UKOLN Strategy

August 2001 - July 2004

Document details

Author:	Liz Lyon
Date:	5 February 2002
Version:	1.0

Acknowledgements

UKOLN is funded by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives & Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher and Further Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.

Summary

This report describes the proposed Strategy for UKOLN covering the period August 2001- July 2004.

Information Environment

Achieving Consensus

Bibliographic Management

Public Library Networking

Web Technologies

Communities, New Markets and Dissemination

Organisational Infrastructure

UKOLN Strategy 2001-2004

Introduction

This Strategy was prepared following the Review of UKOLN carried out during Spring 2001, which was initiated by Resource and in collaboration with the JISC. It was submitted successfully to the core funders during the second half of 2001 and we are now pleased to be able to make the information publically available. The Strategy was created in collaboration with all UKOLN staff, and is complemented by a more detailed Work Programme. Both documents will be reviewed on an annual basis.

Strategic Objectives

There are a number of activities and roles which underpin all of UKOLN's work and these are explicitly stated below. They reflect the changing nature of UKOLN's role within the communities that we work, but also emphasise the perceived strengths of neutrality and authority which UKOLN will continue to adopt and promote for the benefit of the community as a whole.

The general objectives lead into the key themes identified for future work. These are broad areas and more detail on specific activities and deliverables is given elsewhere in the Work Programme.

Generic Activities

The current UKOLN Mission encapsulates the overarching goals of the organisation:

UKOLN is a national focus of expertise in digital information management. It provides services to the library, information and cultural heritage communities. Its goals are to:

Influence policy and inform practice

Advance the state of the art and contribute to knowledge

Build useful and innovative distributed systems and services

Promote community-building and consensus-making through awareness and events services.

These statements can be expanded to describe the types of generic activities undertaken in all areas of work and presented as broad objectives for the organisation as a whole:

To influence national policy at a high level in a variety of sectors through leadership, advocacy and authoritative commentary.
To facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration and consensus between key individuals and groups.
To adopt an advocacy and consensual role in the support of specifications and standards to enhance interoperability.
To undertake research and development activities which contribute to knowledge.
To further develop international links to inform the knowledge base.
To pursue strategic alliances to strengthen collaborative activities and broaden experience.
To develop innovative tools, demonstrators, services and models to advance thinking and practice.
To provide timely, appropriate and up-to-date advice and guidance on best practice to the communities we serve.
To disseminate acquired knowledge through appropriate channels.
To promote wider community-building through events services.
To provide consultancy services to appropriate organisations and industry bodies.

Work Themes

The broad objectives outlined here are supported by more detailed activities and deliverables in the Work Programme.

Information Environment

Architectures and Resource Discovery

To extend the existing work on the descriptive modelling and functionality of information architectures.
To provide technical support and development for resource discovery services.
To participate in work investigating the personalisation of portals and Web-based services.
To build on existing work in the areas of human computer interaction and usability.
To investigate the technical issues surrounding the integration of digital libraries and managed learning environments (MLE).
To collaborate in the development of distributed delivery systems for digital resources and learning materials.

Metadata Management and Technical Standards

To continue to promote the adoption of standards-based approaches to information management.
To continue to actively represent community interests in various standards development fora.
To continue to facilitate the development and adoption of necessary specifications and standards such as the Bath Profile.
To continue to develop and promote the effective implementation of metadata specifications and standards to support a variety of media types including multimedia, and for visualisation, through the creation of schemas and registries.
To promote the implementation of collection description standards to facilitate cross-sectoral resource discovery.
To continue development activity in the use of controlled vocabularies and thesauri for the effective retrieval of digital resources.
To build on digital preservation activities in partnership with appropriate organisations such as the British Library.

Collaboratories

To undertake research and development activity in the area of networked workspaces or collaboratories.

Achieving Consensus

Working within Sectors

To build on the consensus-building and community forming achievements of the Metadata for Education Group (MEG) to facilitate further engagement between organisations and to ensure the delivery of tangible outcomes.
To explore the relevance of the MEG model to other sectors with which UKOLN engages.
To further develop co-operative ventures with relevant national and international organisations, such as mda and CIMI in the museum sector.
To pro-actively seek to influence e-Government activities in the UK and elsewhere.

Working across Sectors

To continue to encourage the dilution of sectoral divisions through advocacy, example, and consensus building.
To continue to act opportunistically in facilitating cross-sectoral engagement with emerging trends and initiatives at an early stage.

Bibliographic Management

To continue to contribute to performance measurement of the quality of records through currency surveys and the monitoring of bibliographic standards.
To further develop tools for auditing the quality of online catalogues.
To promote the use of national and international standards for the indexing and exchange of bibliographic records.
To build on existing work on bibliographic requirements for non-print materials and specific user needs.
To promote the use of bibliographic and metadata standards for materials held by voluntary sector agencies in order to improve accessibility to people with any form of impairment.
To build on existing retro-conversion and retro-cataloguing activity through advisory and consultancy work.

Public Library Networking

To continue to promote policy and best practice in digital information management to members of public libraries.
To provide a wide range of issue papers, technical briefing documents and events for the community.
To support the creation and delivery of resources for lifelong learning through advisory services to digital content creators and service providers.
To participate in new projects with public library partners.

Web Technologies

To continue to provide guidance to our communities on effective Web practices.
To advise on the preservation of Web sites.
To seek funding opportunities to monitor the development of Web technologies and services across various communities.
To identify issues associated with the delivery of content via mobile and other emerging network devices.

Communities, New Markets and Dissemination

Outreach

To continue to support the higher education community.
To pro-actively increase support for the further education community.
To monitor and evaluate Research Grid developments associated with the Research Councils.
To consider other new markets such as the health and voluntary sectors.
To identify further areas for collaboration and involvement in activities of the University of Bath and with appropriate departments.
To put in place improved mechanisms for interacting and obtaining feedback from all user and stakeholder communities.

Dissemination

To review the effectiveness of current dissemination routes and publicity materials
To create a new marketing and dissemination strategy
To build on the established Events Management service in order to support new activities, communities and markets.

Organisational Infrastructure

Administrative and Business Processes

To continue to support all administrative and business processes.
To evaluate the appropriateness of adopting a 'quality systems' approach to UKOLN business processes which includes the monitoring and evaluation of performance.
To promote the integration of office automation systems to streamline routine operations and improve work-flow.
To improve the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of activities through the use of group-ware.
To support UKOLN internal procedures, facilitate knowledge management and promote organisational learning through the development of the Intranet.

Sustainable Development

To implement strategies to ensure sustainability over a five-year horizon.
To pursue opportunities for further integration with the Division of Access and Continuing Studies.

Human Resources

To implement a new organisational structure in the light of the outcomes of the Review and the new three-year Strategy and Work Programme
To map the range of skills and people mix to the Work Programme activities.
To continue to build on the strong "people focus" through the development and implementation of the new Human Resources Framework.

Communications

To facilitate increased cross-team and cross-project interaction and communication.

Space

To locate all UKOLN staff (except remote workers) in the same physical space.