JISC

To:   Vice Chancellors/Principals
Copies:Librarians and Computer Centre Directors


INFORMATION SERVICES SUB-COMMITTEE (ISSC): DEVELOPMENT OF
DATASET CENTRES AND SERVICES: REQUESTS FOR PROPOSALS

Introduction

1. Over recent years the ISSC has supported various
activities in the evolution of distributed national
electronic information services. The JISC policy in this area
is to establish a comprehensive range of information services
progressively over a period of years. Three major new
initiatives are now proposed.

2. Complementary to the work of the ISSC in this context is
that of the Follett Implementation Group on Information
Technology (FIGIT). JISC Circular 1/95 informed the community
on progress with the programme of activity stemming from the
report of the Joint Funding Councils' Review of Libraries
(the Follett Report). In that circular reference was made
(paragraphs 43 - 49) to developments through supporting
studies of bibliographic databases; to the prospect of
national access to the Consortium of University Research
Libraries (CURL) database; and to progress towards
establishing an Arts and Humanities Data Service. This
circular takes forward specific developments in these three
areas.

3. The first relates to bibliographic datasets. The pilot
scheme, funded in 1991 through the University of Bath's BIDS-
ISI service, established a good model for what dataset
services could and should provide. JISC's policy is to build
on this success to achieve about twenty supported major
dataset services by the year 2000. Currently around a dozen
distinct dataset services are supported by JISC through the
ISSC. These services are primarily based at the universities
of Bath and Manchester.

4. The JISC is now considering the possibility of extending
support to one or more additional centres for the supply of
such community-wide services.

5. Recent negotiations by CHEST for ISSC have concluded
arrangements which will allow for provision of new services
to the community based on a number of additional datasets.
These are described briefly in paragraph 13 and in more
detail in Annex B.

6. With these significant developments and the continuing
growth in demand for networked information services, JISC and
ISSC believe that the time is ripe for one or more additional
datacentres to be supported in provision of national dataset
services.

7. This circular therefore requests costed proposals from
interested HE institutions in respect of one or more of the
following activities:

  becoming a datacentre for provision of national dataset
  services (paragraphs 8-12 and Annex A);

  providing a national dataset service for one or more the
  new datasets, if already a JISC funded datacentre
  (paragraphs 13-15 and Annex B);

  providing a national OPAC and related services based on
  the CURL dataset (paragraphs 16-19 and Annex C): note that
  this is expected to support both expansion of the dataset
  and document delivery services from some data supplying
  libraries;

  hosting the Executive for and/or expressing interest in
  becoming a service provider for the subject-based Arts and
  Humanities Data Service (paragraphs 20-23 and Annex D).

These activities are described briefly below and in more
detail in the respective Annex.


Datacentres

8. The JISC and the ISSC consider that an opportunity should
be extended now to sites to make proposals to become a
datacentre (Annex A) and to submit costed proposals for
provision of national services based on one or more of the
datasets to become available over the next few weeks (Annex
B).

9. The community has become accustomed to having national
dataset services available through Bath and Manchester and
would expect any new centre to provide an equivalent or
better service for any new dataset.

10.Before making a proposal to be considered for the role of
a datacentre, sites should review carefully the basic need to
have substantial capacity available in computing, in data
storage and in networking access terms. Sites must also be
confident that the necessary levels of technical and support
service personnel can be made available to sustain the
required levels of service and user support.

11.A basic guide suggests a capability to support 100
concurrent users, data storage of tens of gigabytes and
access bandwidth in excess of 4mb/sec as minima for provision
of an adequate national service to the HE community. Capacity
to grow beyond such levels is likely to be needed as services
expand over the normal three to five year service period.

12.The minimum guideline requirements to be met in becoming
a datacentre are set out in more detail in Annex A.


New Datasets

13.A total of 11 separate datasets has been acquired by
CHEST for ISSC in recent negotiations. They include:
chemistry ( 8 are from the Royal Society of Chemistry
databases and will be treated as a 'subject group' for
purposes of allocation to a service site), life sciences
(BIOSIS), quality press (PALMERS INDEX to the Times), and
journal contents index (PERIODICAL CONTENTS INDEX (PCI)).
CHEST contracts will be for the usual five year period
subject to review and renegotiation after three or four
years.

14.Sites which are interested in mounting a national service
providing access to one or more of these datasets should
submit costed proposals as suggested below (paragraph 27).
Such proposals may be from established datacentres, from
sites interested in becoming datacentres or from sites with
subject-specific interests only. Sites are reminded of the
substantial resource and skilled personnel requirements
needed to provide the quality of service demanded by the user
community.

15.Annex B provides more extensive details of these datasets
together with information on sizing and growth expectations.
CHEST will provide information online for sites wishing to
investigate specific technical details on record sizes,
formats and coding systems


Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL)

16.CURL currently possesses an electronically mounted
dataset of bibliographic records and offers other
organisations a charged record retrieval service. JISC wishes
to develop the current dataset into a structured OPAC held at
a UK HEI site to provide free expandable OPAC services to the
UK Higher Education and Research council communities whilst
not diminishing services currently provided by CURL to its
members. It is also intended that the OPAC thus developed
should support associated document delivery services from
some contributing libraries.

17.To this end JISC and CURL have reached agreement for JISC
to lease the data and some existing programs from CURL, on a
three year rolling basis.

18.Expressions of interest are now sought for a site
prepared to mount the data and continue to provide existing
services presently supplied by CURL.

  develop the dataset into an expandable structured OPAC.

   continue to update the dataset by the regular processing
of extra records from existing CURL libraries and by the
possible inclusion over time of records from other community
contributors.

   include facilities that support the interfacing of
document delivery services (electronic and paper) from
contributing libraries.

19.Annex C provides more extensive details of the current
dataset, together with some sizing information, performance
requirements, likely growth, and criteria for success. Whilst
existing or proposing datacentres will already possess or
plan much of the infrastructure required to meet performance
criteria, bids from other sites are not explicitly excluded."


Arts and Humanities Data Service

20.The report of the Joint Funding Councils' Libraries
Review Group (the "Follett Report") made reference to the
concept of an Arts and Humanities Data Centre. The Joint
Information Systems Committee (JISC), through its Information
Services Sub-Committee (ISSC), commissioned a feasibility
study into the needs in this area.

21.The report of the study - "An Arts and Humanities Data
Service: Report of a Feasibility Study" by Lou Burnard and
Harold Short - has been endorsed by the ISSC and the JISC and
appropriate funding has been allocated for its
implementation.

22.As the report's title implies, the concept has evolved
from that of a Data Centre to that of an Arts and Humanities
Data Service (AHDS). The structure proposed consists of a
central coordinating group (the "AHDS Executive" in Burnard &
Short) which would carry out a range of management and user
support functions; and a number of "Service Providers" who
would offer particular services to the user community. The
service will thus be geographically dispersed but managed as
a single entity.

23.Proposals are invited from institutions who wish

  to provide the AHDS Executive
  to act as Service Providers

These two categories are outlined in more detail in Annex D.


Funding Arrangements

24.JISC's funds are allocated annually by the funding
councils, and they are effectively obtained by a deduction
from the block grants which would otherwise have been paid
direct to institutions. This has consequences for the pattern
and composition of the awards which can be made:

i) Although the JISC intends to continue funding successful
proposals which run beyond the current year, those funds can
only be fully confirmed on an annual basis.

ii)Proposals may be funded on the basis of staff and
incidental costs. This may include, for example, the
equivalent costs of parts of posts, the costs of additional
staff recruited to cover the regular work of those used on a
project, and costs of consumables, production and
dissemination, travelling, etc.

iii)   No individual institution (as distinct from the
project itself or the community as a whole), should gain any
significant incidental benefit from support by JISC, unless
it can be shown that it would be impossible for the project
objectives to be achieved in any other way. It follows that
although, for example, hardware purchase and hardware
maintenance are eligible for support, such content in
proposals will need to be fully justified.

iv)Support will not be provided for institutional overheads
in respect of any staff employed on a project; in general
these costs are provided for in existing grants from the
funding councils.

v) JISC support will not be provided in advance of need;
while such items as staff salaries will be covered by
recurrent monthly payments, purchases will only be reimbursed
against claims.


Evaluation Process and Criteria

25.Three evaluation panels will be established; one for
combined or separate responses to Annexes A and B; one for
responses to Annex C, and one for responses to Annex D.

26.For datacentres, the criteria will include costs; funding
proposals; proposed service levels; user support and training
proposals; assessment of technical skill levels; hardware and
networking support capacity proposed; peer judgement by
expert on assessment panel.

27.For allocation of new datasets to existing or proposed
new centre(s) the criteria will include assessments of
proposed service levels; costs and per site subscription
charges proposed;

28.For CURL, the criteria used in evaluating bids will
include value for money, quality of hardware and software
offered, user interface and functionality of OPAC,
availability, training and materials offered, transaction
load and response times offered, stability, track record of
software development and network availability.

29.For the Arts and Humanities Data Service, institutions
submitting proposals will need to demonstrate:

  an in-depth knowledge of the problems facing arts and
  humanities data users in the HE community. Proposals will
  need to identify potential benefits to the community and a
  basis for assessing such benefits, and details for
  implementing them as deliverables must be included in the
  proposal.

  competence in project management, in order to fulfil the
  aims and objectives of the AHDS.

  evidence of the active support of the participating
  institution's senior management. Priority may be given to
  projects where institutions themselves propose to commit
  funds and personnel.

  where appropriate, awareness of the work of other related
  initiatives and services in the academic community, with
  indications of their relevance. Equally, adaptation and
  use of experience drawn from developments in Europe, the
  United States and elsewhere will be welcomed.

  a range of relevant performance indicators on which the
  service should be judged.


Format for Submission of Responses

30.Ten copies of each proposal should be sent to the address
given in paragraph 32 below, and should include inter alia:

  a covering letter signed by the Vice-Chancellor or
  equivalent, confirming institutional commitment to
  proposals, and particularly to any level of site funding
  being included.

  proposals for becoming a datacentre must be made in
  combination with proposals to host one or more of the new
  dataset services.


Timetable

31.Responses should reach the JISC Secretariat at the
address shown below by no later than Friday 2 June 1995.
Faxed responses may only be considered in exceptional
circumstances.


Further Information

32.Responses to this circular should be addressed to Joseph
Hutcheon, JISC Secretariat, Northavon House, Coldharbour
Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QD: tel 0117 9317251, fax 0117 9317255,
email J.Hutcheon@jisc.ac.uk.

33.General enquiries about this circular should also be
addressed to Mr Hutcheon or Ms Alice Colban (tel 0117 931
7257, email A.Colban@jisc.ac.uk) in the first instance.
ANNEX A TO JISC CIRCULAR 5/95

REQUIREMENTS FOR ROLE OF DATACENTRE

Introduction

A1.This annex sets out guidelines for sites interested in
making a proposal to be considered by JISC for support as a
datacentre providing national dataset services. The following
sections indicate the minimum levels of service provision
expected from such a datacentre by the user community.

A2.In principle services provided are expected to be free to
individual academic users at the point of use. The total
costs of operating such national dataset services need to be
accounted for and covered by the host site, partly by
subscriptions from user sites, partly by subsidy from the
institution itself, partly possibly by earnings from charged
value-added services, and partly by a grant from JISC. The
basis on which JISC provides grant support for such services
is described in the main circular, paragraph 24.

A3.The remainder of this Annex provides guidelines on
service level requirements, management and administration
including reporting requirements, and costs.

Service Level Requirements - Technical

i) Availability of service: Users at subscribing sites will
expect a dataset service to be available on a 24 hour, 7 days
per week basis.

ii)Number of concurrent users: sites should state the
maximum number of concurrent users of each service that they
can support. Ability to support 100 concurrent users and to
grow beyond that is a suggested minimum.

iii)   Response times: response times that users would
normally expect at a workstation should be stated at the 90%
and 95% levels according to nature of operation, type of
terminal access and number of concurrent users.

iv)Data storage capacity available: the amounts of filestore
capacity available or that will be made available should be
stated. Capacity in the range 50 to 100 GIGABYTES has been
suggested as a minimum.

v) Network access capacity: currently available capacity
should be stated together with future capacity increases
planned.

vi)User interface: the options to be provided in terms of
user interface must be stated; a range of options needs to be
catered for from simple terminal emulation to full-screen
graphical user interface. Proposers need to take account of
interfaces to current dataset services such as BIDS with
which users may be familiar, or that dataset suppliers might
specify as part of a licence agreement. Proposers should
provide an estimate of the proportion of the potential users
who have the terminal facilities that will support the
interface(s) proposed.

vii)   Security: the arrangements proposed for access
security and for data security should be stated.

viii)  Proposed arrangements for allocating, providing and
managing user names.

Service Requirements - User Support

i) Sites should explain how and at what levels of staffing
user support will be provided. In particular the following
should be covered:

ii)helpdesk facilities to be made available by telephone or
by electronic-mail or both.

iii)   online help or tutorial facilities to be made
available.

iv)online and off-line services for document delivery, and
provision of user documentation and training seminars.

v) what error reporting and bug-fixing arrangements will be
in place to ensure maximum service availability.

vi)what user interest groups might be facilitated and how
these might be managed and supported.

vii)  support for user registration, administration etc.

Management and Administration

A5.The datacentre site is normally responsible for
administering all aspects of a national dataset service, in
collaboration with the user community and with JISC. CHEST,
as the agent of JISC, will negotiate an agreement with the
site which will be modelled on earlier experience and on
terms set by the dataset supplier/owner. The host site will
be responsible for setting up and managing all aspects of the
service operation, including a service management group drawn
from representatives of interested parties.

A6.Outline proposals should be made for such a management
group, its constitution and membership, terms of reference
and reporting requirements.

A7.For any service which is grant-supported by JISC this
management group will be expected to report on usage and
growth of the service, as well as service operation costs, in
support of claims for JISC grant in second and subsequent
years of service operation. The management group will be
responsible for ensuring that adequate provision is made for
collecting statistics and reporting performance against
measurable service levels which will be agreed from time to
time.

Costs and Funding

A8.Sites should make best estimates of costs and funding for
becoming a datacentre and providing national dataset
service(s). Estimating and proposing cost levels for service
provision will have to take account of service operation
costs attributable directly to provision of national dataset
services including:

  amortised annual hardware costs including likely upgrade
  costs
  software licence costs, software upgrade costs
  direct costs of support staff (technical support and
  subject specialists)
  any attributable networking costs
  other directly attributable costs eg. documentation,
  training

A9.Sites need also to include in their submission proposals
on how they expect to fund the estimated annual service
costs. Income from different levels of subscription charges
should be assessed and funding support expected from other
sources needs to be identified. Depending on the dataset and
terms of licence it might be possible to market added value
services to non-academic organisations as one source of
income. See information on specific datasets in Annex B, or
contact CHEST direct.

ANNEX B TO JISC CIRCULAR 5/95

NEW DATASETS: DESCRIPTIONS, SIZING AND GROWTH INFORMATION


Introduction

B1.At the request of ISSC, CHEST has negotiated successfully
for the purchase on behalf of the community of a total of 11
different datasets. The need to find datacentre sites
prepared to establish national dataset services based on
these is becoming urgent. It is proposed that such live
operational services should become available to community
users from 1 September 1995 for the start of academic year
1995/96.

B2.    This annex provides further details of these
datasets, 8 of which are from the Royal Society of Chemistry
and may need to be treated as a 'single subject group' to be
allocated to one host datacentre. Existing datacentres and
sites proposing to become a datacentre are invited to include
submissions of costed proposals for the selected dataset
services they wish to host.

B3.These new datasets will be available through CHEST over
the coming weeks and interested sites should contact CHEST
directly for the latest information on delivery. However,
note that CHEST will put up all information that it receives,
including database size, on its ftp server as soon as it is
available. The id of the parent directory ( shown as ????
below ) for access to this information can be obtained by
emailing dawn@chest.ac.uk with your name, institution, and
the name(s) of the datasets for which your institution is
interested in providing a service.

The New Datasets

B4.The 11 new datasets are described in the following
sections, the first 8 of them being those from the Royal
Society of Chemistry. For more extensive descriptions and
technical details please contact CHEST directly.

B5.Analytical Abstracts (AA): a database of around 200,000
chemical analysis abstracts from over 250 publications since
1980. The database is growing by 12,000 to 18,000 items
annually with 97% of abstracts from journals and 73% of these
being in English. English titles are provided for foreign
language abstracts.


B6.Current Biotechnology Abstracts (CBA): some 60,000 items
abstracted from 500 journals and other sources (67% journals,
26% patents) from 1983 to date. Growth is around 700 items
per month and 89% are in English. Limited to articles on
commercial or industrial applications where production is
biological, product is potentially useful to mankind and
commercially viable.


B7.Chemical Business NewsBase (CBNB): an accumulation of
abstracted items (300,000 per year from 1984) drawn from some
500 publications - 80% journals, 20% grey literature; 69% of
abstracts in English. Provides product, company and market
information for Chemical and allied industries. Updated
weekly and high currency and interest to UK is claimed.


B8.Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology Abstracts (CEABA):
includes CBA abstracts. Some 330,000 records accumulated
since 1970 from 550 publications (86% journals) of interest
to practising chemical engineers and biotechnologists - 73%
English, 17% German. Growth 2000 records per month.


B9.Chemical Safety Data Sheets: a database of only 550
records covering information on 550 chemicals in terms of
safe handling in different circumstances, eg. transportation,
fire. Updated twice yearly.


B10.   Chemical Safety NewsBase (CSNB): 34,000 bibliographic
items concerning the health and safety aspects of hazardous
chemicals encountered in working environments. Information
drawn from reports in 200 journals and other sources since
1981, with 250 additions a month. 84% in English.


B11.   Mass Spectrometry Bulletin: 200,000 bibliographic
records of documents dealing with mass spectrometry and
related ion processes, ionization and particle impact
phenomena. Selected from over 800 journals, new books,
patents and reports. 600 new items a month with accumulation
since 1966.


B12.   UK Nutrient Databank: a database relating data on up
to 60 nutrients contained in 2,500 different foods. Used as
basis for range of publications such as McCance and
Widdowson's The Composition of Foods, and specific food group
supplements eg. Milk Products and Eggs.


B13.   BIOSIS

i) BIOSIS Previews is the magnetic tape version of
Biological Abstracts (BA) (1969-present) and Biological
Abstracts/RRM (Reports, Reviews, Meetings) (BA/RRM) (1980-
present). The BIOSIS Previews database offers the largest
international collection of biological and biomedical
references available, derived from diverse sources such as
journals, books (including reference texts), proceedings of
meetings, and reviews. The BIOSIS Previews database meets the
needs of all life science researchers and information
scientists - anyone who seeks information in (1) traditional
areas of biology such as botany and microbiology; (2)
interdisciplinary fields including experimental and clinical
medicine, and biochemistry; (3) related areas including
instrumentation and methods. BIOSIS Previews includes:

  the world's most comprehensive coverage of international
  life science literature.
  four updates per month to provide current information.
  references to meeting and review literature not found in
  other sources.
  unique indexing that permits accurate information
  retrieval.
  comprehensive documentation and educational support.

ii)BIOSIS PREVIEWS STORAGE REQUIREMENTS STATISTICS

Listed below by year are statistics on the linear file size
(in megabytes) and the number of records for the BIOSIS
Previews database.

      Linear File Size (MB)     Number of Records

   Year      Megabytes        Thousands of Records (k)

   1969      67 MB           220
   1970      73             230
   1971      77             230
   1972      82             240
   1973      85             240
   1974      90             240
   1975      93             240
   1976      152            240
   1977      237            250
   1978      258            262
   1979      277            275
   1980      324            290
   1981      333            300
   1982      345            315
   1983      373            335
   1984      407            360
      -----------  ------
      3,273 MB or 3 GB            4,267 k records

   1985      493            440
   1986      529            470
   1987      565            500
   1988      593            520
   1989      621            531
   1990      617            535
   1991      638            540
   1992      638            540
   1993      638            542
   1994      638            541
      -----------  -------
      5,970 MB or 6 GB            5,159 k records

TOTAL FOR 1969 - 1994: 9,362 MB or 9 GB 426 k or approx. 9.5
million records

Note that BIOSIS have insisted that their data is provided
with a " BIDS Interface" and that this interface should track
the interface provided by BIDS for its databases if that
should change.
Sample data and other information in the BIOSIS directory at
URL
ftp://ftp.niss.ac.uk/?????

B14.   Periodicals Contents Index

PCI is taking Chadwyck-Healey around seven years to produce -
two years to set it up, get it started and publish the first
two segments, another five to complete it. CH expect it to
comprise around twenty segments, ie 13 gigabytes of data,
including indexes, all created from scratch. It is four to
five times the size of English Poetry.
Sample data and other information in the PCI directory at URL
ftp://ftp.niss.ac.uk/?????

B15.   Palmers Index to the Times

Less than 150 Mb. This file is static.
Sample data and other information in the PIT directory at URL
ftp://ftp.niss.ac.uk/?????

ANNEX C TO JISC CIRCULAR 5/95

CURL


Introduction

C1.The report of the Joint Funding Councils' Libraries
Review Group (The "Follett Report") pointed to the need to
make more generally available to the community OPAC services
based on the bibliographic dataset of the Consortium of
Research Libraries (CURL).

C2.The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has
reached an agreement with CURL under which JISC will lease
the data from CURL on a three year rolling basis in order to
develop such an OPAC and to support associated document
delivery services.

C3.The dataset currently comprises about eight million
UKMARC format library catalogue records collected from CURL
libraries and other contributors. The raw data occupies
approximately 6 Gigabytes.

C4.The CURL services are currently provided by the
University of Manchester. JISC now seeks expressions of
interest from HEI sites to

   Continue the existing services to CURL members and
customers

   Develop and make available to the whole community a
structured OPAC capable of expansion to include other
relevant community holdings as required

   Continue to provide a timely updating process which
incorporates new records provided in   batches by
contributors

   Provide interfaces that allow the development of
successful document delivery services from contributors.

C5.Initial Proposals are invited to undertake the
development work and provide an ongoing service for a period
of time of at least three years.


Continuation of existing record retrieval and related
services

C6.The dataset currently embodies the idea of a `depository'
of data rather than a catalogue in the normal sense of the
term. Records are deposited by member libraries in standard
UKMARC format as a copy of their own master catalogue record.
Duplicate records contributed by two or more libraries are
not eliminated, so multiple entries will frequently be found,
especially for more common texts.

C7.The CURL libraries are Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Imperial College London, Leeds, London (Senate House
Library), London School of Economics, Manchester, Oxford,
Trinity College Dublin and University College London. At a
given time not all of these libraries are contributing
records to the database. A typical number may be about half.
The database also contains records from the British Library,
the Library of Congress, and other record suppliers, some of
which require conversion before incorporation into the
dataset.

C8.CURL currently has about 20 customers for its record
retrieval system. They use the dataset as a major source of
catalogue records. CURL also provides a limited reference
facility available to all libraries. CURL also provides
limited services to some libraries outside the UK.

C9.CURL will provide the current dataset of records in the
current format in electronic form together with copies of
relevant programs for conversion of USMARC to UKMARC and to
preprocess and handle all existing input and output formats.
CURL will also supply copies of their existing user
documentation. All such programs, data and documentation will
however remain the property of CURL.

C10.   CURL currently supplies records in MARC exchange
format and in CURL display format.

C11.   An early requirement is the provision of services
currently given by CURL to its members and customers. This
service should be operational within sixteen weeks of an
award of contract and perform to a specification that is no
worse than the existing service.

C12.   The CURL requirement is for a maximum of 20
concurrent users and full availability (24 hour) is required.
Telnet and X29 access are supported.

C13.   In addition to the provision of services, statistics
of usage are also required. CURL defines criteria for
rejecting records supplied by contributors. In the event of a
rejected record it is necessary to inform the contributor and
collect statistics on rejection rates and reasons for
rejections for each contributor.

C14.   Further details for potential bidders can be found in
CURL Record Retrieval System Specification available from
A.Colban@jisc.ac.uk. Also available are specimens of each
contributing library's input file. These are provided if
required for the purpose of evaluation only and should be
deleted after use.

Development of OPAC

C15.   It is intended to enhance the system so as to provide
a user-friendly OPAC for the British Research community.

C16. The user should be able to search for bibliographic
material by a minimum of author name, words in title, year of
publication, publication type, subject keywords or any
combination of these.

C17.   The OPAC will cover only material supplied by
Libraries within the community, together with Trinity College
Dublin if it so wish.

C18.   It may be necessary to hold the OPAC separately from
the record retrieval system at least during development and
appropriate allowances should be made in sizing.

C19.   It is anticipated that, over the first three years,
the overall OPAC load will involve no more than 40
simultaneous accesses.


Facilities to Support Document Delivery Services

C20.   It is expected that document delivery services will
arise at some contributing sites. It is intended that OPAC
users should be able to invoke such services from within the
OPAC.

C21.   Document delivery services need not be free, neither
need they involve electronic delivery to the user.

C22.   Outline proposals should indicate what `hooks' they
will offer to suppliers of such services to enable the
provision of appropriate cost-effective easy-to-use services
to OPAC users. They should indicate how they envisage such
services operating and the nature of the interfaces between
the service and both the user and the supplier.

Steady Service

C23.   Outline proposals should indicate clearly how the
system will interface to the network, what protocols will be
used and what user devices will be supported.

C24.   Proposers should indicate what statistics they will
collect and make available to JISC on usage and performance
of the service.

C25.   A service steering committee for the service will be
established by JISC involving CURL membership. Regular
reports and progress against milestones and service targets
will be monitored by this group.

C26.   Proposers should indicate availability, support hours
and methods, anticipated response times and other service
details including backup.

C27.   A users' group will also be established. Proposers
should indicate how they foresee interactions with this group
and what support.

C28.   Only authorised users should be allowed to access the
record retrieval system and there may from time to time be
other restrictions on access to particular services such as
document delivery interfaces. Facilities to control access
are thus required.

C29.   Data provided in batched form by CURL libraries
(typically weekly from each site with about 40,000 records in
total being processed each week) should be consolidated into
the service within five working days for at least 80% of data
and within ten working days for 99% of data. Proposals should
indicate whether these or more stringent targets will be
achieved.

C30.   From time to time some CURL libraries will cease to
provide records for a period. In addition, from time to time
new contributors may wish to add their records to the
dataset. Procedures and mechanisms for accepting and
incorporating new and departing contributors should be
outlined in proposals.

C31.   A maximum initial growth rate for the dataset is 2 GB
per year.

C32.   The service should continue to file transfer (ftp)
CURL members' records to OCLC in line with existing
agreements.

C33.   Each year running costs will be reviewed in the light
of usage, technology changes, new services, growth in data
etc. However, costs should be estimated for a three year
period. In deciding whether to continue after the initial
three year period, JISC will be using performance indicators
which include usage, user friendliness and functionality of
the OPAC, coverage of the OPAC, and the degree of development
and use of cost-effective document delivery services accessed
through the OPAC.

C34.   In the event of JISC or CURL wishing to terminate the
agreement for reasons other than failure of the designated
service supplier to meet performance targets, three years
notice will normally be given. The service provider will then
be expected to make available electronic copies of the base
data at suitable points in the last year of the service to
enable CURL to continue to supply the service. After
termination all copies of CURL supplied data and code will be
deleted by the service supplier who will be required to
certify that that has been done within three months of the
termination of the services.

C35.   The criteria used in evaluating bids will include
value for money, quality of hardware and software offered,
user interface and functionality of OPAC, availability,
training and materials offered, transaction load and response
times offered, stability, track record of software
development and network availability.

C36.   A service level agreement will be drawn up in line
with the evaluation model approved by the panel evaluating
the tenders.

C37.   Outline proposals should be no longer than ten pages
in length and should include the following sections.

   Management summary

   Outline of organisation making the bid including relevant
track record and related skills

   Outline proposals for establishing and maintaining the
record retrieval services.

   Outline proposals for OPAC development: the OPAC
functionality, user interface and devices  supported

   Methods of interfacing to document delivery services

   Proposed methods for adding new record suppliers to the
system

   Proposed hardware and software requirements and
performance

   Outline of `steady state' working. Availability and
support hours offered

   Milestones and deliverables over a three year period

   Outline of training and user support to be provided

   Staffing and other costs distinguishing one-off and
recurrent costs over a three year period

   Key institutional contact

No detailed budget has been determined as yet. Proposers
should make clear the basis of their costings.

C38.   Ten copies of each outline proposal must be provided
and should be addressed as follows.

Mr J Hutcheon
Joint Information Systems Committee
Northavon House
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol, BS16 1QD


C39.   Outline proposals must be received no later than
Friday 2nd June 1995. Faxed copies will only be accepted in
exceptional circumstances. JISC intends to progress to
establish a service as quickly as possible and a target date
of 1.1.96 as the latest date for an established record
retrieval system accepted by CURL and JISC, thereby phasing
out the existing service, has been set. It is therefore
intended to progress selected outline proposals to full
proposals and agreement as quickly as possible. This will
inevitably involve dialogue with prospective service
suppliers who should therefore ensure that appropriate
contact people will be available during the summer months.


Further Information

C40.   General enquiries about this annex should be
addressed to Joseph Hutcheon, JISC Secretariat, Northavon
House, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QD: tel. 0117
9317251, fax 0117 9317255, email J.Hutcheon@jisc.ac.uk.


ANNEX D TO JISC CIRCULAR 5/95

ARTS AND HUMANITIES DATA SERVICE: REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS


Introduction

D1.The report of the Joint Funding Councils' Libraries
Review Group (the "Follett Report") made reference to the
concept of an Arts and Humanities Data Centre. The Joint
Information Systems Committee (JISC), through its Information
Services Sub-Committee (ISSC), commissioned a feasibility
study into the needs in this area.

D2.The report of the study - "An Arts and Humanities Data
Service: Report of a Feasibility Study" by Lou Burnard and
Harold Short - has now been published. It will be cited as
"Burnard & Short" in the remainder of this circular. The
report is available electronically via the URL
ftp://ota.ox.ac.uk/pub/ota/AHD/report.ps (PostScript file);
other versions will be found at the same location with file
names report.tex (TeX source) and report.plain (ASCII text).
Printed copies are available from the JISC Secretariat.

D3.As the report's title implies, the concept has evolved
from that of a Data Centre to that of an Arts and Humanities
Data Service (AHDS). The structure proposed consists of (a) a
central coordinating group (the "AHDS Executive" in Burnard &
Short, although this may not be the terminology eventually
adopted), which would carry out a range of management and
user support functions; and (b) a number of "Service
Providers" who would offer particular services to the user
community. The service will thus be geographically dispersed
but will in a real sense be managed as a single entity.

D4.It is envisaged that the AHDS would be advised by a
Steering Committee (the "AHDS Management Committee" of
Burnard & Short) which would be consistent with the model
adopted for other ISSC-funded services.

D5.The Burnard & Short report has been accepted by the JISC
and appropriate funding has been allocated for its
implementation. The purpose of this circular is to invite
proposals from institutions who wish to host components of
the AHDS.

D6.Proposals may be of two kinds:

  detailed proposals to provide the AHDS Executive
  expressions of interest in acting as Service Providers

These two categories are each described in more detail in
succeeding sections.

The AHDS Executive

D7.The functions expected of the AHDS Executive are broadly
as set out in Section 3.4.2 of Burnard & Short, i.e.

  Coordinating the services provided via the Service
  Providers and monitoring the service contracts established
  between the Service Providers and the JISC
  Maintenance of a single entry point information service
  (e.g. WWW server) for the AHDS community and of a
  catalogue of AHDS datasets and services; these functions
  may if necessary be sub-contracted to a Service Provider
  Tracking standards activity relevant to the AHDS and
  promulgating the use of recommended standards by AHDS
  Service Providers
  Provision of a Help Desk function both for the user
  community seeking advice on AHDS services and for Service
  Providers seeking technical and operational advice on AHDS
  policy matters
  Promoting awareness of AHDS activities through
  publications, conferences, workshops etc
  Preparing policy papers on matters affecting the AHDS for
  higher level committees

D8.Section 6.1 of Burnard & Short suggests a staffing model
and associated costs for running the AHDS. Proposers should
not feel bound by the staffing model assumed by Burnard &
Short: different models may prove more or less cost-effective
in particular circumstances. (For example it is not clear
that the Director of the AHDS Executive would necessarily
need to be full time, provided that other AHDS Executive
staff were of sufficient experience and had the expertise to
be able to deputise in his/her absence). There may be some
scope for economies where services or infrastructure can be
shared between the AHDS Executive and the parent institution.

D9.The budget at present allocated to the entire AHDS is
0.5M per annum. No firm ceiling has been set on the cost
allowable for operation of the Executive but it is unlikely
that more than 150K per annum will be allocated for this
purpose. Proposals will be judged on their merits taking
account of the extent of the services provided, staffing
model and depth of cover for the Executive's services, and
any value added by the institution e.g. in the form of
adjunct services.

Service Providers

D10.   The first step in the implementation plan will be to
establish the AHDS Executive. Among the first duties of the
Executive will be to take part in the selection of Service
Provider sites and to assist in drawing up the service
contracts with the Providers. In other words, the selection
of Service Providers to be funded initially will take place
after the selection of the site for the Executive, but will
follow on closely from the latter in order to allow services
to be designated and in place for the start of the 1995/96
academic year.

D11.   At this stage therefore JISC is seeking expressions
of interest from institutions who wish to be considered as
Service Providers within the AHDS. These will be used as a
basis for short-listing sites for early discussions with the
ISSC and the newly-appointed Executive. The purpose of this
approach is to put in place operational AHDS services as soon
as possible after the site for the Executive has been chosen.

D12.   Depending on the budget allocated to running the
Executive, JISC expects to devote approximately 350K per
annum to funding Service Providers. The number of contracts
awarded will depend on the quality and scope of submissions
but as a guideline a Service Provider could expect to receive
funding of the order of 75k per annum. Such a sum is
intended to fund one to two staff and some associated
equipment and other non-staff costs. It is anticipated that
the JISC funding will in many cases serve to put a service
already in existence for a more restricted community onto a
national footing.

D13.   Section 5.1 of Burnard & Short suggests some areas in
which the initial data services might fall, i.e.

  historical documents and derived data sets
  literary and linguistic textual materials
  art-historical and archaeological images and artefacts
  music, film and other time-based materials.

It should however be noted that the ISSC also has a working
party examining the issues associated with image datasets,
and submissions in this area may have to be considered in the
light of ISSC policy extending more widely than just the
AHDS. In the light of the nature, extent and quality of the
bids, ISSC will consider how and whether to expand the number
of service providers.

D14.   Service providers will be expected to offer one or
more access facilities, which may involve on the one hand no
more than standard file transfer protocols but may at the
other extreme extend to fully developed front end systems
providing means to manipulate and extract subsets of the
data. Services should include a component of documentation
and user support appropriate to the type of access methods
offered. Submissions should indicate the levels of user
support envisaged and how these will be resourced.

Format and Submission of Proposals and Expressions of
Interest

D15.   Proposals to provide the AHDS Executive should not
exceed ten pages in length and should be structured in the
following way:

  Management summary
  Scope and extent of services envisaged
  Relevant expertise and experience of staff concerned
  Proposals for the composition of the steering committee
  Proposed milestones and deliverables
  Any proposals for special relationships with particular
  service providers
  Estimated costs and any other resource implications
  Any further information proposers see fit to include
  Key institutional contact point.

D16.   Expressions of interest in acting as Service
Providers should be limited in length to four pages.
Submissions should cover the following points:

  Subject area and nature of dataset or other service
  Access methods envisaged
  Relevant expertise and experience of staff concerned
  Proposed milestones and deliverables
  Estimated costs and any other resource implications
  Any further information proposers see fit to include
  Key institutional contact point.


D17.   Ten copies of each submission must be provided and
should be addressed as follows:

Mr J Hutcheon
Joint Information Systems Committee
Northavon House
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol BS16 1QD

D18.   Submissions must be received no later than Friday 2
June 1995. Faxed copies will only be accepted in exceptional
circumstances. ISSC intends to process the proposals to
establish the AHDS Executive as quickly as circumstances
allow and the outcome will be announced shortly thereafter.
Expressions of interest in acting as Service Providers will
be considered on a longer time scale, and there is likely to
be a dialogue with the authors of short-listed submissions
leading to an invitation to submit fuller proposals in due
course.

D19.   Further reading related to this circular is as
follows:

   "An Arts and Humanities Data Service: Report of a
Feasibility Study", Lou Burnard and Harold Short, November
1994; for availability in electronic form see Paragraph D2
above. Printed copies are available from the JISC Secretariat

   "Joint Funding Councils' Libraries Review Group: Report"
December 1993, available from External Relations Department,
HEFCE, Northavon House, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS16 1QD.
Price 5 (inc. P&P).