There will be a joint meeting of the Colleges' IT Group and University IT Users' Group representatives on Tuesday 21st October 2003 at 14:15 in the Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Parks Road.
A G E N D A
1. Apologies for absence
2. Minutes of the last meetings:
a) Minutes of the Colleges IT Group meeting held on Tuesday 13th May 2003
b) Minutes of the IT Users' Group meeting held on Tuesday 29th April 2003
3. Matters arising:
a) Colleges IT Group
Minute 304.1 Time tabling of Commitments for Graduate Students in week 0 of Michaelmas - Robert to talk to the chairman of the ICTC, Paul Madden, to see if there is a way forward with this, having had no response from the Graduate Studies Admissions or EPSC.
Minute 317 Institutional Audit - Robert Taylor to set up a web page of questions on IT provision in Colleges for the Institutional Audit.
b) IT Users' Group
Minute 1086.1 Time tabling of Commitments for Graduate Students in week 0 of Michaelmas - see above
4. Chairman's Report
4.1 Changes to constitution
4.2 New terms for Chairmen of both groups
4.3 New Representative from Colleges IT Group for University Duct Working Group
4.4 Digital Certificate Operation in a Complex Environment (DCOCE) project
5. Computing Services Report -Paul Jeffreys - report available
6. Libraries Report - Dave Price - report available
7. Reports from other Committees and Groups
a) IT Support Staff Group - John Ireland - report available
b) South East Region Computer Users' Committee - Peter Grout - report available
c) Network Advisory Group - URL:http://www.ox.ac.uk/it/networks/nag/
8. Items raised by Representatives
9. Any other business
10. Dates of next meetings
Jane Brown
jane.brown@oucs.ox.ac.uk September 2003OXFORD UNIVERSITY IT USERS' GROUP & COLLEGES' IT GROUP
Item 5 - OUCS Report
Paul Davis
October 2003
1. Herald Upgrades
To cater for growth in the use of email and the average size of individual messages, we have added a new IMAP server to the Herald mail store cluster. This provides a 25% increase in capacity, taking user-visible disk store to 864GiB
2. Anti-virus and email filtering
Oxford was not immune to the flooding of networks due to worms which exploit vulnerabilities in the more recent Windows operating systems and caused havoc around the world. In the first 24 hours after identification of the Sobig-f virus by Sophos, the anti-virus filters at OUCS stopped 160,000 instances of the worm attached to emails, massively reducing its impact. Unfortunately a number of instances passed into Oxford earlier or through other routes, causing considerable work for IT Support Staff.
3. Windows update CD
To assist in reducing the impact when people return after the summer vacation OUCS produced 15,000 CDs which contain both removal tools for the worms, and update patches for the operating system. A copy was sent to each new undergraduate, together with a supply to each IT officer, hopefully ensuring that further disruption is minimised. The major lesson to be learned is that operating systems and anti-virus systems need to be checked regularly to ensure they are up to date.
4. LTSN e-learning days
The LTG are hosting a series of days focused on subject areas with specialist speakers from the Learning Technology Support Network (LTSN) during Michaelmas term. The e-Learning day for
Humanities Division is 6th November 2003, 9:30 - 14:00,
Maths and Physical Sciences is 13th November 2003, 9:30 - 14:00,
Social Sciences Division is 18th November 2003, 9:30 - 14:00
Medical Sciences Division is 27 November 2003, 9:30 - 14:00.
Further details are available at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/talks/ltsn.htm and booking is through the OUCS Course booking system at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/courses/
6. Academic Computing Development Team: Call for proposals, Winter 2003
The Academic Computing Development Team invites proposals from Oxford University staff for the development of IT-based teaching or research projects. The ACDT is part of the LTG and has been developing projects for five years. The Team has a multi-disciplinary remit, and proposals are invited from staff members within any division for projects to be developed during the year 2004-5. The ACDT encourages applicants who wish to begin projects with a start date of April 2004 or November 2004.
Projects may be based in any subject area and can have either a teaching or research focus, and may range in size from provision of advice on planning an IT project to the design and development of a whole system. They may involve more than one partner including academic, library, museum, and support staff. The ACDT has already developed a number of successful projects, details of which can be found on the "About our projects" section of the web site.
For further details on how to propose a project, and an application form, see http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/acdt/. Questions should be directed to Sophie Clarke, ACDT Project Manager, OUCS, 13 Banbury Road (telephone: Oxford (2)83428, e-mail: acdt@oucs.ox.ac.uk). The closing date for proposals is Friday 19th December 2003.
Note: if the project will involve the use of substantial amounts of material held in Oxford libraries, you are strongly encouraged to contact the Oxford Digital Library Development Fund (tel:01865 280045, email: odl-enquiries@ouls.ox.ac.uk). The ACDT will be working collaboratively with ODL but chiefly on the development of interfaces and learning environments that utilise ODL materials.
LTG to host a national workshop on sharing best practice among E-learning developers
December the 17th 2003 will see LTG host a sequel to the successful Herding Tigers day held at Oxford in 2002. Last year's successful event focused on raising awareness and collaborative working, and this year we will focus on the practical challenges of implementing a number of the current pressing practical issues affecting e-Learning.
The workshop is aimed at staff charged with developing and releasing technology-based learning resources for use in their institution, and will bring together developers and project managers from across the UK HE community. We are hoping that the day will be relatively informal, with plenty of thought-provoking discussion based around three key themes: accessibility, evaluation, and learning technology standards. All of these are areas where there is currently significant national and institutional pressure to address, but for the developers who have to actually put them into action, the way forward is not always clear (or easy!).
Attendance will primarily be by invitation only. There may be places available to additional Oxford participants nearer the date, so please send us an email towards the end of November if you are interested in attending. The conference is being organised by the development arm of the LTG, the Academic Computing Development Team (contact Sophie Clarke; email: sophie.clarke@oucs.ox.ac.uk).
6. ECDL Advanced
Four individual modules are now available covering Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Databases and presentations. These modules explore the richness and complexities of the various packages and examines their use within complex documents. OUCS runs regular training days or candidates can attend the relevant OUCS courses prior to taking the tests. Specific training days are taking place during Michaelmas on 29th October for Spreadsheets and Word Processing; and on 16th December for Databases and Presentations. Contact Ian Miller at OUCS on (2)83435, or email ecdl@oucs.ox.ac.uk for more details.
7. OxTALENT winners
Prizes to the OxTALENT web awards 2003 winners were presented at the OxTALENT Show and Tell session on June 12th 2003. See http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/oxford/groups/oxtalent/itawards/winners2003.html for an array of interesting sites which would be of benefit for anyone looking at examples of good practice in web design.
8. Welcome
To new staff in the LTG – Howard Noble has been appointed to the new post of Educational Interoperability Standards Officer looking at compliance with standards and interoperability of data between systems. He can be contacted at howard.noble@oucs.ox.ac.uk. Also welcome to David Baker who has joined the IT Training Programme as a Computing Teaching Officer. His contact details are david.baker@oucs.ox.ac.uk There is also a Visiting Fellow for Michaelmas term – Professor Neil McLean Director of IMS Australia and chair of the IMS Digital Libraries Special Interest Group who is here on a Royal Society Vodaphone Fellowship.
9. WebLearn update
WebLearn, the OUCS hosted Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) continues to expand the available resources. Currently there are now over 24,000 created users, over 1100 rooms, 1700suites of rooms that have been created, along with 220 discussion boards and 408 structured documents. The WebLearn team are currently looking at enhancing the functionality within the discussion boards, allowing Copy as well as move, email notification of announcements and timed release of resources. Additionally we are supervising two projects to extend the functionality of the MCQ papers to include hotspots and fill-the-blank, along with a development to allow for ranking or voting on topics. Shortly to be interviewed is a Senior VLE Developer position. During Michaelmas Term two courses will be repeated for interested parties: Introduction to WebLearn and Developing your site in WebLearn can both be booked at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/courses
10. Changes to Online Self-Registration
During the summer a number of changes have been made to the scripts which allow users to register for accounts online.
The reasons we wanted to make these changes are
The address of the new page is https://register.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ . As this is a secure server, you may need to accept its certificate before you can proceed. You will be invited to log in by entering your surname, date of birth and university card barcode number. The login process will set a cookie with a 15-minute lifetime (it will complain if your browser is not cookie-enabled). Don't forget to log out when you've finished.
Once you have logged in, you will see an index page containing the options you can select. Most of these are unchanged, but some are new. These are:
More information can be found at http://register.oucs.ox.ac.uk/new-pages.html Finally, don't forget to log out when you have finished.
11. Microsoft Campus
The new Microsoft Campus agreement, version 3.1, is now in place and will run from 1st September 2003 to 31st August 2006. The version will be changing next year to 3.2 but the pricing (per head) will remain the same for the full three years.
The full details can be found at:- http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/sls/mscampus.xml
12. Accessibility software
The subject of web accessibility has been well documented in publications and promoted at seminars and conferences since the Special Educational Needs & Disability Act 2001 (SENDA) came into force. Institutions are now required to ensure that their web sites are accessible to students with disabilities. LIFT products make it easier for developers to make their web pages and on-line learning materials more accessible to students and staff with disabilities. After research into the LIFT products for web accessibility, Oxford University has now signed up for the LIFT for Dreamweaver product.
MindGenius Education is a sophisticated mind mapping program giving the flexibility to draw a variety of concept maps and then export them to a variety of applications. It can be used by teachers and lecturers to show the structure of ideas, as well as by students for their own projects. Its use of visual relationships helps facilitate the work of individuals with specific learning difficulties and different learning styles
Both items are available under the CHEST/EDUSERV grants programme for accessibility software. There is no charge for the licences for installing on University-owned machines, just for the media, and both applications are now available from the OUCS shop.
13. OSS Watch
OSS Watch is a new advisory service on free and open source software. It is a national service for UK HE and FE based within the Research Technologies Service of OUCS following a successful bid for the service by the University of Oxford. OSS Watch informs and advises about open source software and open standards through the development of best-practice guidelines, and out-reach activities aimed at OSS strategic planners, developers and users. It offers a web-based clearing-house for up to date information, focussed assistance for institutions and software projects, and investigative reports. OSS Watch is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and is managed by Sebastian Rahtz. Contact OSS Watch at info@oss-watch.ac.uk
14. More frequent mail updates
For departments whose mail is routed via the Oxmails. each night we generate the email addresses which are copied to the Oxmails, and processed there into the Exim database which the mailers use.
Recently we have been testing running this process twice during the day as well. So if changes to routing are input to the database they will be active after 1pm, 4pm and 7pm. This will not affect mail routed to new herald usernames which will continue to be first active the next day.
15. Regular events at OUCS
Digital Projects in Oxford (Wednesdays)
Digital Projects in Oxford is a series of informal lunchtime talks which present information about electronic projects at the University of Oxford. The series is organized by the Learning Technologies Group. Wednesdays, Lecture Room 1, 12.45 - 1.45 between weeks 1 and 8
Further details can be found at: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/dpom2003.shtml
IT Support Staff seminars (Thursdays)
A series of seminars organised by the ITS3 section at OUCS, the themes are predominantly aimed at IT Support Staff but all are welcome to attend. Thursdays Lecture Room 2 weeks 1-8. See http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/its3/ for details
Working Lunch (Fridays)
The Working Lunch series for Tutors and Lecturers explores technological solutions to common teaching goals and issues. Sessions run in Michaelmas Term (weeks 2 - 8) on Fridays, 12:30 - 1:30 at OUCS. To register for any or all of these sessions, please go to http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/courses/ or for more information contact Marina.Cacioppo@oucs.ox.ac.uk
16. Student IT Literacy Survey
The LTG has been charged with investigating the levels of IT literacy amongst students at Oxford. In addition to the skills current students have, and whether their expectations of IT provision and support are currently being met, we will also investigate what they are currently using IT for, and where they feel things could be improved.
Gabriel Hanganu has been employed as the project researcher, and a set of questionnaires have been printed and circulated. Four surveys have been compiled aimed at: first-year and final-year undergraduates, and new postgraduates, and those who are near to submitting. If you can be of any assistance in this survey printed copies of the questionnaire are available from the LTG (email: judy.mcauliffe@oucs.ox.ac.uk) or online at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/projects/itlit/. Courtesy of sponsorship from Apple Computers, completed questionnaires will be entered into a prize draw to win either an Apple iPod or a PDA.
17. Firewalls at OUCS
OUCS has installed a firewall on selected ports in parts of its public area to protect its network and the wider University network from security risks caused by the connection of user PCs that may carry rogue software. One of the features of the firewalling is that there is no peer to peer communication possible on the secured side so that a rogue system cannot put at risk any other systems that are also connected. The ports involved include those used by the Help Centre and PC Consultancy for connecting user equipment for testing and debugging purposes. The ports available to lecturers in our lecture rooms have also been secured in this way so that we have no concerns about visiting lecturers connecting to the network with insecure and potentially compromised systems.
18. Sophos Enterprise Manager
The Sophos Enterprise Manager work has slipped into November, because of pressure of other work, not least of which was helping to deal with some of the summer security problems we all suffered from. We will be looking for EM testers during November.
19. Desktop ghosting
Over the last four months we have put in a lot of effort exploiting the facilities of Altiris to provide flexible support for the 95 PCs in our four lecture rooms, which have all had their base Windows operating system upgraded to XP Professional. We plan to use Altiris as a key part of the support in all our other internal desktop services (Help Centre and staff) over the next few months. It has lived up to the expectations we had that it would provide some very valuable features beyond those of Ghost, although, as with all new software, it has been a tough learning curve. We plan to put on some seminars in the new year to explain and demonstrate some of its most effective features and to develop some training courses as well.
20. New lecture room
There are now four lecture rooms at OUCS, with the latest room equipped with two data projectors allowing a variety of inputs from a vizualiser, either of 2 computers allowing a presentation and demonstration to be run simultaneously, and a Smart board with touchscreen capability. The new room has 24 computers, to complement our other rooms with 40, 15 and 15 computers respectively. Room bookings need to be made well in advance to ensure your preferred slot is available as all rooms are now quite heavily utilised.
21. ECDL Training on the Web
OUCS have now in place the Active training package which runs across the Web. Individual licences can be obtained from the Computing Services Shop for £6, or can be bulk purchased by contacting ian.miller@oucs.ox.ac.uk
OXFORD UNIVERSITY IT USERS' GROUP & COLLEGES' IT GROUP
Item 6 - Report from the Systems and Electronic Resources Service, Oxford University Library Services
David Price
14th October 2003
1. Oxford Digital Library Development Fund
The ODL is about to launch a call for Expressions of Interest for the Third Round of the ODL Development Fund. Approximately £65,000 is expected to be available, and the deadline for applications is 12th December 2003 after which selected applicants will be invited to submit Full Proposals.
On 1st May, Michael Popham, familiar to many of us through his work at OUCS, took up the post of Head of Oxford Digital Library.
2. SHERPA
SERS is part of the JISC-funded SHERPA (www.sherpa.ac.uk) project which aims to investigate issues relating to the future of scholarly communication and publishing. We are currently setting up an institutional, OAI-based e-print repository and appointing a Project Officer.
3. Scopus
SERS is collaborating with Elsevier on their Scopus project. Scopus is looking at federated searching technologies to develop a powerful navigation and searching tool which will offer the shortest route to the full text of journals from a simple, single entry point for users.
4. Library Systems Review
In April Geoff Neate was asked to convene a Working Party to report on the obsolescence of the current integrated library management system (Geac Advance), to scope the library systems market, and to examine a representative group of appropriate suppliers' products. As part of this process s series of demonstrations were held at Rewley House on July 1st to 11th, and the Working Party visited a number of libraries, including Goteborg University Library in Sweden. Among other observations the Working Party noted the growing importance of drawing together library databases and other electronic resources via a portal. The final report, which includes a very helpful digest of literature and bibliography, has just been submitted to the OULS Directorate.
5. Mobile computing
Many library reading rooms have allowed readers to connect laptops to the network through the OUCS DHCP service. As a result of the various network viruses and worms over the summer, we have had to withdraw this facility to the disappointment of many. We are currently piloting a new service in the Radcliffe Science Library to enable readers to have their laptops scanned automatically and then network access allowed if they appear to be fully patched. If this system is successful, it will be extended throughout the Bodleian libraries and those OULS libraries whose networks are supported by SERS.
6. OXAM - Oxford Examinations Online
The Libraries have continued to host this service, though MIS will be developing a similar system under Oracle, which will eventually supersede the current version of OXAM.
Scanned exam papers for 2002-2003 were received from vendors and mounted on OXAM on 1st October 2003. Four years' papers, including those set in long vacations, are now accessible. More than 500,000 individual papers have been downloaded since the inception of the project (oxam.ox.ac.uk). Access to papers is currently limited to the Oxford Internet domain but we understand that this policy is under review by Exam Schools Management.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY IT USERS' GROUP & COLLEGES' IT GROUP
Item 7a - IT Support Staff Group Report
John Ireland
October 2003
It has been a quiet summer for ITSSG. The conference back in June was a great success and to see so many of you there made the 6 months of preparation worthwhile. A report on the conference is due to be posted on the ITSS web site towards the end of 1st week.
As mentioned at the conference, ITSSG is the only official group representing IT support staff, and exists for your benefit: to deal with issues relating to IT support that are raised by ITSS. Please do get in touch if there is something you would like us to look at this year.
Several positions on ITSSG have run to full term, and we will need to hold elections this term. In particular it is time for me to stand down from the position of acting chair, and now that Tony Brett has moved permanently to OUCS we shall be looking to ICTC to appoint a new chair. Elections for other positions will be held shortly afterwards, and we hope that many of you will seize this chance to step up and join the ranks. More details will be posted on the ITSS mail lists in due course.
If you are a new member of ITSS, or haven't had a chance to find out about ITSS at Oxford, then please do come along to the ITSS Induction session on Thursday 13th November at 2pm in OUCS, Lecture Room A. To be sure of refreshments, please email its3@herald.ox.ac.uk if you would like to attend.
This is always a busy time of year, and it can be good to escape for a bit of a social chat. You might like to note in your diaries the 16th December - this year's date for the ITSS Suppliers' Exhibition (daytime, Exam Schools) and Christmas Pub Night (6pm, Far from the Madding Crowd). We are also meeting at the Turl Bar on the last Thursday of each month for a general chat. Everyone is welcome!
The next ITSSG meeting will be held in 3rd week, so if there is anything you would like to discuss then please contact us (itssg@herald.ox.ac.uk) before then.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY IT USERS' GROUP & COLLEGES' IT GROUP
Item 7b - South East Region Computer Users' Committee Report
Peter Grout
October 2003
This meeting, the 77th, was held on the 8th July, 2003 at University of East London.
The minutes of this meeting will appear at http://www.mimas.ac.uk/sercuc/minjul03.html but for convenience are given below.
These contain several links to other relevant information and there is nothing further to add.
Minutes of the seventy-seventh meeting of the South-East Region Computer Users' Committee (SERCUC) held at ULCC on Tuesday 8th July 2003
1. Presence and apologies for absence
Present: Hushang Balyuzi (KCL), Cherie Dwight-Moore (UEL)Peter Grout (Oxford) (chairman), Rick Hobson (Reading), Juliane Kohlwagen (Westminster), Ida Kwan (Westminster), Jo Lampard (MC), Anne McCombe (MC), Peter Oliver (RAL CLRC), Elizabeth Rimmington (Brighton), Sherie Dwight-Moore (UEL) Apologies: Russell Burke (KCL), Andy Cotton (Southampton), Peter Croyden (Sussex), Julia Cruszsz (MC), Paul Dwight-Moore (UEL), John Gordon (RAL CLRC), Malcolm Heggie (Sussex), Sally Justice (South Bank), Carolyn Saunders (LondonMet), Alison Worthy (Westminster), Nigel Walford (Kingston).
Others: Alan Chadwick (UKC), Kristina Drew ( Institute of Child Health), Valerie Harmer (Surrey), Marian Pitt (UKC), Peter Voke (Surrey), Simon Bailey (Surrey), Alison Cousins (SBU), Peter Tuckwell (Kingston)
2. Minutes of previous meeting ... on 7th January 2003 were accepted as correct.
Arising from item 2: Elizabeth was going to tell Peter we wanted to write to university libraries
Peter will write to both old Polytechnics and old universities in the south-east.
Arising from item 3.2: Litlink service
Jo: The is no link yet for Litlink from Crossfire Commander. MC were hoping Athens access would be available for off-campus users (at the moment it is restricted on IP address) but this could not be done until the LitLink server software is upgraded. The upgrade has since been done, but MC are awaiting more information from MDL before they can implement Athens access. Jo promised to email SERCUC members when this is available.
Arising from 2: Landolt-Bornstein.
Peter: Landolt-Bornstein is available commercially. It is on the CHEST wish list but there is not much activity. MIMAS are not pushing it but we feel they should. It is an encyclopaedia of hundreds of volumes and one of key references for Physics, chemistry, materials etc. It is well used by the older generation, but less so by the younger one.
Arising from 5.1: Athens
Peter wrote as requested and received a letter from Athens thanking us for our comments. We were pleased to learn the Athens contract has been extended.
3. Chairman's business
Peter welcomed Cherie from UEL, Juliane from Westminster and Peter from RL. Peter Oliver (RAL CLRC) is taking over from Jonathan Wheeler at this meeting onwards.
Our best wishes for a speedy recovery were given to Paul, who suffered injuries in a recent motor accident, and Elizabeth agreed to send a get well card on behalf of us all.
Peter thanked Elizabeth for acting as chairman at the last meeting and was disappointed that after that experience she did not feel that she would like to take over the chairmanship on a regular basis.
4.1 Report from Manchester Computing
Jo Lampard took us through the report from MIMAS online at http://www.mimas.ac.uk/reports/mimasnews/mimas_may03.html and the following points were raised.
1.1 MIMAS Open Forum This is held in Manchester every July is meant to be useful to site reps and potential users - see the abstracts online. Highlights include Adam Gardner (MC) on how the JISC resource guides are grouped into subjects to help point people at services useful in their area, some JISC-funded, some not; and an overview of the new econometric data servic (ESDS). Representation from the south-east next time would be welcomed - Jo can recommend Manchester accommodation. The presentations are now online at http://www.mimas.ac.uk/news/mof2003/ for users of Windows and Internet Explorer.
1.2 ESDS launch - MIMAS are running ESDS already; comments are welcome.
2.1 ESDS International
Beyond 20/20 replaces Timeweb Explorer and unlike, Timeweb Explorer it is independent of plug-ins and runs on any standard browser. Anne said there are some slides on how to run Beyond 20/20 at MIMAS. Please pass feedback to international@esds.ac.uk
A new registration system is being piloted with some international data then spread to other services. See the news item at http://www.mimas.ac.uk/news/esds_regn.html. It will be possible to browse and then register to download what is found. More information is still being added; this new format will be in place by the start of October.
You can also look on the developing ESDS (Economic and Social Data Service) website for ESDS International.
Elizabeth queried as to why one can not just sign one form at the start for all the data sets. Apparently the data registration forms are necessary for reasons of copyright and the need to identify, before use, what each data set is being used for. Other countries' government data is freer than UK - it is possible the current restrictions on using UK data will change.
2.2 Census
The data for 2001 is being delivered in stages and causing delays, because the different areas have coded their data in different, incompatible ways.
3.1 CrossFire
GM0302 is now available (superseding 301), Upgrading to v6 is essential, sp1 preferred. MIMAS-XFT
Mimas-XFT (CrossFire Training) is the new name for Firepower (for reasons of copyright). It is freely available to UK academia with or without a Crossfire licence, so people can use XFT for evaluation.
CSD and Mossbauer are withdrawn from July 2003 due to dropping/ low usage. It was decided following a review of all software usage and funding. It was interesting to learn that EPSRC are starting a big Mossbauer project in Swansea while MC withdrawing it. Users can access CSD via the CCLRC's Chemical Database service at Daresbury laboratory, and Mossbauer Effect Reference Database via the Mossbauer Effect Data Center at the University of North Carolina University.
3.4 Spatial Data
Landsat has generated a huge amount of interest. The price of the service after July 2003 is not yet known, even after checking the CHEST website.
4.2 COPAC
COPAC is the ONLY interface to BL Map library - you can't get there though the British Library itself..
5.1 JSTOR The new music collection looks very exciting
A list of all Arts & Sciences II Collection titles may be found on the JSTOR web site at http://uk.jstor.org/about/asII.list.html. Peter asked about learned journals such as the American Mathematics Society. Anne said these were available going back up to two years.
Usage of JSTOR is difficult to quantify, but we know it's seasonal. JSTOR is not so broadly known as COPAC but quite popular among humanities students at Westminster. Students use it more in third/fourth year.
4.2 Report from CLRC
Peter Olivier showed us slides about both RAL and Daresbury services. Facts and figures - and pictures - of the HPC and Columbus computes, with his contact details on the last slide.
HPC(x) - being "Capability Driven" means users should specify large number of processors to take advantage of its capabilities rather than parcelling work out in small groups. Can we find out if access is available for individuals or only via a consortium.
Action: Peter Olivier
Columbus - is run on behalf of CCWP (Computational Chemistry Working Party ) who use large share of resources and control access. Spare capacity is available to everyone in academia
Hrothgar - the charge for use is £4 per CPU day (there are 32 CPUs!), Application should initially be made to Peter Oliver.
Atlas Datastore - the virtualised tape interface means users do not [need to] know the data is on tape. The top photograph shows the robot arm which fetches the tapes.
Mott - 80% is used by the Mineral and Ceramics Consortium
Wiglaf, Lewis and Grendel are run for space scientists
5. Informal Exchange of Information
Hushang Balyuzi expressed his intention to leave the committee due to the changed nature of his job. Hushang is appreciated as a valuable member of the group and news of his resignation was met with resistance and sadness.
Ronan Foley (Brighton) has resigned from the committee as he will be moving to Ireland.
6. Any other business
None.
7 Next meeting
SERCUC will meet again on Tuesday 2nd December 2003 at UEL, the University of East London. The following meeting is provisionally Wednesday 2nd June. Elizabeth Rimmington, July 2003