Institute for Computer Based Learning
Projects
Ongoing Services and Projects
JournalTOCs
JournalTOCs is a current awareness service for the search community. It has been developed at the ICBL using the outputs produced by the TicTOCs and JournalTOCs-API projects. JournalTOCs is the biggest freely searchable collection of scholarly journal Tables of Contents (TOCs) in the world. It contains metadata of nine million articles collected from over 28,000 scholarly journals. The metadata is collected almost immediately after the articles have been published on the website of over 2,000 publishers. JournalTOCs Premium is currently trusted by a diverse range of libraries and information centres across the world. In addition to academic libraries, among its customers are large pharmaceutical companies, hospital libraries, an agency of the United Nations (UN), and an aerospace research centre. Since 2013, JournalTOCs is a self-sustaining service, bringing prestige and financial income to MACS and Heriot Watt University.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe
Website: http://www.journaltocs.ac.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/journaltocs
Blog: http://www.journaltocs.ac.uk/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/journaltocs
Technology Enhancement in MACS
ICBL convenes the Technology Enhancement Group within the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences and works with academics with the aim of meeting the aims within the School's Learning and Teaching Strategy that relate to the use of technology to create a more student centred approach to learning, and also reshaping the soft learning environment to meet challenges of delivering courses across campuses in Edinburgh, Dubai, Malaysia, and with learning partners around the world.
Staff involved: Lisa Scott
Website: https://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/tel/
Distance Learning in MACS
The School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences offers many of its courses through approved learning partners (ALPs) throughout the world. ICBL is involved in the management of these programmes, in preparing learning resources in a suitable format for delivery through ALPs and in ensuring that students have access to these resources.
Staff involved: Lisa Scott
Past Services and Projects
LinCS
LinCS or LInUX-AD (Enabling Final Year students to enhance their cross-disciplinary communication skills through Language Interpretation and User Experience with Agile Development) is a QAA (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) Project funded through the Heriot Watt Enhancement Theme Fund to further the university's aim to enhance the graduate attributes of its students. This is a collaborative, cross-disciplinary project between the Department of Languages & Intercultural Studies (LINCS) in the School of Social Sciences (SoSS) and the Department of Computer Sciences (CS) in the School of Mathematics & Computer Sciences (MACS), aiming to enhance the graduating students' profile and hence their employability prospects in a mutually beneficial way.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe (MACS), Jose M. Conde (SoSS), Elizabeth Thoday (SoSS)
Website: Project Report and Video
Schema course extension
Developed additions for schema.org concerning the discovery of any type of educational course (online/offline, long/short, scheduled/on-demand).
Staff involved: Phil Barker
Community group URL: https://www.w3.org/community/schema-course-extend/
Cetis
We were associates of the Centre for Educational Technology, Interoperability & Standards with a particular interest in innovative approaches to the management, dissemination and discovery of learning resources, especially Open Educational Resources. Cetis comprises a team of globally recognised experts on education technology innovation, interoperability and technology standards. For over a decade Cetis has provided strategic, technical and pedagogical advice on educational technology and standards to funding bodies, standards agencies, government, institutions and commercial partners.
Staff involved: Phil Barker
Blog URL: http://blogs.pjjk.net/phil/projects/cetis/
Website: http://www.cetis.org.uk/
Learning Resource Metadata Initiative
Through our work with Cetis we have been involved with Learning Resource Metadata Initiative project (LRMI) since its inception. The initiative, which builds on the work of Schema.org, aims to support the discovery of relevant education resources on the web. LMRI is is currently a community specification of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative being maintained and developed by the DCMI LRMI Task Group.
Staff involved: Phil Barker
Website: http://lrmi.net/
Specification: http://dublincore.org/dcx/lrmi-terms/
Task group pages: http://wiki.dublincore.org/index.php/AB-Comm/ed/LRMI/TG
JEMO
JEMO (Journal TOCs: Expanding Market Opportunities) is a project funded by the EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) with twofold objectives: (1) to help publishers to implement standard access-rights elements in their RSS feeds to enable the systematic identification of Open Access (OA) articles from hybrid journals and; (2) to broaden the benefits of current awareness on scholarly publications for researchers from developing countries. The project involves five publisher partners (Oxford University Press, Libertas Academica, Edinburgh University Press, IGI Global and Thieme), the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) and a consortium of six NHS-England hospital libraries.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe, Brian Kelly and Roddy MacLeod
Ended: 2016
Website: http://openjemo.wordpress.com
MOOD
MOOD (Making Online-first Open-access Discoverable) is a Knowledge Transfer Project between Heriot Watt University and Inderscience Publishers Ltd with the long term aim of developing a sustaining collaborative relationship between Scholarly Publishers and the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences in the field of e-publication workflow optimization. The specific purpose is to investigate and develop technologies which could be prototyped by the publisher partner and be used as a model with other publishers needing to enable current-awareness-focused discovery & delivery of Online-first Open-Access content, as early as possible in their publishing workflow and, reflecting the changing e-business models of scholarly publishing.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe and Idris Ibrahim
Ended: 2015
Blog URL: https://openmoodblog.wordpress.com/
Europeana
Europeana is a single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe. It is an authoritative source of information coming from European cultural and scientific institutions. We are Europeana research partners as part of its Technical Working Group 3.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe
Service URL: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/
Partners URL: http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-v1.0/project-partners
TechXtra
TechXtra was a free service aimed to help the discovery of engineering, mathematics and computing resources and information, e.g. articles, books, websites, news, jobs reports and data. TechXtra was an spint-out of the PerX Project and was developed at the ICBL with input from Heriot-Watt University Library. As Dec 2016, the TechXtra website is still available to access TechTOCs, OneStepJobs, OneStepNews, RAM Database, Selected Books and the archive of the PerX Project.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2015
Project Blog URL: http://techxtranews.wordpress.com/
Website: http://www.techxtra.ac.uk/
X-PARC
X-PARC is a Joint Industry Project (JIP) between Inderscience Publishers and JournalTOCs to create a prototype of a new XML-first workflow technology to produce scholarly output in a variety of digital market channel ready forms, in particular current-awareness oriented reusable formats. The project will trial a suitable open licence policy for the RSS feeds produced by scholarly publishers. The JIP also provides JournalTOCs Team with the opportunity of working within a real industrial environmental and understand the RSS issues from the publisher perspective.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2012
Project blog URL: http://www.journaltocs.ac.uk/API/blog/?p=837
JASS
JASS (Journals and Articles via SUNCAT Services) is a joint collaboration between EDINA and JournalTOCs to develop a RESTful web service to integrate JournalTOCs data on SUNCAT web pages. JurnalTOCs data will be made accessible in SUNCAT through the JASS web service using the MODS schema as metadata exchange format.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2012
Project blog URL: http://www.journaltocs.ac.uk/API/blog/?p=974
Project URL: http://www.journaltocs.hw.ac.uk/api/jass/
Engineering Subject Centre
We provide advice on learning technology and resource description (e.g. the SearchLT service) to the Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre (was LTSN Engineering).
Staff involved: Phil Barker and Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2011
Project URL: http://www.engsc.ac.uk/
Delores OER
Delivering Open Educational Resources for Engineering Design is a project to present static and dynamic collections of university-level Open Educational Resources (OERs) and other openly available resources relevant to Engineering Design.
Staff involved: Phil Barker, Lisa Scott, Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2011
Project blog URL: http://deloresoer.wordpress.com/about/
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/delores/
WattJournals
WattJournals has prototyped a tailored journal current awareness service for the Heriot-Watt University Library, to give Heriot-Watt University students and staff immediate full-text access to the latest articles published in the issues of 4,600 journals that produce TOC RSS feeds and to which Heriot-Watt University Library subscribes.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2010
Project blog URL: http://hwlibrary.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/wattjournals-has-arrived
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/library/wattJournals.php
Bayesian Feed Filter
The Bayesian Feed Filter aims to identify those articles that are of interest to specific researchers from a set of RSS feeds of Journal Tables of Content by applying the same approach that is used to filter out junk emails.
Staff involved: Phil Barker, Santi Chumbe, Lisa Rogers
Ended: 2010
Project Blog URL: http://bayesianfeedfilter.wordpress.com/
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/bayesff
Engineering and Materials UK OER projects
We provide technical advice and input relating to resource discovery, aggregation and management to two distinct discipline based projects in the Academy/JISC Open Education Resource Programme. Our input highlights the use of web 2.0 technologies to facilatate dissemination and discovery of these resources.
Staff involved: Lisa Rogers, Phil Barker
Ended: 2010
Engineering OER Project URL: http://www.engsc.ac.uk/an/oer-project/oer-project.asp
CORE Materials Project URL: http://www.core.materials.ac.uk/
WattNames
The aim of the WattNames project is to trial an institutional identity resolver based on URIs to enable the production of reliable and unambiguous identification of researchers from Heriot-Watt University.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe and Lisa Rogers
Project Blog URL: http://wattnames.wordpress.com/
Ended: 2010
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/WattNames
JournalTOCs-API
JournalTOCs-API is a JISC funded project building on the outputs of the TicTocs project where researchers, academics and anyone else can keep up-to-date with scholarly journal Tables of Contents (TOCs). The JournalTocs-API project aims to develop a facility whereby repository managers can monitor current journal issues to identify published papers for Institutional Repositories.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe and Lisa Rogers
Project blog URL: http://www.journaltocs.hw.ac.uk/API/blog/
Ended: 2010
Project URL: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/inf11/jiscri/journaltocs.aspx
TicTOCs
TicTOCs is a Jisc-funded project which aims to develop a freely available service which will transform journal current awareness by making it easy for academics and researchers to find, display, store, combine and reuse tables of contents from multiple publishers in a personalisable web based environment. The intention is to make journal Tables of Contents (TOCs) available in a user-friendly environment. In order to do so, it will aggregate RSS feeds for TOCs from various journal publishers.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe and Lisa Rogers
Ended: 2009
Project URL: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/usersandinnovation/tictocs.aspx
Gold Dust
Gold Dust is a Jisc-funded project which aims to produce and test a prototype and consequently a demonstrator for the delivery of highly relevant, personalised current awareness content of a variety of kinds to academics, ultimately without the need for any input by those academics in the personalisation process.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe and Lisa Rogers
Ended: 2009
Project URL: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/usersandinnovation/golddust.aspx
Learning Materials Application Profile scoping study
The LMAP scoping study aims to identify the relevant resource types and activities associated with maintaining a repository of digital learning materials; ascertain current advice on best practice in describing the properties of learning materials pertinent to each of these types and activities; and synthesize and analyse the resulting set of metadata requirements.
Staff involved: Phil Barker
Ended: 2008
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/lmap/
Visual Directory of Image Collections
This case study carried out on behalf of the Engineering Subject Centre for the JISC examined the feasibility of producing a visual directory of community led image collections by aggregating RSS feeds provided by the collections.
Staff involved: Lisa Rogers and Phil Barker
Ended: 2007
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/images/
LearnEM
LearnEM is a joint project of the Engineering Subject Centre and the UK Centre for Materials Education that is managed from ICBL as part of our involvement with the Engineering Subject Centre. The aim of the project is to promote the sharing of learning resources by taking resources that, as a result of IPR, technical or cultural issues, are currently locked into disparate collections and making them available as learning objects through the Jorum repository.
Staff involved: Phil Barker and Lisa Rogers
Ended: 2007
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/learnem/
DeL Accessibility report on LearnEM
This case study carried out on behalf of the Engineering Subject Centre for the JISC examined the impact on accessibility of the resources produced by the LearnEM project.
Staff involved: Phil Barker and Lisa Rogers
Ended: 2007
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/learnem/
MATTER Rejuvenation
With funding from the UK Centre for Materials Education, this project is updating several units from the TLTP Matter CD ROM to produce IMS Content Packages of HTML and Flash content that can be easily edited and uploaded to common learning environments (e.g. VLEs such as BlackBoard, WebCT and Moodle).
Staff involved: Lisa Rogers, Neil Fegen, Phil Barker
Ended: 2007
PERX
PERX is a joint JISC-funded project between ICBL, EEVL and several other partners, which aims to develop and pilot a discipline-focused resource discovery service by federated search across a number of repositories of interest to the Engineering teaching, learning and research communities. The project will investigate technical and cultural issues relating to functionality, sustainability and advocacy of such a service.
Staff involved: Malcolm Moffat and Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2007
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/perx/
ReSET
In collaboration with Glasgow Caledonian University, several colleges in the Glasgow area, and a number of producers of eLearning content, ICBL is involved in the ReSET project, which will "rejuvenate" existing tried-and-tested but old computer-based learning resources. The project is selecting sections of material from resources created in the last decade or so that are suitable for use in HND/HNC level science engineering and technology courses, and updating the implementation of these resources so that they are stand-alone standards compliant, sharable, reusable learning objects.
Staff involved: Phil Barker, Lisa Rogers
Ended: 2006
Project URL: http://esdstudent.gcal.ac.uk/reset/index.htm
List of ReSET Resources: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/reset/index.htm
ELF Search Demonstrator
This JISC-funded project aims to test whether a simple approach to embedding federated search tools into VLEs is useful for teaching staff and meets their needs for learning-resource discovery.
Staff involved: Phil Barker, Neil Fegen, Malcolm Moffat and Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2006
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/elfsearch/
EEVL technical input
EEVL, the Internet guide to Engineering Mathematics and Computing is part of the JISC-funded Resource Discovery Network. EEVL is led by Heriot-Watt University Library with ICBL providing the technical development and maintenance effort. EEVL Xtra is a cross search portal information in the EEVL subject domain.
Staff involved: Geir Granum and Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2006
Project URL: http://www.eevl.ac.uk
SPP: Subject Portals Project
SPP was an RDN project in which ICBL was involved through EEVL. We provided JAVA development effort for portal features such as cross searching and alerting services.
Staff involved: Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2004
Project URL: http://www.portal.ac.uk/spp/
Long-term Retention and Reuse of E-learning Objects and Materials
JISC-funded joint study involving ICBL and the Arts and Humanities Data Service examining the factors that may affect the long-term retention of digital learning materials and how to make them available for reuse for as long as possible.
Staff involved: Roger Rist, Ed Barker
Ended: 2004
Project URL: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=project_elo
Learning for a Healthier Nation
JISC-funded project lead by Lauder College in Edinburgh that aimed to promote the exchange of learning materials relevant to health care. ICBL provided expertise on the evaluation of the learning resources.
Staff involved: Ed Barker
Ended: 2004
Project URL: http://extranet.lauder.ac.uk/x4l
VDEX Implementation Project
CETIS-related project that aimed to explore the usefulness and limitations of the IMS VDEX draft specification for Vocabulary Definition Exchange by extending the RELOAD metadata and content package editor to handle VDEX instances.
Staff involved: Tina Manoharan and Phil Barker
Ended: 2004
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/vdex/
FAILTE
Facilitating access to information on learning technology for engineering, describing computer based learning resources for engineering (JISC funded).
Staff involved: Phil Barker and Santi Chumbe
Ended: 2003
Project URL: http://failte.ac.uk/
EASEIT-Eng
Evaluative and Advisory Support to Encourage Innovative Teaching in Engineering was a HEFCE-funded project evaluating the use of computer-based learning resources in engineering, on which several ICBL staff worked as evaluators.
Ended: 2002
Project URL: http://www.easeit-eng.ac.uk
OTiS
Online Tutoring Skills staff development project (SHEFC funded)
Ended: 2001
Project URL: http://otis.scotcit.ac.uk/
SCAAN
Scottish Computer Assisted Assessment Network (SHEFC funded)
Ended: 2000
Project URL: http://www.scaan.ac.uk
INSIDE
Integrating Networked Simulations in Distributed Education (SHEFC funded).
Ended: 2000
Project URL: http://www.assets.scotcit.ac.uk/hw_inside/inside/insidesummary.html
IDEA
Web-based tool for collaborative learning (SHEFC funded)
Ended: 2000
LOLA/COLA
Two staff-development projects: Collaborative Online Learning for Academics and Learning about Open Learning.
Ended: 2000
JTAP 573
JISC-funded technology application project reporting on learning environments for staff development
Ended: 1999
Project URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/jtap-573/
ASTEP
EU-funded Advanced Software for the Teaching of Engineering Processes.
Ended: 2000
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20010519163350/www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~astep/ (archive copy)
TALiSMAN
SHEFC-funded Teaching and Learning in the Scottish Metropolitan Area Networks project promoting the use of high-speed internet (MANs) in Scottish HE.
Ended: 1999
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20031015171705/http://www.talisman.hw.ac.uk/index.html (archive copy)
LTDI
SHEFC-funded Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative, promoting the uptake of technology for learning in Scottish HE
Ended: 1999
Project URL:
Multiverse
JISC-funded project producing a JAVA toolkit for creating educational simulations.
Ended: 1999
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20010131121600/www.ltc.hw.ac.uk/mverse/ (archive copy)
TLTSN
Teaching and Learning Technology Support Network (TLTP funded)
Ended: 1998
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20010514105107/www.tltp.ac.uk/tltsn/ (archive copy)
C-WEB/TLTP web development
Producing the web site for the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme.
Ended: 1998
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20001202182700/http://www.tltp.ac.uk/tltsn/ (archive copy)
MARBLE
MANs-accessible resource based learning environment (SHEFC funded)
Ended: 1996
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117030849/http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/marble/index.htm (archive copy)
INTERACT
Simulation-based hypermedia (TLTP funded)
Ended: 1996
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990219233810/www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/projects/INTERACT.html (archive copy)
IDIOMS
Intelligent Discovery of Information On MANs in Scotland (SHEFC funded)
Ended: 1996
Project URL: http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/HCI/idioms/
Electronic Learning Facilitator
JISC funded
Ended: 1996
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117030849/http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/ELF/ELF.html (archive copy)
IMPACT
Institutional development programme (TLTP funded)
Ended: 1995
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117030849/http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/impact/ (archive copy)
CLASS
Courseware for Learning and Study Skills (TLTP funded)
Ended: 1995
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20000824081402/www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/projects/CLASS.html (archive copy)
HIPERNET
Higher performance networked multimedia for distributed language learning (EC funded)
Ended: 1995
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117030849/http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/hipernet/ (archive copy)
Co-Learn
Telematics teaching (EC funded)
Ended: 1994
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117030849/http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/projects/CO-LEARN.html (archive copy)
Teleprompt
Technology based distance learning training resources for teleworkers (EC funded)
Ended: 1994
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117030849/http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/telep/telework/conts.html (archive copy)
HAZARD
Interactive hypermedia demonstrator (EC funded)
Ended: 1994
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117030849/http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/projects/HAZARD.html (archive copy)
ETUDES
Technology-based approach to vocational development (EC funded)
Ended: 1994
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117030849/http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/projects/ETUDES.html (archive copy)
ISLE
Intensely Supportive Learning Environment (Digital funded)
Ended: 1993
Project URL: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117030849/http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/projects/isle/Doc.html (archive copy)