The Business Information Network: Improving European enterprise through resource sharing

The UK Business Information Network was formed in 1990 as an independent self-financing co-operative of public, government, and academic libraries committed to delivering quality products and services to their user communities. Promoted as a national resource for business people both within and outside the UK, the Network has subsequently been extended with the introduction of associate membership for commercial information suppliers. In1992 it was awarded formal status as the Business Information Panel of the UK Library and Information Co-operation Council (LINC) with a remit to review, encourage, and facilitate co-ordination of business information provision nationally across all sectors. Its current activities include production of a referral database/directory of expertise and resources; organization of seminars and workshops; negotiation of terms and conditions with suppliers; development of quality of service guidelines; and circulation of a regular newsletter. A recent initiative is the creation of an electronic mail forum using the Joint Academic Network (JANET) for business information specialists in university libraries to exchange views on issues of mutual concern. The UK Business Information Network has also established links with organizations and institutions in other countries, and has served as the model for the formation of an equivalent network in Denmark

Review of the Joint Information Systems Committee: report to HEFCE by the JISC Review Group (Issues paper)

"This report sets out the findings and recommendations of the review chaired by Professor Sir Alan Wilson into the strategy, activities and effectiveness of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)." - Cover

Transition to High-Speed Networks — SuperJANET Experience

For the time being, trials to establish the Information Superhighway are booming. In Britain, JANET has provided wide-area computer communication, and has recently been upgraded to SuperJANET, increasing the throughput by a factor of five to 10 Mb/s, with some sites having PDH access at n × 34 Mb/s. In this paper, the technological changes seen from a user perspective are addressed. A multimedia communication-based distance learning project on SuperJANET is introduced and the network performance measurements for this project are presented. These measurements suggest the employment of reservation protocol and packet scheduling. We also provide a mechanism for on-the-fly playback of continuous media

Review of the environmental and organisational implications of cloud computing: final report.

Cloud computing – where elastic computing resources are delivered over the Internet by external service providers – is generating significant interest within HE and FE. In the cloud computing business model, organisations or individuals contract with a cloud computing service provider on a pay-per-use basis to access data centres, application software or web services from any location. This provides an elasticity of provision which the customer can scale up or down to meet demand. This form of utility computing potentially opens up a new paradigm in the provision of IT to support administrative and educational functions within HE and FE. Further, the economies of scale and increasingly energy efficient data centre technologies which underpin cloud services means that cloud solutions may also have a positive impact on carbon footprints. In response to the growing interest in cloud computing within UK HE and FE, JISC commissioned the University of Strathclyde to undertake a Review of the Environmental and Organisational Implications of Cloud Computing in Higher and Further Education [19]

An introduction to learning technology in tertiary education in the UK.

Contents: 1. The Learning Technology Arena 2. The Learning Technology Community 3. Learning Technology Tools 4. Key issues and developments in the Learning Technology Field 5. Implementing Learning Technologies 6. Further Resource

The Faculty Notebook, April 2003

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

The SPAN cookbook: A practical guide to accessing SPAN

This is a manual for remote users who wish to send electronic mail messages from the Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN) to scientific colleagues on other computer networks and vice versa. In several instances more than one gateway has been included for the same network. Users are provided with an introduction to each network listed with helpful details about accessing the system and mail syntax examples. Also included is information on file transfers, remote logins, and help telephone numbers