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ANGEL Project semi-annual report to DNER

Author John Paschoud

Aims, Objectives and Methodology
Confirmation Statement
Highlights, Outcomes and Important Findings from project
Changes to the Original Award
Project Staff
Involvement with Programme
Publications and Publicity
Engagement with Potential Outcomes Users
Detailed Progress and Future Plans
Financial Summary Table

Aims, Objectives and Methodology

• To develop and implement institutional Guided Environments for Learning
• To develop and implement a model for a national networked Authentication & Authorisation infrastructure

Our methodology will focus on the creation of middleware to provide services (including those needed for authentication & authorisation) and standards-compliant interfaces for use by a wide range of Web-based user front-ends, to a wide range of potential information resources. This is elaborated in ANGEL Deliverable 4.1, and outlined simply in ANGEL Deliverable 3.4a.

Authentication & Authorisation development will inter-operate with PAPI and Shibboleth (and possibly other emerging models), and will propose a transitional method of inter-operation with Athens.

Confirmation Statement

I confirm that the project development is being conducted under the terms agreed in the initial contract with JISC, subject to any amendments notified to and agreed with JISC and/or the DNER Programme Office.

Highlights , Outcomes and Important Findings from project

ANGEL participation in the Internet2 Shibboleth Pilot has been agreed with JCAS, with additional budget award of £5,000 to cover travel and server setup costs, in partnership with the MIS Division at LSE.

Additional resources for the participation of EDINA as a resource host in the Shibboleth Pilot is still under discussion with JCAS and the MACE Shibboleth Group.

Changes to the Original Award

(with respect to ANGEL Project Plan v1.10)

* In place of the initial printed newsletter (D3.4a), we produced an A5 flyer for general distribution at events and within partner institutions, to address the problems of explaining simply the need for and purpose of ANGEL (and DNER middleware services generally) to target audiences of LIS and LTT service providers within HE/FE.

Project deliverables and related public documents are available via: http://www.angel.ac.uk/documents/documents.html

Project Staff

* = representative on Project Board; "(institutional job titles)" shown in brackets

Involvement with Programme

The third DNER Programme Meeting (Manchester, January 2002) was attended by John Paschoud, John MacColl, Maureen Wade and Nicole Harris.

Maureen Wade and John MacColl attended the initial meeting of the Access to Teaching & Learning Resources Cluster Steering Committee (Warwick, September 2001). It was not felt to be the most effective forum for meeting its’ required objectives (in the interests of either the project or the programme), and these issues and suggestions for improvement have been subsequently discussed with Programme Office staff.

Publications and Publicity

Recent publications primarily about the work of ANGEL include:

• Harris, Nicole. "What is an ANGEL?" Vine issue 125 (December 2001) 69-73.
• Harris, Nicole. "Managed Learning?" Ariadne issue 30 (January 2002).

Recent presentations on ANGEL include:

• 21.08.01 Harris, Nicole. ANGEL - Initial Formative Evaluation. Presentation at INSPIRAL workshop.
• 21.08.01 MacColl, John. Virtuous Learning Environments. Presentation at INSPIRAL workshop.
• 17.01.02 Paschoud, John. Angel: Joining Things Up. Presentation to JUGL.

All major publications and presentations by the project are listed and referenced at http://www.angel.ac.uk/dissemination/dissemination.html

Engagement with Potential Outcomes Users

In addition to the above publications and public presentations, ANGEL has been promoted via internal channels to staff in partner institutions.

We are ensuring a practical focus for the software development phase of ANGEL, by utilising opportunities to meet immediate institutional needs such as those of the MLE development at DMU, the Edinburgh Student Portal, ‘LSE for You’, and the replacement of the EASI service for LSE Library.

Contact is being maintained with the operational staff at all five institutional partners who are responsible for VLE and LMS implementation.

The ANGEL public website (www.angel.ac.uk) continues to be regularly updated with project publications and ANGEL Technology Watch news items.

Detailed Progress and Future Plans

Consortium Agreement has been agreed by partner representatives in detail, but is still subject to negotiation arising from consultation with various institutional legal advisers, and is therefore not fully signed yet.

Workpackages 5, 6 and 7 are in progress. Initial prototype software deliverables from WP5 have been demonstrated to the Project Board and DNER Programme Manager. There has been some additional delay to start of work on WP6, mainly due to delayed staffing of the UED developer post, but the post was filled from1^st November 2001 and the PAPI target software installation has been completed.

All hardware required by the project has been purchased and installed by LSE, UED and DMU.

Financial Summary Table

Actual Expenditure figures shown above are provisional only, and subject to amendment after ratification of totals with institutional finance records (which was not possible within the timescale required by JISC for submission of this report).

Figures shown as "JISC budget" (except for "Equipment") are calculated pro-rata (for the number of months covered by this report) from the total JISC grant for the project over 30 months. The total budget for capital Equipment of £15,000 has now been spent and claimed in accordance with JISC procedures.

The current cumulative underspend shown (£30,688) is within planned limits and due to staff posts filled later than expected at DMU and UED, and other expenditure which is not expected to be spread evenly throughout the course of the project.