JISC NEWS CRS2 Digitisation Programme Update The Joint Information Systems Committee Digitisation Programme is funded with a £10 million grant from the Comprehensive Spending Review in response to a widespread recognition that a series of large-scale digitisation projects of primary learning, teaching and research material would bring significant benefits to the UK Further and Higher Education community. Members of the community may recall the digitisation working group sought input from the further and higher education community on twelve short listed digitisation proposals. Suggestions for additional collections that would fit the criteria for inclusion in the programme were also requested. Considerable interest was generated from this consultation process. The result was that JISC received over 300 responses to the questionnaire early in 2003. From these, eight digitisation project proposals were identified. The projects chosen will work in collaboration with other digitisation initiatives. For example, the British Library Sound Archive and the National Gallery of the Spoken Word, the History Data Service and The National Archives. There is enormous potential for the proposed content to be applied in a very broad range and depth of educational contexts. Learners, teachers and researchers will have a fantastic opportunity to search and access materials from a broad range of subject areas, including history, politics, society and culture. This content will be enhanced by the creation of new learning and teaching tools, portal developments and very importantly, through community involvement throughout the life-cycle of the digitisation programme. We are delighted to announce that the following projects have been endorsed by the JISC and final negotiations are now underway with the project partners. These are: · British Official Publications 18th - 20th century The project will digitise around one million pages of fully searchable texts of 18th Century House of Commons and House of Lords papers and bills. The papers relate to a very wide variety of themes and issues and provide in-depth information on social, economic and political issues of their day. They also offer a fascinating insight into the workings and procedures of the British Parliament over a period of more than three hundred years. The digitisation of the materials will be undertaken utilising highly innovative technologies, such as a robotic book scanner and high volume file management software. Members of the community will be invited to visit the BOPCRIS project, attend workshops and gain insights from the expected lessons to be learnt from using the cutting edge technologies employed. Further information on the knowledge dissemination programme will be made available in early 2004. · British University Film and Video Council / ITN and British Pathe 3,000 hours of ITN content will be encoded (1955 to date) as will Reuters content (1896 to date). This represents 1% of the 300,000 hours of content currently held by ITN. An additional 3,500 hours of existing digitised British Pathe content (1896-1970) and 12 million images captured from the archive will be licensed for use by the community. The project will be based at ITN's headquarters in London. Members of the community will have the opportunity to visit the BUFVC/ITN project headquarters and will essentially help steer the selection process through an online consultation. Workshops will also be offered. Members of the community may wish to read further coverage of the BUFVC/ITN project in today's Times Higher Education Supplement on page 6 and the Times Education Supplement (FE Focus, front page) which outline some of the key benefits of this ground-breaking deal. To clarify one statement in the THES article, this deal with ITN is only one part of the £10m CSR2 programme, which includes the seven other projects described in this announcement. Details on the knowledge dissemination programme for the project will be made to the community in early 2004. · Early English Books Online - Text Creation Partnership 25,000 volumes or 20% of the Early English Books Online (1475-1700) will be converted into fully searchable text. The content covers literature, philosophy, politics, religion, geography, science and all other areas of human endeavour. The community will be invited to assist in the selection process of titles to be included in the project through an online consultation. Further information on the project will be made available in early 2004. · History Data Service Census Data 1801-1937 All UK census reports 1801-1937 (109,000 pages), Registrar General(s) reports 1801-1921 (70,000 pages) and ancillary material (13,000 pages) will be digitised in this project. The project team will be in close collaboration with key individuals working at The National Archives. The project will be based at the University of Essex. The History Data Service project will be inviting members of the community to attend workshops and gain from the lessons learnt from the creation of the primary census data. Further announcements regarding specific projects will be released in the coming weeks, whilst information on the knowledge dissemination programme will be made available in early 2004. Other projects currently being scoped under the CSR2 programme include: · ArtSTOR 300,000 images will be digitised, with a particular focus on Asian and American art, architecture and modern design. A core collection of 200,000 images will form ArtSTORS's Image Gallery. The Image Gallery is designed to match a common curriculum study, for example for undergraduate art history courses. The learning and teaching tools which are currently being evaluated include the ability to create student portfolios and teacher course folders. Currently, there are 14 US museums and universities which are testing ArtSTOR. A second phase of testing will commence in January 2004. The JISC has asked the Andrew Mellon Foundation for one or more UK institutions to be involved in this evaluation. ArtSTOR are currently drafting their licence agreements. These will not be ready until the first half of 2004. The JISC will be negotiating with ArtSTOR for a national licence for the UK further and higher education community. · British Library Newspapers 1800-1900 This project will digitise around two million pages of fully searchable texts and associated images from 19th century newspapers and journals. Approximately 50% of these titles only exist in hard copy. Consequently, access until now has been restricted to those members of the community who can visit the collection at Colindale. The proposal benefits from the lessons learnt under the Burney newspaper project. The British Library is currently exploring the optimal delivery system for this type of content for the further and higher education community. Further information on this proposal should be available in late 2003. · British Library Sound Archive 20th century 3,900 hours of audio content from the 20th century will be encoded. None of the short listed recordings is currently available online. The selection of content will be guided by an academic steering committee and online community consultation. The short listed recordings range from the oral history of jazz in Britain to architecture, design and craft interviews. Further announcements and information about this proposal should be available in late 2003. · Wellcome Trust UK/US Medical Journals The aim of this project is to digitise approximately 1.5 million pages of key UK and US medical journals and create a highly valuable resource for the further and higher education community. Further information on this proposal should be available in early 2004. The above projects are currently being scoped by bid partners and being evaluated by the JISC. As indicated, further announcements will be made in due course. For further information on the CSR2 Digitisation Programme go to http://www.jisc.ac.uk Please contact Stuart Dempster, Programme Manager, at [log in to unmask], should you require further information about any of the JISC CSR2 projects