Today I attended the presentations day for the companies who are tendering for the Libraries for Life “Provision of On-line Information Services for Wales” contract.

For anyone new to this, CyMAL had funded electronic resources for FE, HE and public libraries in Wales under the ‘At Your Library’ programme. The resources had been KnowUK and NewsUK, by ProQuest. These were then free to library users in Wales, but that contract ends in December 2007. As part of Strand 2 of the Libraries for Life Scheme another deal will be put into place for Wales (this time including extra sectors such as health libraries) along the same lines i.e. a reference package and a news package. Today was one of the final stages of choosing, though there are a few questions to sort out before a final decision is made. I am on the group who is looking into the replacement, as a Further Education representative.

The short-listed companies demonstrated their resources at the Drwm, National Library of Wales. This was an opportunity to evaluate the resources that will be made available to Welsh libraries by the new year, and to ask questions of the companies directly.

The day began at 10am with a welcome and overview of Strand 2 of the Libraries for Life Scheme. Then each company had 15 minutes to present and demonstrate their resources. A further 10 minutes was allocated at the end of each presentation for questions.

Under ‘Lot 1: General Reference Material’ were Credo Reference, Oxford University Press, and ProQuest. After lunch were the ‘Lot 2: Newspaper Provision’ sessions – ProQuest again, and NewsBank. Most of my questions concerned access options – would the provider allow a college to use Shibboleth; Athens; fixed logins and passwords; IP; or refer URL? When JISC funding for Athens ends there may be a transition period wherein different access methods are used, so it is beneficial if online resource providers can be flexible about access methods.

At this moment a final decision has yet to be made, but news will go out to the sector when the service providers are chosen, probably in early December.

[The National Library of Wales at night - a photo I took with my first digital camera in 2000]

A new development that may be of interest regarding electronic resources available to FE colleges in Wales.

In the past people wanting to join the National Library of Wales (NLW) had to travel to Aberystwyth. Because I live here I obviously think Aberystwyth is a nice place – but perhaps not very easy for library users in the rest of Wales to get to. However the NLW has now enabled all their readers, academic and non-academic, to register through a new online registration system.

The good bit for Welsh FE is that if you live in Wales, you can also register for an Athens username and password (and thus access to the National Library of Wales’ Athens-authenticated resources). It may be worth promoting to your users, since it is a free resource for you and them, and also benefits the NLW with an increase in their number of users.

The online registration form is available here.
A list of electronic resources subscribed to by the NLW can be seen here.

Of course if people visit the NLW in person, they can still apply for a Reader’s Ticket without going online. They will need to privide 2 forms of ID, one of them showing their current address. The NLW will take photos of them and a card will be produced (linked to the online registration if previously done).

So now the only reason to visit Aberystwyth is for a sun tan (maybe not today though…).

I thought it would be useful to create a summary post – to give an idea of some of the things I have been looking into recently (in no particular order), mostly with regard to learning resource use and the e-learning agenda. The breadth of subjects shows how wide-ranging the area of learning resources is, and how much a librarian needs to know! If you want to know more about any of the topics below then please get in touch with me.

Voting systems

Our Optivote voting system was used in some sessions by Coleg Gwent recently, which were apparently well received. I am thinking of collecting a few case studies on the use of voting systems in FE – please let me know if you would be interested in discussing their use in your college! (This may lead on to perhaps collecting case studies on other aspects of resource use in the future). Our RSC Wales Del.icio.us account has links to voting system suppliers.

[Optivote handsets and receiver]

Information literacy

As you may know, CyMAL has given the FE Learning Resources Managers’ network a sum of money to run more information literacy events, and RSC Wales is helping to organise them. Strand 1 – ‘Skills for success’ will be comprised of two events, one in North Wales (Deeside college, Wed 28th November) and one in South Wales (Swansea College, Fri 14 December). This will be followed by Strand 2 ‘Strategies for Success’, a one-day course aimed at managers and run by Sharon Markless (Thursday 24th January at the University of Wales College Newport Caerleon campus). For the Strand 1 events we want to have a couple of short examples of what librarians are doing to increase the success/impact of information literacy or induction sessions. It might be something online, it might be a classroom based activity, it might be marketing – anything really, as long as you have something achievable that you can show or describe in an enthusiastic way! If you are interested in perhaps talking about something from your college then please let me know. It would also be a chance to disseminate your work across the professional community in Wales. I often hear of interesting innovations (e.g. this September Coleg Powys used the Cephalonian method in their LRC inductions), and it is good to get those messages out to a wider audience.

I am also working on a Moodle module about Information Literacy (currently looking at what other UK RSCs have done) and need to get on with it, but other things have been taking precedence… As the Pet Shop Boys would have said, it is always on my mind…

Our RSC Wales Del.icio.us account has a ‘bundle’ (yes, that is the technical term) set up for information literacy.

Second Life

See my blog entry below. Zombie Greenwood lives! There are many possibilities here. If any FE librarians want to test it out as a communication medium then just let me know and I will teleport over!

Federated Access Management [FAM]

One Welsh FE college has expressed an interest in moving from Athens to FAM, and we are looking into it.

It is possible that there could be a UC&R Wales event on this in Spring 2008.

See the RSC Wales Del.icio.us account Access Management bundle for more information.

RSC Wales Del.icio.us account

You may have spotted the mentions of this above! I have been tidying, removing dead links, repairing broken URLs, updating, re-tagging, adding new categories, merging others etc. If anybody wants to suggest links or changes then just let me know. Hopefully it will be a useful resource. I have a few more routine updates to do when I get the chance. View it here – then feel free to bookmark it!

Welsh Heritage User Group

I had been involved in talks on the future of this group. Ian Cockrill (Swansea College) then did a survey of all Heritage users in Wales to gauge support, but due to the small number of reponses it was decided that, at this point in time, establishing a Wales Heritage User group appears non-viable. However Ian will continue to represent the FE/HE sector and Wales at the national user group, which Heritage users can join, and he offered to raise issues at that forum. There may be an option of a library management system event in the future – something that is under consideration.

RSC Wales website

The RSC Wales website has been updated recently. I have been updating some of the useful documents originally created by Samantha Edwards, and will be making them available on the website as soon as the new access arrangements are finalised. In the meantime subscribers to FE-LRC-WALES will have received some of them (free e-resources etc.)

[The new-look RSC Wales website]

College queries

Obviously these go on all the time, from queries about LMS bids to requests for copyright-cleared image sources.

One interesting query was about accessing electronic copies of articles to store in the institutional VLE. Some of you may be aware of the British Library’s new Higher Education Scanning Service, which could be a really useful resource in Wales, but the HESS service is currently HE only. I have spoken to staff at the British Library who were very helpful and said they would be looking to possibly roll the service out to the FE sector. However there may be some issues that need clearing up with the Copyright Licensing Agency [CLA] first. I have been in touch with the CLA and am awaiting a definitive response on the issue. If I get any news I will inform FE LRC managers.

Open Source Library Management Systems [LMS]

In FE in Wales we have seen proprietary VLEs replaced with the all-conquering Open Source Moodle. Just about every Welsh FE college is using Moodle, or about to, leading to a situation where colleges can easily share resources and be involved in a community-support situation.

Could this happen with Library Management Systems? There are a few possibilities listed on the RSC Wales Del.icio.us account, and a few of our colleges are looking at them. But there are many crystal ball questions: What is the situation elsewhere? Could an Open Source LMS become the de facto standard in FE libraries? Which are the best? What support could RSCs offer? Is the situation similar to what happened with Moodle, or not?

There does seem to be a growth of interest in this area. In the last few weeks I have been in communication with the head of a research consultancy and with a lecturer writing an article, both unrelated conversations, yet both people were interested in the potential for Open Source LMS.

I have raised the issue in the national RSC Forum, and will see what happens, and also what the findings of the lecturer I was in contact with are.

Team meeting

Thursday 27th September was an RSC Wales team meeting in Swansea. A good chance for me to catch up with the rest of the team – and a personal challenge to me, since I have to be up before 5am, and leave the house before 6am to walk into Aberystwyth to catch the X40 bus to Swansea!

OpenAthens pricing from Aug 2008

For colleges that want to continue to use Athens as their authentication system after August 2008, here is a link to the new OpenAthens pricing by JISC band. There is further information in the flyer here.

RSC Wales Athens / Shibboleth survey results

I will take this opportunity to circulate the results of the Athens / Shibboleth survey conducted by Samantha Edwards (between January and March 2007). The free text comments have been anonymised as far as possible). It seems a number of people are planning to move to Shibboleth, though lots of people were happy with Athens – the only problem being the need to pay for it after August next year.

What is your college institution? / Response Count

Barry / 0
Bridgend / 1
Coleg Ceredigion / 0
Coleg Glan Hafren / 1
Coleg Gwent / 1
Coleg Harlech / 1
Coleg Llandrillo / 0
Coleg Llysfasi / 0
Coleg Meirion Dwyfor / 0
Coleg Menai / 0
Coleg Morgannwg / 2
Coleg Powys / 1
Coleg Sir Gar / 1
Deeside / 0
Gorseinon / 1
Merthyr Tydfil / 0
Neath PT / 1
Pembrokeshire / 1
St Davids / 0
Swansea College / 1
WEA South Wales / 0
Welsh College of Horticulture / 0
Yale / 0
Ystrad Mynach / 0
North East Wales Institute (NEWI) / 0
Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama / 0
Swansea Institute / 0
Trinity College / 1
University of Wales Lampeter / 0
[answered question 13 / skipped question 0]

What is the current usage of Athens at your institution? (Select any that apply) / Response Percent / Response Count

None / 0.0% / 0
Registered for service but not used / 15.4% / 2
Accounts issued on request / 69.2% / 9
Self-Registration / 15.4% / 2
Bulk Upload / 7.7% / 1
Athens DA / 7.7% / 1
[answered question 13 / skipped question 0]

Are there any issues that deter your usage of Athens?

No, it is now being very well used (85 students have registered this academic year) as a result of publicising the service more strongly. We have 42 journals that are accessible online via an Athens account. The students who use this service are mostly, but not exclusively, HE students who find that we have the journals they need. The FE students are mostly on Access to HE courses.Yes, for example, not long ago I tried to access EMERALD with Athens, but it did not work.

Yes, students have to self-register in this institution. Last year, we merely handed out Athens passwords – ready to use. Many students don’t have e-mail addresses, so we first have to set up an e-mail address for them. The whole procedure takes about 15 mins per student.

Lack of funding to purchase subscriptions, and a dearth of relevant free resources. There may also be an issue with the perception of Athens as a ‘place’ on the web, rather than a gateway to resources.

No

It can be time consuming to issue accounts on request for larger courses, however although we’ve considered moving to Athens DA we have not been able to justify the cost and time involved at present.

Keen to move to Shibboleth, so haven’t put work into Bulk Upload or alternative system.

The Learning Centres are keen to use Athens (or equivalent). Athens was previously administered by our ILT Manager who has now left the college -usage was very low. We now have a new ILT Manager and have started discussions re Shibboleth as a future solution.

Students don’t know about it or the resources available to them.

No

Has Shibboleth been trialled or implemented at your institution? / Response Percent / Response Count

Yes / 7.7% / 1
No / 84.6% / 11
Not Sure / 7.7% / 1
[answered question 13 / skipped question 0]

Have you any future plans within your institution to trial or implement Shibboleth technology?

I need to know more about the implications of using Shibboleth.No, I would prefer to carry on using Athens for the time being, at least until 2008, but would wish to keep up to date with developments.

We had some meeting about it, or some member of the staff, I think, reported about it when he returned from some seminar; I also have some papers on it, but never, actually tried it.

The Athens administrator at this college has not mentioned any such plans, if they are in place.

Yes. We are currently taking advice from the RSC on the timing of swtiching to Shibboleth.

In initial stages of discussion with Senior Management, and Technical Support.

Possibly, depending on documentation and support issues.

No, not yet.

We would like to implement Shibboleth at some point, but are unlikely to do so in the near future.

Yes – ILT / Computer services working towards this.

Only at early discussion stage at present.

Yes, we hope to implement it by July 2008.

We are looking to move towards Shibboleth, but it doesn’t look as though it is a priority yet.

Would you like more information or training on any of the following? (Select any that apply) / Response Percent / Response Count

Athens DA / 38.5% / 5
Athens Administration / 23.1% / 3
Bulk Upload / 23.1% / 3
Self-Registration / 15.4% / 2
Shibboleth & the UK Access Federation / 84.6% / 11
Other (please specify) / 38.5% / 5

I want to access different electronic articles with a single password, not complecated staged process!I have a meeting with Richard Dunning from Eduserv on Friday 16th to discuss

Dependent on the timing of the switch to Shibboleth, we may need further training on Athens, for our library assistant.

Examples, step by step configuration guides etc would be useful. Implementation workshops, or even an advertised list of consultants, experience, timescales and prices.

We need to be clear when AthensDA is coming to an end, the cost impact of continuing, the cost of implementing Shibboleth, and what Shibboleth will do for us. Once we have this information we can then put together a solid business case and take it forward.

[answered question 13 / skipped question 0]

I have been very busy since I started with RSC Wales, and have decided to create a blog to record my travels. My travels may prove to be a challenge, since I intend to make them all by public transport. My blog can record the experience of doing this!

Other reasons for this blog include the need to be familiar with the whole range of Web 2.0 tools and services that may be useful to education and libraries; also to give a flavour of some of the work that RSC Wales does. As my profile shows, I am an e-Learning Advisor with RSC Wales, and perhaps this blog will help me to understand what the job involves.

My first month has been exciting and informative, and involved more travelling around Wales than I had probably done in the last ten years! There was lots of settling in to begin with, and a few days spent in Swansea getting to know the RSC Wales team. The RSC Wales annual conference was held at Gregynog, Newtown, in my first week (Wed 16 – Thu 17 May), which was a trial by fire I suppose, since there were so many people to meet. Gregynog is a lovely place to visit – the image below shows the main house.

[Gregynog Hall]

On Tuesday 22nd May I went to a demo of some voting systems. The Promethean system also included a demonstration of their interactive whiteboard, and looked like it could have many uses for presentations, teaching, voting, groupworking and so on. The other system was Interwrite PRS, which is mostly aimed at the HE market, and includes offline modes and a display screen (on some handsets), and has its own possible uses.

Tue 29-Wed 30 May – more travelling, this time to Birmingham for the JISC Federated Access Management Event. Federated Access (whether through Shibboleth or some other system) could open up a lot of doors in the near future – not just in terms of access to e-resources, but also in terms of interoperability between institutions, and within institutions. It is an area I will discuss in more detail in later posts, no doubt – and I will be happy to discuss the options and ‘federated access roadmap’ with FE LRC staff (just give me a few more weeks to understand how it all works!). Three things that I got out of the event:

1: One session I found particularly useful was the one exploring the impact of the move towards federated access management on libraries, including a discussion of the Athens administrator role, changes to library processes and the impact on the end-user. The slideshow from the presentation is available online.
2: For those wanting to set up a system themselves, but lacking the internal skills, Netskills are piloting a 3 day Federated Access Management (FAM) workshop for technical staff, aimed at teaching how to set up Shibboleth at their institution – from nothing up to a fully working server in three days. Taking part in the pilot could be a good way of getting the training for free (as long as the attendees agree to provide feedback on the course). As far as I know the intended dates for the pilot of this event are 18th – 20th July (Newcastle University). Further information will become available via the Netskills website.
3: For those who would rather just pay someone else to do the dirty work (!) it was announced that Salford Software have come up with a charged service whereby they come into an FE college and set up a federated management system. Apparently costs vary, but for a college with a good technical infrastructure it would be a fixed fee of £5,000, with support costs on top of that if required. It would cost more for a college that needs a full audit and some changes to systems. However it is another alternative if short on IT expertise.

June arrived, and I needed a break! So I had a night away with my family near Harlech. On the way there I realised I was passing Coleg Harlech – one of the colleges I am meant to liaise with.

“Stop the car!” I yelled.

“Why?” asked my Mother, in a panic that something had gone wrong.

“I need to visit a library!”

I got out and visited the college library (which is apparently modelled on the National Library of Wales – and I could see a resemblance in the way the balcony overlooks the central area). I chatted to Delyth Heath about college library services for a while before continuing with my holiday.

Which seems a good point to finish my first blog. Here are a few holiday photos.

[Me and my nephew on top of Harlech Castle]

[Resting in the garden at Tremeifion]

[View from the Tremeifion conservatory]