The Production of Training Materials for BRS/Search St Andrews Malcolm Bain A comprehensive investigation into commercially available software packages by the IUSC Free Text Retrieval Working Party (now the IUSC Database and Free Text WP) identified BASIS and BRS/Search as the most appropriate software systems for use in the Higher Education and Research establishments[1]. Subsequent to this report negotiations by CHEST made it possible for site licences to be obtained for BRS/Search. Training Needs of the Community There remain a number of issues, mainly related to training, that need to be addressed in order to maximise the benefit that may gained from the availability of BRS/Search to the community. The project aims to employ a person for 2 years to help provide and coordinate in the production of training materials. The areas concerned are: a) the ways of installing BRS/Search need to be coordinated in order for sites to avoid subsequent difficulties through an inappropriate choice and to avoid re-inventing the wheel. The person appointed would maintain and disseminate such installation information in coordination with CHEST and BRS Software Products. b) Awareness Programme: An awareness programme will be developed using BRS/Search databases in order to demonstrate BRS/Search at institutions (probably on a regional basis). c) training materials for use by computing service staff when training others and self-paced training materials need to be developed. BRS Software Products' own written training materials and other documents written by members of the community will be evaluated and built upon. The general aim will be to follow the example of the UNIRAS training package but we would also like to take advantage of other developments that will be underway in other IT Training projects and produce an introductory self-paced computer-based training package for novice users of BRS/Search. Reference: [1] Free Text Retrieval Systems - a review and evaluation, Bain, M. et al, (1989) Taylor Graham. Dr M Bain Computing Laboratory University of St Andrews _______________________________________________________________________ | | | In general the copyright for material on the NISS Bulletin Board | | is held by the CHEST & NISS Centre (University of Bath) or by the | | authors. | | | | Copying or reproduction of the material is permitted provided that | | | | (a) the source is acknowledged | | and (b) the material is not used for commercial gain. | | | | However, material must not be made available outside the academic | | community without prior consent. | |_______________________________________________________________________|