK Research Data Service feasibility study which is funded by HEFCE to explore options for creating a shared service for managing research data


• Data Audit Framework project to enable institutions to find out what data they hold, where it's located, who's responsible for it and how to share with other institutions


• A number of case studies to test the Data Audit Framework


• A study exploring the skills, role and career development of "data scientists" and curators


• A study exploring the costs to institutions of preserving research data, to report within next few weeks


• A summer school to be organised by the DCC on curation skills


• The DISC-UK DataShare project building on a support network to promote sharing


• The forthcoming study funded by RIN/JISC/NERC on publication


• DCC's work, notably the Research Data Management Forum; the Lifecycle Model; SCARP; Store

I already mentioned (http://ali-stuff.blogspot.com/2008/02/jisc-and-research-data.html) an article earlier this year in Inform. Of course, much of the work stems from Liz Lyon's report from last year Dealing with Data (see earlier post at http://ali-stuff.blogspot.com/2007/11/data-sharing.html)

DCC Curation Lifecycle Model

This recently went to consultation - not sure when the results of the consultation come out and how much the model will change as a result. But in meantime, want to keep track of the links:

model : http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/dcc-2007/posters/DCC_Curation_Lifecycle_Model.pdf
background info : http://www.ijdc.net/ijdc/article/view/45/52

New guide to geospatial resources in humanities

AHESSC has produced a very readable guide to geospatial resources and services in the humanities:
http://www.ahessc.ac.uk/geospatial-resources

myExperiment in Nature

Thanks to Judy for pointing this out - myExperiment gets a mention in Nature. Shame it doesn't mention it's funded by JISC but hey, we can't have everything!

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2008/080221/full/nj7181-1024a.html

"MyExperiment.org, funded by the UK government, lets users share workflows: the customary protocols for standardizing data, running simulations or conducting statistical analysis on large data sets. Standardized protocols for manipulating large data sets can be tweaked for specific purposes. Users can comment on their usefulness and link to other work-flows of interest. Bioinformaticians and geneticists are among those who stand to benefit most. For example, sharing a workflow for identifying biological pathways implicated in Trypanosomiasis resistance in cattle allowed another investigator to find pathways involved in sex dependence in the mouse model, says myExperiment project leader David De Roure, a computer scientist at the University of Southampton, UK. Done independently, this type of study could take two years. Such streamlining allows scientists to focus on discovery rather than drudgery, he says."

JISC and research data

Research data gets a mention in latest JISC Inform:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/inform20.aspx#Turningthetide

A brief summary of recently commissioned work - hopefully to be followed up in more detail when the various studies start reporting...

New JISC briefing papers

Two new briefing papers:

• Research in the social sciences: an overview of JISC activities
  http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/socialsciencesresearchv1.aspx
• Research in the biomedical sciences: an overview of JISC activities
  http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/bioscienceresearchv1.aspx

This adds to the collection of briefing papers aimed at researchers:

• Research in the physical sciences: an overview of JISC activities http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/physicalsciencesresearchv1.aspx
• Research in the arts and humanities: an overview of JISC activities http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/artshumanitiesresearchv1.aspx

eInfrastructure programme meeting

Earlier this month, we organised a Programme Meeting, for new projects (funded through the Capital Programme) and existing projects. It was a great opportunity to get projects talking together and we need to think about what events will be useful in the future...

The presentations, notes and soon-to-be-uploaded audio available online here.

Grid in the news

National Grid Service supports 'virtual human' in HIV drug simulation from JISC Headlines:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2008/01/virtualhuman.aspx

"The combined supercomputing power of the JISC-funded UK National Grid Service and the US national grid has enabled UCL (University College London) scientists to simulate the efficacy of an HIV drug in blocking a key protein used by the lethal virus, it was announced today. The method – an early example of the Virtual Physiological Human in action – could one day be used to tailor personal drug treatments, for example for HIV patients developing resistance to their drugs."

"Google generation" - implications for libraries

First up, the recent BL/JISC Google Generation report - this was announced last week and I've been a bit slow getting round to reading it. It makes for very interesting reading with some difficult reading for librarians and resource providers.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/resourcediscovery/googlegen.aspx


One of the key messages is that library users need much more guidance to find useful resources - they don't find digital libraries intuitive and may not rank such sources as highly as we would hope! The report suggests digital libraries are often organised in the way a librarian might think and could be improved by organising content in a way that makes more sense to the user.


Worryingly, the "Google Generation" doesn't seem as aware of information quality issues as they need to be, relying more on brand (such as Google) and less on systematic critical appraisal.


One point which is made is that the term "Google generation" is probably unhelpful and that the age differences are not as significant as we may believe.


Librarians get a bit of a hammering which isn't totally deserved - I accept that libraries need to think more from the users' perspectives but this is a wider issue than just design of library systems - it's a lack of information skills which as the report suggests, needs addressing at school age.


On a more positive note, the latest Free Pint has a feature interviewing Lynne Brindley and Janice Lachance. I particularly like Lynne Brindley's quote : "Have a kind of beta test mind. It's always going to be in beta test, it's never going to be perfect, and you do learn just by engaging with it" encouraging librarians to be more experimental.
http://www.freepint.com/issues/?PHPSESSID=ad6fcd93b0c930a75f4945d0ed894724

VRE 1 - lessons learned

Just found my notes from the JISC Conference 2007 and rather than lose them again thought they might be more useful here:

The session on VREs raised a number of questions:

• is a VRE a warehouse or a federated repository?


• should it be a social space or an organised rich space?


• what is the right level of granularity?


• should content be open or protected?


• what about desktop integration?


• how can we enable added value by researchers?


• how is software evolving? how can we make it sustainable?

Roger Slack talked about users:

• requirements gathering is not a one-off - it is longitudinal


• need active involvement of all partners


• enfranchisement - spell out benefits to users


• ensure funding to support championing

News from ja.net

ja.net's December newsletter mentioned two launches relevant to eResearch:

Lightpath: "a centrally managed service which will help support large research projects on the JANET network by providing end-to-end connectivity. It includes the UKLight service for fine-grained circuit provision and extends it to include whole wavelengths across the JANET optical transmission infrastructure."

Aurora: "a dark-fibre network to support research on photonics and optical systems. It will interconnect research groups at the universities of Cambridge, Essex and UCL, with access to intermediate locations along each fibre path where additional equipment can be sited. This is a national facility funded for two years operation by HEFCE via JISC, and if projects require it, the JANET Lightpath service can provide circuits for use as an access mechanism to other locations on JANET, and also internationally."

http://www.ja.net/

JISC podcast with Professor John Wood

JISC's Annual Review features a podcast with Professor John Wood, on the work of the Sub-Committee for the Support for Research (JSR), which can be accessed at
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/aboutus/annualreview/2007/yearinsound.aspx.

Professor Wood talks about current work of the JSR to develop a high level strategy to deliver real results, focusing on fewer bigger projects rather than many smaller projects. The data deluge is a key concern: the amount of data generated by research expected to rise almost exponentially. There are implications for institutions, not least, the costs involved. Professor Wood described a move from libraries of physical materials to virtual data stores. Some of the areas needing clarification are: getting the middleware right; agreeing approaches to metadata; and linking datasets effectively. Professor Wood is engaged with discussions at an EU level but feels one of the key roles of JSR is to communicate the urgency of the data deluge problem.

Alongside the work of JSR, JISC is engaging with Research Councils on the infrastructure needed to support research. Professor Wood also chairs JISC Scholarly Communications group which is now looking at various media and how these may be linked in a holistic way to support researchers. From an institutional perspective, the impact of JSR (and indeed sometimes JISC) is somewhat hidden from researchers. They will have heard of ja.net, maybe even JISCmail but may be unfamiliar with JISC itself.

Regarding the future of JSR, Professor Wood sees a need to focus on larger projects, quoting the examples of the Digital Curation Centre (http://www.dcc.ac.uk/) and the National Centre for Text Mining (http://www.nactem.ac.uk/), now starting to show results. It is vital to look at what researchers need otherwise there is a risk of different groups adopting different approaches. There is also a need to engage on an international level to ensure interoperability, thus enabling international collaboration.

Professor Wood explains the need to look ahead 10 years in order to develop a vision. He outlines 4 issues in particular which JSR must tackle:

• what sort of middleware should we support as standard?
• what software development do we need to maximise the infrastructure we have?
• what are the priorities for tackling data storage and supporting/sustaining repositories?
• what training is required to enable research communities to understand what is available?