About e-Services Integration

The e-Services Integration Group of Academic Services was formed in the summer of 2003. The objectives of e-SIG are to work with colleagues across sections of Academic Services, and the broader University community, to lead and co-ordinate the development of online services for the University.

e-SIG is currently actively pursuing the following development priorities:

• Further developing the university portal, port.hull, and associated services
• Deployment of the Hypercontent Web Content Management System
• Evaluating and developing tools and environments to support e-Learning and e-Research
• Evaluating and planning the deployment of an institutional repository
  

A key element of the work of e-SIG is the development of effective national and international partnerships. e-SIG and its predecessors have successfully managed a range of externally funded development projects. Recent e-SIG externally funded projects include RepoMMan (http://www.hull.ac.uk/esig/repomman/) RIDIR (http://www.hull.ac.uk/ridir/), and REMAP (http://www.hull.ac.uk/remap/) Projects, funded uner the JISC Digital Repositories Programme, and CREE (http://www.hull.ac.uk/esig/cree/), funded under the JISC Portals Programme.

eSIG also co-ordinates the eRESS Project (http://www.hull.ac.uk/esig/eress.html). The central objective of eReSS is to provide support to the JISC VRE Programme by helping to identify suitable solutions for the interoperability of Virtual Research Environment tools, applications, and resources. This will, of necessity, cover both ongoing activities within the VRE Programme and parallel activities in the wider Grid, eResearch and related environments of interest. eReSS runs from March 2006 - February 2009, and will work in parallel with current and future VRE projects to support their need for information on interoperability and associated standards and specifications.

e-SIG participates in the JASIG (http://www.ja-sig.org/) and JASIG-UK (http://www.ja- sig.org.uk/). Ian Dolphin, Head of e-Strategy and e-SIG is Vice President of JASIG (http://www.ja-sig.org/govern.html) and a member of the Board of the Sakai Foundation (http://www.sakaiproject.org/). The University of Hull is a member of the Sakai Educational Partners Programme (SEPP).

The work of e-SIG has been recognized internationally. The Group has been chosen as a Sun Microsystems international “Centre of Excellence”. This recognises work undertaken by e-Services Integration and others across Academic Services and the university as a whole in the now-concluded Digital University Project, including

• Deployment of the university portal, port.hull, based around uPortal from the Java Architectures Special Interest Group (JA-SIG)
• Integration of a range of services accessed from port.hull
• Development of a web content management system
• Developing accessible interfaces for those with a range of visual impairments

The Centre represents a significant partnership with Sun Microsystems to further develop the aims of the Digital University Project, and brings considerable international prestige and recognition to the university for work in this area.

Updated July 12th 2007