Ten years and counting: Jisc data centre celebrates anniversary
Next week EDINA celebrates ten years as a Jisc National Data Centre, ten years of offering further and higher education networked access to a library of data, information and research resources. As part of this celebration they will be holding an afternoon event on Wednesday, 25th January, followed by a Burns Night dinner and ceilidh at their host institution, the University of Edinburgh.
The purpose of the event is to look to the next 10 years, with reflection on past achievement, promotion of present activity, and insight from others to help identify areas in which EDINA could flourish and continue to make a significant difference. EDINA has a broad remit as a Jisc National Data Centre and several areas of strategic significance compete for attention. The centrepiece of this half-day event will be a 'balloon debate' featuring a number of expert speakers representing different strands of EDINA's activity.
Looking back on a successful decade, Peter Burnhill, the data centre's director, said:
"On behalf of all who have ever worked at EDINA, we are delighted, honoured and somewhat surprised it has been ten years. A special thanks to all our site representatives, project partners and Jisc for the continuing faith they have had in us. The next few years look even more exciting and we look forward to working more closely with our sister data centre, MIMAS."
"We see our main task as the delivery of high-quality services to enable academic staff and students, as well as institutional support staff, excel in what they do. With 10 years’ success, we have opportunity to review how we do this. For that, we need to use this year to listen to what our users want. So please help us celebrate, and tell us what you think. That invitation extends to all of the partner organisations with whom we work, including the growing number of projects in which we are involved - helping to build the UK digital library.”
EDINA runs a number of services and projects on behalf of Jisc, which are accessed by hundreds of colleges and universities in the UK. An important recent development has been in connection with its successful Digimap service, with work beginning on the inclusion of Ordnance Survey MasterMap data in to the service. For more detail on this and other activity at the datacentre, please go to: EDINA