The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funds various digital library initiatives through several subcommittees, allocating over £35 million annually from funding councils. Major initiatives include the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) to integrate heterogeneous resources through portals and services, and international collaborations like the JISC/NSF programme. JISC also supports networking infrastructure, authentication middleware, and initiatives involving content, learning and teaching, skills development and more.

1. JISC Digital Library initiatives
ECDL, Paris September 1999
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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2. JISC digital library initiatives:
contents
Background
JISC programme outlines
The DNER
International initiatives
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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3. JISC: background
Joint Information Systems Committee
• sub-committee of funding councils
• £35 million per year standard budget (plus extras)
• funds JANET/SuperJANET
• funds services (eg BIDS, EDINA, MIMAS etc)
• funds R&D programmes
Funding is “top-sliced”
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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4. JISC: sub-committees
JCN: networks (£20 M?)
JCAS: authentication & security (middleware, £2 M?)
JCEI: information (digital library, £8 M?)
JCIEL (?): learning environments (£2 M?)
JCALT: human & MIS issues (£2 M?)
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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5. Networking
£40 million extra for SuperJANET 4
• major procurement
Involvement in Internet 2 etc
Market testing (eg Mailbase)
No major R&D programmes
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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6. Middleware
New committee: work areas roughly
• authentication and authorisation
• security and privacy
• e-commerce?
• remote DB access and metadata?
Service based on ATHENS
Link to Internet 2
Not sure how committee will proceed
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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7. DNER
Distributed National Electronic Resource
... to make sense of burgeoning heterogeneous
information resources
... a national scale digital library project
... emphasising integration
... needing design, infrastructure, development,
research, and content.
Model based on portals, services and data providers.
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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8. DNER development
Major Circular November 99, to close January 2000
Projects to develop the DNER
• build and connect the infrastructure
• experiment with different types of portals
• experiment with different services
• incorporate more types of content.
Evaluation and feedback
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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9. Learning & teaching
Major funding injection (£10 million new money
over 3 years)
Part of DNER circular
• enhancing JISC services for learning & teaching
• developing content
• digital libraries and learning/teaching environments
• ... and evaluation
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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10. Human & other issues
Human and organisational Issues associated
with network security
C&IT skills development
Common interface study
Also have programme on information strategies
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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11. Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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12. International
JISC/NSF programme
• Part of NSF International Digital Libraries Initiative
• 6 projects
• £500,000 per year for 3 years
Opportunistic!
High profile, popular with the paymasters
Major benefits in improving communication
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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13. Future international?
No specific budget, although seeking a small
general international budget
• specific ideas would help
Neutral stance: needs to benefit JISC, to justify
cost (including establishment)
Earliest spend would be 2001
• more likely 2001/2002
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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14. Conditions for inter-
programme success
Mutual advantage and willingness to share the load
Politics and timing: convergence
Resources: significantly greater overhead
Flexibility: need to adapt hallowed practice to
accommodate
Trust
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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15. Suggestion
Add to new circulars
• “Proposers are invited to suggest optional additional
modules to their proposal, to be performed by
international partners,and funded by non-[local]
funding sources. Viable proposals of this type will be
viewed favourably.”
Allows separability of funding decisions but puts
the onus on the project’s international partners to
organise.
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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16. JISC: more information
See JISC web pages
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/
eLib web pages maintained by UKOLN
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/elib/
Mailbase lists including
jisc-announce@mailbase.ac.uk
lis-elib@mailbase.ac.uk
Chris Rusbridge: JISC Committee for Electronic Information 27/09/12
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