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Research in the Arts and Humanities: An Overview of JISC Activities
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JISC is well known as a provider of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services for the whole higher education sector, particularly the Joint Academic NETwork (JANET). Arts and humanities academics, however, may not be aware that JISC funds many activities of great significance to the current and future development of their subjects.
For example, JISC Collections gives researchers access to major digital resources including a wide selection of online journals, primary texts, reference works and images (see Information and resources overleaf for examples of JISC Collections and other work highlighted in this paper). These resources are made available to institutions either free of charge, or through a negotiated institutional subscription. Many of them have already become indispensable aids for arts and humanities research. The current JISC Digitisation programme is building on this by commissioning a new series of major digital resources, most of which fall within the area of the arts and humanities.
Looking after data
Archaeology online
The VRE in Archaeology (VERA) project aims to develop a ready-to-go Virtual Research Environment for the archaeological community. Focused originally on the Roman site of Silchester in Hampshire and led by the University of Reading, the second phase of the project is addressing the wider needs of all archaeologists, while also enhancing the on-site documentation and communication techniques developed during the first phase. A further element of the project, the creation of an appropriate web portal for collaboration and access to the Integrated Archaeological Database, will greatly assist issues of communication and documentation for the entire archaeology community.
Dancing with virtual partners
A ground-breaking project on dance choreography is being funded by the joint AHRC/EPSRC/JISC Arts and Humanities e-Science Initiative. Led by the University of Bedfordshire, using Access Grid technology, Relocating Choreographic Process will develop a suite of software tools to enable choreographers to annotate dance video recordings, plan collaborative pieces using networked virtual spaces over the internet, and weave material from recordings into live performances. This will give the Access Grid, originally developed for advanced video conferencing purposes, a powerful and exciting new role as a medium for collaborative artistic performance and related research.
For scholars engaged in digital data creation, JISC has played a key support and development role in the funding of specialist data services, including the UK Data Archive and the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS), and by setting up the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) to give advice on best practice to UK institutions that store, manage and preserve digital data.
JISC is also enabling arts and humanities researchers to apply advanced ICT technologies to the development of their research, particularly through collaboration and resource-sharing over the internet. The application of advanced ICT in this way is known as e-science. JISC has joined with the Arts and Humanities Research Council's (AHRC) ICT in Arts and Humanities Research programme and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to fund a joint Arts and Humanities e-Science Initiative. Seven major research projects in a wide range of arts and humanities subjects have recently been funded under the initiative.
e-Science in the arts and humanities
Such investigations are not only opening up new avenues in arts and humanities research, but are also testing and extending the present range of e-science technologies. An example is the development of the Access Grid, a form of advanced video conferencing for distributed collaborations in performing arts and motion capture (see box left). An indispensable part of the initiative is the JISC-funded Arts and Humanities e-Science Support Centre (AHeSSC), which exists to support these projects and promote e-science in these communities. AHeSSC is participating in the e-Uptake project to develop strategies for increasing the use of e-science techniques by the arts and humanities community and others.
The Virtual Research Environments programme is also of interest to the arts and humanities. Closely related to the e-Science Initiative, this programme is developing applications and methods to support and manage the processes of research. Arts and humanities researchers have been engaged in six pioneering projects, including one in archaeology (see box above) and one in humanities in general.
JISC supports many other activities of a more generic kind which will also have a significant impact on the arts and humanities.
David Robey, Director, AHRC ICT in Arts and Humanities Research Programme and JISC Support of Research Committee Member
Information and resources
Services
JISC services provide facilities and advice to researchers and teachers in further and higher education. Some of these services are co-funded with the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the AHRC and other Research Councils.
The network
- JANET the UK's education and research network. JISC sets the strategy and provides funding for JANET. Services associated with JANET include JISCmail, JANET roaming and JANET video conferencing. UKLight a high-speed, optical network for transferring large volumes of research data from point to point, is currently being incorporated into JANET
Collections
JISC negotiates on behalf of UK institutions to make collections of important material available to researchers at a reduced price. The collections can be accessed via JISC Collections or the JISC-funded data centres, MIMAS at Manchester University and Edina at Edinburgh University.
- JISC Collections
eg Art Abstracts; Early English Books Online; Grove Art and Grove Music Online; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; The 19th Century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers; Art Museums Image Gallery
- EDINA
eg Film and Sound Online
- MIMAS
eg Intute arts and humanities; Archives Hub to collections held in UK universities and colleges
Specialist services in the arts and humanities
Generic and e-Science services
Development
JISC funds research and development into new ways of using ICT in further and higher education and research.
- Digital repositories
This programme supports institutions to set up and run their own repositories. Projects include: Chilternrep with an emphasis on creativity and culture; KULTUR, a repository model for research in the creative and applied arts; Practice-as-Research in Music Online (PRIMO); Sound Archives Film Images Repository; Jazzhub, providing access to key resources for jazz research and teaching; Sherpa Plus, a major initiative to support institutional repository development
- Digitisation
JISC is continuing a programme of digitising valuable, scholarly resources which will enter the JISC Collections portfolio eg British Governance in the 20th century: Cabinet papers, 1914-1975; British Cartoon Archive; First World War Poetry; British newspapers 1620-1900
- Portals
JISC is developing the use of portals which provide a common point of access to widely distributed information on a topic. Projects include: Subject Portals Project; Visual and Sound Materials portal scoping study and demonstrator project
- Virtual Research Environments
This programme is developing frameworks to enable researchers to collaborate across boundaries in virtual organisations. Projects include: VERA, a VRE in archaeology; VRE for the study of Manuscripts and Documents
- Research grants funded under the AHRC/EPSRC/JISC Arts and Humanities e-Science Initiative
This joint initiative is applying e-science technologies to arts and humanities research. It includes the Arts and Humanities e-Science Support Centre (see Services) and funding for research. After funding workshops and demonstrators, the initiative has awarded seven major research grants including Image, Text, Interpretation: e-Science, Technology and Documents; Medieval Warfare on the Grid: The Case of Manzikert; musicSpace: use of e-science to improve access to heterogeneous music resources; e-Curator: 3D colour scans for remote object identification and assessment
The Information Environment
JISC has a large portfolio of development programmes and projects aimed at delivering an Information Environment which will enable seamless access to the information academics need for research, teaching and learning, and the tools they need to process that information and collaborate with others.