About Xgrain

The Xgrain project is designed to result in the provision within the first year of two on-line facilities of service quality for the DNER content infrastructure.

1. The first is a broker, that will offer portals within the DNER, especially Resource Discovery Network (RDN) portals and local institutions, the means to carry out co-ordinated searching across Z39.50 targets on diverse abstracting and indexing, and tables of contents, services. Developing this infrastructural component of the DNER as a central broker means that RDN portals and local sites are spared the work involved in each developing such facilities on an individual basis.
2. The second is an end-user portal to allow students, researchers and academics to conduct easy cross-searching across the specialist bibliographic services, using a simple sub-set of fields and requiring a single Athens login. The portal will also allow the end-user to conduct in-depth searches in the native database interfaces, and access non-Z compliant services, such as the Web of Science at MIMAS, using the http protocol.

The Xgrain project was conceived as part of discussions between the Resource Discovery Network Centre (RDNC) and the JISC-funded datacentres of BIDS, EDINA and MIMAS. The project will be led by EDINA, with the RDNC and BIDS as Associate Partners.

As a component part of the JOIN-UP Programme, Xgrain will also aim to demonstrate the benefits of a modular approach to the DNER. An infrastructure will be developed that allows the 'plugging in' of other suitable DNER resources at a later date.

Finally, Xgrain will undertake a requirements analysis for the enhancement of the cross-searching portal for use in learning and teaching. Further research is needed to match the content and functionality of the portal to the requirements of learning and teaching, within the context of the emerging subject-based portals provided both by the RDN and the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) Subject Centres, and local institution-based portals.

A pool of 10 Learning and Teaching Associate sites will be identified, providing access to LTSN expertise and pedagogical input to the services and materials developed, along with expertise available at a local level, and from prior JISC-funded projects working in this area. The 'trial sites' will provide both action research and formative evaluation aspects for the project. The L&T Associates will trial the successive implementations of the cross-search portal with a small pool of learners and teachers at their sites, suggest suitable materials for development at EDINA, and, where relevant, contribute to the customisation of support materials for their subject areas.

Work to improve the successive versions of the cross-search portal, and enhance it for use in learning and teaching, will start once the first versions of the broker and cross-search portal interface have been developed, and continue until the end of the project.

Summative evaluation of the Xgrain project will be provided by the IMPEL team at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, during year three. The team will examine the perceived and real usefulness of the cross-search portal, enhanced for learning and teaching, and its impact on lecturing staff, students and local user support staff, in three or four of the project trial sites, to be identified during the course of the project.

The student-centred model of education recognises that the ability to find, use and evaluate information is essential in a society increasingly dependent upon the knowledge of its citizens for wealth creation. Within the skill set expected of graduates, the ability to find and evaluate information from primary data sources and the development of research skills are becoming ever more important.

The challenge for Xgrain is to realise the potential role of the specialist bibliographic services currently available within the DNER in supporting the development of information and information literacy skills in graduates. It is anticipated that successive versions of the cross-search portal, enhanced for use in learning and teaching, will include:

• user-friendly presentation to allow selection by subject areas, degree of specificity and level of complexity;
• modularised learning materials that explain such concepts as broad versus shallow searching, search techniques and fitness for purpose selection;
• support materials for lecturing staff, that are likely to include pedagogical reasons for using reference databases to support the development of information literacy skills in students, and case studies of the successful use of the cross-search portal in learning and teaching;
• local information pages, customisable by participating sites and effectively offering aspects of a 'proxy' local portal.

The involvement of the user community, as described above, is crucial to the success of the cross-search portal, both in terms of its design, functionality and accessibility, and its impact, uptake and use by the community.

The Xgrain partners will work with colleagues in the other three JOIN-UP projects to disseminate the outcomes of research and development to the wider user community at regular intervals, using, among other methods, websites, conferences, publicity materials and articles in relevant journals.