Subject portals

Judith Clark, Subject Portals Project Manager Resource Discovery Network     judi.clark@kcl.ac.uk

Ariadne 2001
(ReLIS:doi:doiari:y:2001:i:29:p:3)

Abstract:

The vision that created the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) grew out of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)s history of engagement with Higher and Further Education Institutions and significant research libraries in the UK. The DNER has an ambitious goal - to empower the HE/Post-16 community by providing quick, coherent and reliable access to a managed information environment that is geared to supporting learning and teaching activities. The JISC has established a great number of services that are helping to fulfil this vision of an integrated information environment. It also sponsors many initiatives that are developmental in nature. The Subject Portals Project (SPP) is one of these. It is a JISC-funded initiative led by the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) for the DNER. The project aims to enhance resource discovery by developing a series of portals focussed on the requirements of end-users located in a variety of learning environments within the further and higher education sectors who are the main clients of the DNER. The first phase of the project ran from Nov 2000 to Sep 2001 and was mainly concerned with building a Z39.50 cross search prototype at each of these three RDN Hubs SOSIG, EEVL and BIOME . The second phase, which ends in 2003, involves two further Hubs, HUMBUL (in collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Data Service) and PSIgate, and will examine the feasibility of delivering a set of subject portal services that build on the research network already established by the RDN.

Note: Judith Clark describes a 3-year project to develop a set of subject portals, part of the Development Programme of the Distributed National Electronic Resource.
Month: 02-October-2001
Year: 2001

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