These pages have been developed to provide learning resources staff with relevant information to help support ICT developments within their institution. This section aims to provide information about the JISC collections that are available, including subscription details, college banding information and access to resources. For further information about any of the items included call the RSC's Information Helpdesk on 0141 585 0022 or contact Celeste McLaughlin at the RSC.
The forum took place at the RSC Scotland S&W offices on 17th June. We had three presentations and lots of lively discussions. The forum outline and presentations are available below:
The Web 2.0 Forum focuses on the impact of Web 2.0 technologies in an educational setting and is aimed at those working in Academic Libraries. The forum is jointly facilitated by the two Scottish JISC RSCs and the inaugural meeting took place in June 2007.
If you are interested in joining the forum and the associated JISCmail list then please contact support@rsc-sw-scotland.ac.uk.
The JISC Regional Support Centres in Scotland, in collaboration with Scotland's Colleges Librarians Community of Practice, have developed an online survey to gather feedback from students on their college library service.
A sample survey is available here.
The RSC can facilitate the online survey on behalf of college libraries and provide a summary report of the results. If enough colleges participate in the survey to allow comparisons to be made across the sector, then the Scottish RSCs will prepare a report which will allow benchmarking where possible.
If you are interested in finding out more about the survey, please contact Celeste McLaughlin.
The e-Books for FE project is making almost 3000 e-books available to the FE sector for the next five years. The project is being managed by JISC Collections and further information about the project can be found on the project website.
An online themed toolkit for Learning Resources and Activities is available from JISC infoNet. The website covers a wealth of information to support the work of Library and Learning Resources teams in five specific areas:
It is intended to make colleges think about how they are approaching the integration of learning resources into the curriculum at every stage of the learning creation process. Access the toolkit
A wide range of electronic and learning resources are now freely available for FE and are provided by JISC and other services. For a full description of the range of electronic resources available, go to the Online resources section of our website.
The JISC has funded deals with a number of data suppliers which allow those working in further and higher education to benefit from more attractive pricing, or indeed free access to valuable sources of information.
The JISC Collections Team works in close co-operation with the education community and data providers to ensure that the electronic resources provided to the education community are of the highest quality. Information about subscription costs can be found via the JISC Banding link, and the online catalogue of resources can be accessed the JISC Collections site.
JISC are rolling out a new Access Management Infrastructure for the UK educational sector. The new system uses federated access management, based on the Shibboleth technology, and allows students and staff access to a wide-range of resources by using their institutional username and password.
JISC have commissioned an animation which gives a good introduction and overview of FAM. The RSC will be organising events over the coming months to provide further details about FAM and advice about implementing it in your institution.
JISC have confirmed a further three years of funding for Service Provider support (from August 2008). Further details of the ongoing support arrangements for the implementation of Federated Access Management can be found on the JISC website. Follow this link for further information about the FAM support available from JISC.
The JISC Access Management team blog is also a good source of up to date information. It lists all FE and HE institutions who have joined the UK Federation and contains information about the status of publishers in relation to federated access management.
To be kept up to date with library-related FAM issues, you may wish to join the JISC-SHIBBOLETH-LIBRARIES JISCmail list. There is also lots of useful information and advice available from the Library Implementation page of the JISC FAM website, including a briefing paper - Federated Access Management: A Guide for Academic Librarians.
Further information about FAM is also available from the Technical Support area of our website.
Federation Support for Academic Librarians
JISC Federated Access Management
Federated Access Management: JISC guide for institutions
The UK Access Management Foundation
40 Facts about Federated Access Management
This institutional development pack is part of the outcomes of the work of the TrustDR project (Trust in Digital Repositories) funded by the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee).
The pack is aimed at those who are setting up or running digital collections of learning materials that are managed at an institutional level. It is written in a clear and straightforward style that sets out to persuade the reader of the benefits of engaging with the issues associated with IPR in e-learning.
Distributed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution 2.5 UK: Scotland
Download from: http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/outputs.php
Jorum is a free online repository service for teaching and support staff in UK Further and Higher Education Institutions, helping to build a community for the sharing, reuse and repurposing of learning and teaching materials.
The Digital Repositories programme 2007-8 builds on, and takes forward, key outcomes from previous and parallel work, mainly the Digital Repositories programme6 2005-7 and the Repositories and Preservation programme (2006-9).
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitalrepositories2007.aspx/
Repositories Support Project (RSP)
JISC funded project aimed to co-ordinate and deliver good practice and practical advice to enable the implementation, management and development of digital institutional repositories.
http://www.rsp.ac.uk/index
The Directory of Open Access Repositories - OpenDOAR
The OpenDOAR service provides a quality-assured listing of open access repositories around the world. It contains a comprehensive and authoritative list of institutional and subject-based repositories.
http://opendoar.org/index.html
Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR)
http://roar.eprints.org/index.php
The JISC Organisational and Support committee has commissioned a number of projects and studies in the field of staff development and information literacy. Within all departments, with each further and higher education institution, staff need the appropriate level of skills and information in finding, evaluating and using information resources effectively. For further information and i-skills publications follow this link.
The Internet Detective is an online tutorial produced by the Intute Virtual Training Suite. The tutorial aims to help students develop their Internet research skills.
http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/index.html
TONIC is a course of instruction on using the Internet produced by Netskills with support from the JISC. TONIC is an easy-to-understand, structured overview of networking and the Internet which offers step-by-step, practical guidance on a range of topics.
http://www.netskills.ac.uk/onlinecourses/tonic
As part of eMerge staff development funding, the RSC ran a centrally scoped project for Learning Resources staff during October 2005. The aim of this project-based approach was skills development and consolidation. An outcome of the project was the creation of resources which can be shared with the sector. Follow this link to access the resources created by Learning Resources staff.
Library and learning resource staff are key influences on the learner in terms of developing independent study skills and the accessibility of a library / learning resources centre (LRC) can be a barometer of the extent to which accessibility is embedded in an institution. As part of our service we can provide helpful advice to ensure you are aware of the issues relating to library and learning resources staff.
For more information follow this link to the Access and Inclusion page for Learning Resources Staff
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