JISC OER Networking Day - 26th March 2012

An enrolled trilobite, genus Calymene

On Monday 26th March, some 70 or so delegates made their way to Dexter House, just opposite the Tower of London, for an Open Educational Resorces (OER) networking day. The participants came from a range of JISC funded projects, but all were involved in developing OERs.

The morning sessions, run by David Mossley of JISC, used two techniques new to me: "Open Space Activity" and "World Cafe Activity". The first involved splitting into groups of three, with the members in turn acting as interviewer, interviewee and notetaker, with the latter tasked with recording identified challenges to the development of OERs on individual "post-it" notes. Adjacent groups then attempted to classify the identified "post-it" challenges into categories, and derive questions representative of the challenges.

The World Cafe activity then had groups listing their main questions on flip charts, and everyone then voted on which of the questions they considered the most important.The  popular questions were then allocated to individual tables and delegates migrated to their table of choice for a discussion.

After lunch, delegates broke into three groups according to their type of project. My own group (JISC Content) then split into three - I followed the discussions on Collaboration and partership around OERs. There were some really helpful discussions, but probably the most important outcomes of the day were the contacts that I had made.

On the way home I reflected on the educational opportunities that the web is providing. From its earliest days, the British Geological Survey and its sister organisations have been involved involved in public education, but the OERs of today are far removed from the public lectures of 150 years ago.....

Professor Owen lecturing at the Museum of Practical Geology, 1857

Vacancy for two project staff - closing date 28th March 2012

Anaglyph image of ammonite, produced by SpiersView from digital model. View with red-cyan glasses

Are you interested in helping to make important national fossil collections available on the web as digital models, photographs and stereo anaglyph images?

A vacancy has arisen at the British Geological Survey for two highly motivated and enthusiastic Digitisation Staff, working on a high-profile JISC (Joint Information Standing Committee) funded 3D fossil project at our headquarters in Keyworth, Nottingham.
Your role will be working as part of a flexible team and will be working partly at Keyworth, and partly offsite at museums and collections around Britain. Duties include:
• Operating digital SLR camera, photographing type fossil specimens, including production of stereo pairs
• Operating NextEngine HD laser scanner to produce digital models of selected fossils
• Enter and retrieve information into PalaeoSaurus database
• Post-processing of images to add scales and produce anaglyph stereo images
• General data management, ensuring model and image metadata is correctly recorded according to the Data Management Plan
The closing date is 28th March 2012
Link for further information.

Geoscience Collections at BGS

In our first post, we should like to provide some background information about the British Geological Survey (BGS), the lead partner in the project.

Founded in 1835, the British Geological Survey (BGS) is the world's oldest national geological survey and the United Kingdom's premier centre for earth science information and expertise.

As a public sector organisation, BGS is responsible for advising the UK government on all aspects of geoscience as well as providing impartial geological advice to industry, academia and the public. We also undertake an extensive programme of overseas research, surveying and monitoring, including major institutional strengthening programmes in the developing world.

The BGS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), which is the UK's main agency for funding and managing research, training, and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences. Our annual budget is in the region of £52m, about 50 per cent of which comes from NERC's Science Budget, with the remainder coming from commissioned research from the public and private sectors. Further details may be found in our Annual Report.

The NGDC holds core and samples from approximately 24,000 boreholes and wells, both onshore and offshore (UK Continental Shelf) in a “state of the art” core store at Keyworth, Nottingham.

The BGS houses the National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC), one of NERC’s seven data centres. The NGDC includes major digital holdings (e.g. digital geological maps, a wide range of images and scans, and numerous indexes), extensive records and maps collections, and probably the largest collection of British geosciences samples. These include onshore and offshore borehole and well samples, fossils, and mineralogy and petrology samples. The fossil collections include over 30,000 type, figured and cited fossils – of which the type fossils form a significant part of this project.

An enrolled trilobite, Calymene

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Partners

                        

                                    

GB/3D Fossil Types online: Database of type specimens of British fossil species