JISC

ADS Archaeology Data Service The ADS supports research, learning, and teaching in the area of archaeology with high quality and dependable digital resources.  The ADS is based at the University of York and hosts AHDS Archaeology.

 

AHDS Arts and Humanities Data Service The AHDS is a UK national service aiding the discovery, creation and preservation of digital resources in and for research, teaching and learning in the arts and humanities.  AHDS is funded by JISC and the Arts and Humanities Research Board.

 

ATHENS An access management system used to authenticate and authorise users for access to online subscription services, including UK higher and further education.

 

Creative Commons A non-profit organisation founded on the notion that some authors may not want to exercise all of the intellectual property rights the law affords them. Creative Commons has developed a set of free public licences to enable authors to share their work with others.

 

CURL Consortium of Research Libraries in the British Isles.

 

Data provider see OAI data provider

 

DfES Department for Education and Skills.

 

DSpace software Repository software developed jointly by MIT and Hewlett-Packard that is available under an open source BSD licence and is widely used.

 

e-Prints A generic term for electronic versions of research papers or other similar output. These can include journal articles before peer review (pre-prints), the final published version publication (post-prints), conference papers, etc.

 

e-Prints software see GNU EPrints software.

 

ETD-db Repository software developed especially for ETDs by Virginia Tech University.

 

ETDs Electronic theses and dissertations

 

FE Further Education

 

GNU EPrints software Repository software developed by the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton that is available under a GNU GPL open source licence and is widely used.

 

HCI Human computer interface – The process by which users interact with computers.

 

HE Higher Education

IPR Intellectual Property Rights

 

IE  The JISC Information Environment. The IE will provide a range of services, tools and mechanisms for colleges and universities to exploit fully the value of online resources and services. It will enable presentation, delivery and use of online resources in ways tailored to support individual and institutional requirements in learning, teaching and research.

 

MLA Museums, Libraries and Archives Council The national development agency working for and on behalf of museums, libraries and archives and advising government on policy and priorities for the sector.

 

NDLTD Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. The NDLTD is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination and preservation of electronic analogues to the traditional paper-based theses and dissertations.

 

OAI Open Archives Initiative An initiative to develop and promote interoperability standards to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content.

 

OAI data provider According to OAI, a data provider maintains one or more repositories that support OAI-PMH as a means of exposing metadata.

 

OAI-PMH Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting The OAI protocol that defines a mechanism for harvesting XML-formatted metadata from repositories. 

 

OAI service provider According to OAI, a service provider issues OAI-PMH requests to data providers and uses the metadata as a basis for building value-added services.

 

OAI static repository A static repository provides a simple approach for exposing relatively static and small collections of metadata records through the OAI-PMH. 

 

PHP PHP: hypertext preprocessor is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development.

 

Portal In the context of the JISC Information Environment, an institutional portal provides a personalised, single point of access to the online resources that support members of an institution in all aspects of their learning, teaching, research and other activities. The resources may be internal or external and include local and remote 'information resources' (books, journals, databases, Web-sites, learning objects, images, student information systems etc.), 'transaction-based services' (room bookings, finance, registration, assignment submission, assessment, etc.) and 'collaborative tools' (calendars, email, chat, etc.). Access to many of these resources is usually restricted to authenticated members of the institution. 

 

RAE Research Assessment Exercise A peer review exercise conducted every few years to evaluate the quality of research in UK higher education institutions.

 

RDN Resource Discovery Network A JISC service dedicated to providing effective access to high quality Internet resources for the learning, teaching and research community.

 

RSS RDF Site Summary, or Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication – A lightweight XML format for distributing news headlines and other content on the web.

 

Service provider see OAI service provider.

 

SPARC Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition – An alliance of academic and research libraries and organisations working to correct market dysfunctions in the scholarly publishing system (http://www.arl.org/sparc/ or http://www.sparceurope.org/).

 

VLE Virtual Learning Environment

 

XML eXtended Markup Language