Pixus Image Portal
This report looks back at the Pixus project’s background, its methodology and the team’s key activities. It describes the project’s principal output: the image portal demonstrator. The potential impact of the portal on users and other stakeholders is explored, and a number of options for taking Pixus forward are presented.
This project report should be read in conjunction with three other reports produced as part of the Pixus project: the user requirements, functional and technical specifications anticipating development of a full service image portal.
Background
The Pixus project was conceived by JISC as part of its strategy to bring together the wide range of dispersed electronic resources and improve access for its user communities. Portals are seen as one of the key elements in the information environment strategy, to fuse and present resources and knowledge. An opportunity was identified to create an image portal demonstrator, to test some of the assumptions inherent in the information environment and the portals and fusion programme.
An invitation to tender was published towards the end of 2002, and the partnership of SCRAN and System Simulation Ltd produced the successful tender.
Methodology
We decided to divide the project into two phases. The first phase was to produce a working portal, integrating a first wave of image collections. We would have then have an opportunity to test and evaluate the portal, enabling us to concentrate on developing the lightbox feature and integrate the remaining collections in the second phase.