Paradise Regained ANGEL, DEVIL and the Way Forward

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Paradise Regained? ANGEL, DEVIL and the Way
Forward

• John MacColl
• Co-Director, Project ANGELSub-Librarian, Online
  ServicesUniversity of Edinburgh

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Project DEVIL

• Funded within the DiVLE Programme
• 10 months funding
• Creating exemplars of VLE-delivered courses which
  integrate Library resources

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Project Partners

• University of Edinburgh (lead)
• Library
• Media and Learning Technology Service (MALTS)
• College of Medicine Veterinary Medicine
  Learning Technology Service
• Academic Schools
• Open University
• Library
• Institute for Educational Technology (IET)
• Faculty of Arts
• JISC Project ANGEL (05/99)
• Endeavor Information Systems, Inc.

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Objectives

• Provide discovery tools for academics seeking to
  add resources to learning environments
• Provide tools to permit dynamic data integration
  between library and other resources and VLE-based
  courses
• Evaluate these tools and the resulting data
  integration from the perspective of staff and
  students
• Assess organisational and management issues
  related to the joint working practices required

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Deliverables

• Reports
• liaison and workflow requirements in
  rationalising Library and non-Library
  resources
• Standards-based vs proprietary solutions
• Implications for different disciplines
• Pedagogic evaluation (TLA IET)
• Guidelines for the implementation of dynamic data
  integration between managed resource collections
  and VLEs
• Including rights management
• Devilled courses, using angel components (i.e.
  with angels inside)
• Testing of angel components

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ANGEL-DEVIL relationship

• Determined by an SLA
• angel components
• User Manager
• Including support for next generation access
  management protocols
• Resource Manager
• An institutional digital object metabase
• Course Developers interface
• Integrate Data

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Devilled courses

• Will have dynamic data in context rather than
  simple links
• Reading lists
• Course reserve
• Exam papers
• Software and multimedia resources (OU)
• Smart Content (IET)
• Use of persistent URLs (angel)
• OAI-PMH
• OpenURL

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Hybrids in Paradise

• DNER
• JISC IE
• Hybridities
• Digital/Analogue
• Free (or free-to-air) data/Commercial data
• Open source infrastructure/Commercial solutions

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The cloud on our horizon
Andy Powell and Liz Lyon, May 01
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The silver lining?
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Authentication-Authorization

• Uncertain future of Athens
• Emerging international consensus on the model
  (separation of authentication and authorisation)
• Need to be trusted by data providers
• Goal of seamlessness (SSO)
• Fundamental to middleware (I want it now)
• Authentication is a solved problem

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Paradox in the UK

• The centralised model (Athens) must continue to
  be supported pro tem
• In an international data provision market,
  solutions (PKI, Shib, PAPI, Liberty, Passport,
  etc) are designed around a distributed model
• JISC need to help us strike the best balance for
  the UK
• Central UK namespace (ukeduperson)
• Licensing authority tables?
• CA devolution to institutions

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Reference points

• Scoping study for interim DNER authentication
  developments (Sandy Shaw, 2000)
• JISC middleware discussion paper (Alan Robiette,
  April 2002)
• XLM4HE work at Leeds (Dave Holdsworth)

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XLM4HE Model
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ANGELs contribution

• Maintain the library perspective
• Represent the user view
• An ANGEL Ac-Az model
• Recommendations on a UK HE/FE namespace

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Ac-Az in HE/FE abstraction
John Paschoud, Nov 02
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The ANGEL Ac-Az Model
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Namespace Proposal
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Simple Authorisation
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The landscape of Paradise

• LDAP
• X509
• Grid e-Science
• E-health
• COUNTER
• UK Libraries , RSLG RIN, InforM25, etc
• Business model diversification (all-you-can-eat
  to pay-per-view)
• Appropriately seamless - and watertight

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Recommendations to JISC

• Enhanced support for shared services
• Continued focus on Ac-Az, keeping the library
  perspective firmly in view (sophisticated usage
  information/widened access/Research Information
  Network)
• Leadership on acceptable licence terms
  conditions

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Thank You!