What is the Information Environment?
The Information Environment (IE) is a term used to refer to JISC's work to develop and provide services which enable people to find and manage information efficiently and effectively in their learning, teaching or research.
The information resources which people need are very varied - books, journals, research papers, teaching resources, videos, maps and more - and while they might be in any format they are increasingly digital.
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Examples of services which have been developed as part of JISC's work to create the Information Environment include:
- national resource discovery tools such as the Archives Hub which provides convenient access to information about unique research collections distributed across the UK
- software protocols such as SWORD (Simple Web Service Offering Repository Deposit) which enables files to be easily deposited in digital repositories from within other applications
- ‘technical’ infrastructure such as the OpenURL router service at EDINA which enables linking between bibliographic records and the electronic or other copy of the item referenced to which a user’s home institution has access
- centres of expertise such as the Digital Curation Centre
- practical guidance such as a methodology for the analysis and costing of the lifecycle of digital objects
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Developing the Information Environment is a continuous process of responding to changing needs and technologies. JISC's development work is organised into programmes.
Current programme activities include:
- exploring how digital repositories of research outputs can be made easier to use
- putting digital preservation into practice
- increasing understanding of how metadata for digital resources can be created automatically.
For more information, see the Information Environment Programme (2009-2011)
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