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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

Highlights, Outcomes and Important Findings from project ANGEL participation in the Internet2 Shibboleth Pilot has now become active, with the alpha-2 Shibboleth software release (on 11-Jul-02), on which LSE has started installation work (T6.3).  The “Roles Namespace Definition” has been agreed by the project, and is currently with JCAS (Alan Robiette) for consultation and comment (T6.4). Version 0.04 of the ANGEL Resource Manager, and version 0.04 of the ANGEL User Manager are currently available as alpha releases running on public ports of project servers (T5.5), and available for download as Open Source.

Changes to the Original Award

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

No DNER/IE Programme Meetings, or meetings of the Access to Teaching & Learning Resources Cluster Steering Committee have been held during the period covered by this report.  Independent liaison with other relevant projects and initiatives has been maintained, and the Project Officer (in the course of editing the recent focus issue of Vine) has been in contact with a wide range of staff working in VLE/MLE initiatives.

The Project Manager and Co-Directors have liased with JISC Programme Office staff to successfully resolve issues related to the changed involvement of SBU in ANGEL. 

The Project Manager attended the Internet2 Spring Member Meeting in May 2002, to pursue discussions with the MACE-Shibboleth development team on involvement of ANGEL partners in the Shibboleth Pilot.

Publications and Publicity

Recent publications primarily about the work of ANGEL include:

·        Paschoud, John. "Why Librarians should care about VLEs." Relay issue 53 (2002).

·        MacColl, John. "VLEs in the Learning Landscape." Relay issue 53 (2002).

·        Harris, Nicole. Editorial. Vine issue 126 (May 2002).

Recent presentations on ANGEL include:

·        18.03.02 Paschoud, John. “Community Benefits of E-Technology: Public & Academic Library Perspectives”. Internet Librarian Conference.

·        30.04.02 Paschoud, John. “Trust Me - I'm a Stranger: Access Management for Higher Education in the Widening World of the Web”. Presentation to LSE staff.

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

Proposals for a panel and poster session on ANGEL have been accepted for the ALT-C 2002 conference in September.

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.

ANGEL played a significant role in organising a joint seminar for UCISA, SCONUL and JISC on Access Management issues (May 2002, Oxford).  As a follow-up to this, ANGEL is organising an event in November 2002 aimed at institutional managers and Athens administrators, jointly sponsored by UCISA and JISC.

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.  Implementation of an “ANGEL inside” version of the latter was completed in June, ready for access by end-users (all LSE Library users) in October 2002.

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, which now includes a RSS news-feed.

Detailed Progress and Future Plans

Consortium Agreement has been signed by all partners except South Bank University.  Workpackages 5, 6 and 7 are in progress. 

Delays to workpackage 6, and limited staff time available to workpackage 5 software development have been caused by long-term illness of the developer in post at UED.  A plan has been agreed to contract development staff time from EDINA to contribute to workpackage 5, but this is likely to have some irretrievable impact on final deliverables from this strand of the project.

Decisions on institutional strategy and structure taken by SBU, between April and July 2002, have led to the decision of SBU to withdraw from funded involvement in the ANGEL Project.  The Project Board was fully informed of the situation at SBU as soon as it was known to SBU staff directly involved in ANGEL, and Project Board members and relevant JISC staff liaised closely over possible actions to secure the future of ANGEL.  However, the decision of SBU to withdraw (with effect from 31^st July 2002) was not formally confirmed until 30^th July.  All other partners in ANGEL have agreed in writing (in accordance with procedures previously agreed in the Consortium Agreement for ANGEL), and JISC officers have approved a resolution involving the transfer of remaining responsibilities of SBU, and remaining JISC funding due to SBU, to LSE, which will employ and absorb overhead costs (as an additional institutional contribution to ANGEL) for the ANGEL Project Officer formerly based at SBU, from 1^st August 2002 until the scheduled end of the project.  This was effected with no significant loss of staff time to the project.

The Project Board are awaiting a further decision from SBU, on whether the institution wishes to remain in ANGEL (having signed the Consortium Agreement) as a non-funded associate partner.

Financial Summary Table

Actual Expenditure figures shown above are confirmed after ratification of totals with institutional finance records (which was possible because of delays caused by other factors in the submission of this report to JISC).

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 was spent and claimed in accordance with JISC procedures, before the end of January 2002.

The current cumulative underspend shown (£22,109) 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.

Costs for “Dissemination items” will be committed mainly in the final (7-month) reporting period for the project.

Due to the withdrawal of SBU from funded involvement in ANGEL, the quarterly transfer of JISC funds from LSE to SBU scheduled for 31^st July 2002 was not made.  A balancing payment in full settlement of costs payable to SBU from JISC funding will be calculated and paid during the next reporting period.