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Dr Seamus Ross, Director HATII
Introduction
The Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII)
was formed in 1997 to bring together Glasgow University's expertise
in Information Communication and Technology (ICT) in the arts
and humanities and cultural heritage sector. HATII's mission is
to:
· conduct innovative research into the use of information
and communication technology (ICT) within the humanities, archives,
libraries, and museums,
· lead learning and teaching in Arts and Media Informatics,
often referred to as Humanities Computing,
· build and support a user community adept at the creation
and use of online resources,
· assist in the creation and preservation of electronic
resources and to encourage their integration into teaching and
research,
These activities are led by three teams: Research and Teaching
Group, The Resource Development Team, and the Arts Technical Support
Group. All three groups are tightly coupled and there is overlap
between several of the groups (e.g. members of the Resource Development
Team contribute to teaching and collaborate on research projects).
HATII's key activity areas are its:
- extensive research programme;
- undergraduate degree programme in Arts and Media Informatics;
- Postgraduate programmes of study at masters and doctoral levels
and its contribution to other postgraduate programmes in the
University such as the MscIT run by Computing Science;
- promotion of collaborative research projects within the Faculty
of Arts;
- support for the development and use of computing in learning
and teaching within the Faculty of Arts;
- responsibility for the development and management of the departmentally
based teaching laboratories for the Faculty of Arts;
- provision of desktop and server support to Faculty of Arts
staff, postgraduates, and undergraduates; and,
- initiating and running conferences, summer schools, and short
courses.
The research and teaching (e.g. course development) team consists
of eleven academic staff and Senior Research Fellows drawn from
the Archives, Information Systems, and the Library arenas. The
academic staff are Prof Arthur Allison, Dr Ian Anderson, Prof
Michael Moss, Adele Redhead, Dr Seamus Ross, Dr Susan Stuart.
The five Senior Research Fellows (Dr James Currall, Claire Johnson,
Dr Stephen Rawles, Lesley Richmond, Alistair Tough) hold other
appointments in the University but also contribute RAE quality
research through their membership of HATII. All academic staff
and Senior Research Fellows contribute to teaching on our new
MPhil in Digital Preservation and Information Management.
Ongoing Research
HATII's research concentrates in the areas of technologies, methods,
and theoretical developments that enable (a) access-by combining
context and hierarchy with interoperable metadata to improve information
management and use, (b) content analysis and appraisal-by exploring
the applicability of the records continuum paradigm, of the functional
analysis of information systems and re-examining basic assumptions
about archival theory and practice in the light of knowledge management,
(c) evaluation and impact methodologies-for the use of digital
resources in research, and (d) preservation-by developing, and
evaluating techniques and technologies and defining strategies
that provide curators and content owners with access to best practice
guidelines and appropriate technology services.
HATII currently runs six major research projects.
(1) It is home for Glasgow's contribution to the Digital Curation
Centre, a three year multi-million pound development supported
by the JISC and the EPSRC to improve the curation of digital materials
(http://www.dcc.ac.uk). The
partnership is led by the University of Edinburgh and includes
Glasgow, CCLRC, and the UK Office for Library Networking (UKOLN)
in Bath.
(2) It is the lead site of the Digital Preservation Cluster,
one of the seven clusters that make up the DELOS NOE (FP6 G038-507618).
The DELOS network of excellence, which is funded by the European
Commission under the 6th Framework Programme, is the leading digital
library research initiative in the world;
(3) It is the lead site for ERPANET (Electronic Resource Preservation
and Network) (IST-2001-32706) the European Union FP5 activity
to enhance the preservation of cultural heritage and scientific
digital objects (http://www.erpanet.org).
A three year 1.2 million Euro project that began in November 2001
and is a partnership between Glasgow, the Dutch National Archives,
the Swiss National Archives, and the University of Urbino. ERPANET
raises awareness and builds capability in the area of digital
preservation across Europe through seminars, developing tools,
and conducting primary research;
(4) It is a core partner in The Digital Culture Forum (DigiCULT
Forum, IST-2001-34898), which monitors and assesses technological
research and development and defines how they can be effectively
deployed in the heritage sector (e.g. museums, libraries and archives).
Through its research DigiCULT develops knowledge about how new
technologies can be used to improve management, access and understanding
of the cultural heritage. Its major Technology Watch Reports were
published in March 2003 and March 2004, with a third one forthcoming
in December 2004. (http://www.digicult.info);
(5) It is home to the New Opportunities Fund Project (NOF) that
is constructing the technological environment and the facilitating
the research environment that is promoting the building TheGlasgowStory
(http://www.theglasgowstory.com).
The design of the whole project has proved to be an ideal model
for the presentation of heritage material to a wide audience;
and,
(6) It has a major collaborative research project, Primarily
History, with the School of Information and Library Science University
of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) funded by the Delmas Foundation
investigating: How do historians locate primary source material?
What do they teach their students about locating primary source
material? How do archivists produce online finding aids? What
do they do to promote and educate their users about using electronic
finding aids? This work is based on survey and interviews.
Among our smaller projects is the development of the technical
services that underpin the creation of a database of the artistic
work of Andy Goldsworthy, developing interactive teaching applications
(e.g. Other Europes, GLAADH, and PATOIS), and in each of the last
five years HATII has conducted one innovative project in VR. These
have investigated technological, methodological, and user needs
evaluation issues and how these tools can be used for research.
This research is carried out by academic staff and their dedicated
teams of research assistants including Brian Aitken (DigiCULT
& TheGlasgowStory), Daisy Abbott (DigiCULT), Joy Davidson
(ERPANET & The Digital Curation Centre), Martin Donnelly (DigiCULT),
Peter McKinney (ERPANET, DELOS), Adam Rusbridge (ERPANET), and
Ian Russell (TheGlasgowStory).
Completed Projects
Recently completed projects include: (1) the NINCH Guide to Good
Practice in Digitisation (http://www.ninch.org/guide.pdf).
(2)With funding from the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee
(JISC 5/99) HATII is managing the 'Developing the Collection of
Historical and Contemporary Census Data and Materials into a Major
Learning and Teaching Resource' (CHCC project) (http://www.chcc.ac.uk/).
(3) HATII was a co-investigator in InterPARES I which was a major
project to investigate electronic records management led by the
University of British Columbia (http://www.interpares.org).
Teaching
HATII offers some twelve undergraduate modules at introductory
and honours level in humanities informatics and 2003-4 saw the
launch of our joint honours MA(Honours) programme in Arts and
Media Informatics. Our Level 1 and Level 2 courses introduce students
to the ways that information communication and technology change
how we can create, store, investigate, and disseminate work in
the humanities. Our joint honours programme includes modules in
Data Modelling and Representation, Multimedia Analysis and Design,
Arts Informatics, Document Encoding, 2D Digitisation, and Investigating
Cyberspace: The Anthropology of Cultures and Communities of the
Net. A number of Arts Departments have also integrated several
of our modules into their honours programmes. These include: Multimedia
Analysis and Design and Investigating Cyberspace: The Anthropology
of Cultures and Communities of the Net.
Two Course Case Studies:
The Multimedia Analysis and Design honours module attracts students
from Archaeology, History of Art, Theatre, Film & Television,
and Music. The module allows students to develop visual and aural
critical and analytical skills. It introduces students to interactive
media and design theory as well as non-linear hypertext representation
- multiple, non-exclusive pathways. In acquiring these skills
students develop, manage and produce a multimedia project based
in their primary area of study. These projects are available online
and some of them have provided an opportunity for students to
produce works of intellectual rigour and creative design.
Investigating Cyberspace: The Anthropology of Cultures and Communities
of the Net is an honours module designed to provide students with
a way to understand the socio-cultural context of cyberspace through
developing an understanding of range of issues (e.g. online persona
formation and use, public vs private space) gaining expertise
in methodologies and theories for studying cyberspace, and allowing
students to conduct primary and original research. Students have
produced studies of community formation, the role of gender in
the cyberspace, the role of language in identity formation and
representation, and the examination of imagination in community
life. This module has also resulted in an academic paper (McKinney,
Sharp and Ross 2003).
At postgraduate level HATII offers an MPhil in Information Management
and Preservation Studies and contributes to the University of
Glasgow's MSc(IT) in Information Technology modules on cultural
informatics. On the MSc(IT) course we manage the humanities strand
and contribute four modules: Introduction to Cultural Heritage
Computing, 2D Digitisation, Document Encoding, Multimedia Systems
(co-taught with staff from Computing Science). Our MPhil, which
is being run as a CPD course, will provide HATII with a conduit
to the professional community and a training ground for potential
doctoral students. The interlocking nature of modules is demonstrated
by the fact that masters level modules run under one stream are
offered under others. For instance, Seamus Ross' module on Electronic
Records (Management, Curation & Preservation of Digital Materials)
is offered both under HATII's MPhil programme and Computing Science's
MSc(IT) course.
Resource Development Services
HATII is home to the Faculty's four resource development officers
RDO's who develop the use of ICT in Arts and Humanities research
and teaching within the Arts Faculty at Glasgow. They have sectoral
responsibilities to ensure the provision of ICT support for learning
and teaching, to contribute to Level 1 and 2 teaching in Arts
Faculty Departments and on Arts and Media Informatics modules
and to support the technical design and delivery of research projects.
The HATII RDOs support work in Music and the Performing Arts (Andrew
McHugh), English Language and Literature (Jean Anderson), Modern
Languages (Stephen Woodruff), and History and Archaeology (Ann
Gow). The Faculty of Arts at Glasgow is home to more than twelve
projects involving the use of ICT in the humanities, and these
are supported by its own (RDO). The RDOs work with academics in
departments to develop further research funding applications that
involve the use of ICT. Four of them have Computing Science backgrounds
of which three are to masters level. There efforts are often supplemented
by staff appointed to work on adhoc, usually externally funded,
initiatives such as Patois, GLAADH, A2PAW.
RDOs are essential in achieving high standard, quality provision
of ICT resources in learning and teaching. There is, though, still
resistance to takeup of ICT in some Arts areas. With 'an enthusiastic
lecturer an RDO can help them to achieve great success….but
where there is resistance,' RDOs often find it better to focus
on 'on simple provision, such as on-line class handouts.' Where
it is possible to enable the creation of online learning materials
in collaboration with lecturers the RDOs do this. The RDOs have
a very good track record in creating learning materials and assisting
with research.
Arts Technical Support Team
The Arts ICT Support Team of four dedicated professionals is based
in HATII. They support and assist in the development and use of
computing in teaching within the Faculty of Arts by academic and
non-academic staff and both undergraduate and post-graduate students.
Its team provides desktop support for over 350 staff users in
the Arts Faculty. They have responsibility for overseeing the
development and management of the departmentally-based teaching
laboratories and computer classrooms for the Faculties of Arts
currently this includes fourteen undergraduate open access and
teaching computer laboratories and it supports three postgraduate
services. In total they look after over 600 desktop computers
(350 staff desktops and 260 laboratory machines). 70% of these
machines have 100MB access. We also have seven servers to provide
services, data storage (currently just over a terabyte) and web
delivery mechanisms. The team manages purchasing of equipment
and the provision of advice on the purchasing of equipment including
quotes from external retailers for Arts Faculty Departments. They
handle the installation of the hardware and software for staff
in the Faculty of Arts and their maintenance and report.
The Arts support team supports most of the specialist software
and generic applications (e.g. iCampus) that is used by staff
and students within the Faculty. It provides essential backup
services for the Arts Faculty and has proven its ability to restore
data from the tape archive within 1 hour of request provided the
request is received Monday after 8am and Friday before 4pm. They
deliver extended storage space postgraduate and undergraduate
students in the Arts Faculty who are undertaking projects or research
that requires substantial digital storage facilities. Key to the
delivery of services is our online job request submission system
which allows staff and students to submit jobs via a web form
and to track progress of their support requests online. While
not all requests for support come in to the team in this way more
than 70% do. It has made us more responsive and transparent.
HATII's Home: George Service House
HATII's home George Service House (GSH) is a state-of-the-art
research centre. GSH has three multimedia laboratories (30, 15,
12 seats respectively), and dedicated space and facilities for
virtual reality, CAD, digitization, and digital preservation research.
The Centre has access to several terabytes of data store, industry
standard backup services, and access to high speed network services.
Since 1997 more we have secured more than 200,000 GBP worth of
investment in the development of George Service House. A further
185,000 GBP of SRIF2 monies will be invested during 2004-5 in
enhancing HATII's research infrastructure (in particular giving
it the capacity to conduct research into repository design and
development). In addition, HATII's technical staff manages more
than 500 desktop computers and support 250 members of academic
staff and 4500 students in the Arts Faculty. HATII makes use of
University's Access Grid services.
CPD and Conferences:
In 1998 HATII launched the first Continuing Professional Development
(CPD) programme in the United Kingdom in Digitisation for Cultural
and Heritage Professionals; it is now internationally recognised
as the leading course in this area. Since its launch we have offered
this module twice each summer in Glasgow. The module has been
so successful that we have run it in a number of overseas locations
New Zealand (2002 and 2003), Crete and Bulgaria (2001), and the
US (in 2000 and 2001 in Houston and in 2002, 2003, 2004 at the
University of North Carolina). While the module has enabled us
to share our research into digitisation (see for example S Ross
et al 2002) with hundreds of professionals from libraries, archives
and museums, it has also led to research collaborations between
HATII and other institutions most notably the top North American
School of Information and Library Science at the University of
North Carolina (Chapel Hill).
Staff have hosted conferences, the third annual Digital Resources
in the Humanities (DRH'98) Conference (September 1998), CHArt99
(Computers in the History of Art), in 2000 HATII staff hosted
the ALLC/AHC Conference, Archaeological Informatics: Beyond Technology
Workshop (September 2001 in conjunction with Archaeology) and
in 2003 we hosted Computers in Philosophy. Under the Digital Curation
Centre and in conjunction with the DELOS Project we are leading
the development of a continuing professional development programme
in Digital Curation and repository development.
Dr Seamus Ross
Director, HATII
University of Glasgow
15 June 2004
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