ASSIGNMENT 9



Information Environment

What is the Information Environment?

The Information Environment (IE) is a term used to refer to work to develop and provide services which enable people to find and manage information efficiently and effectively in their learning, teaching or research.
The information resources which people need are very varied - books, journals, research papers, teaching resources, videos, maps and more - and while they might be in any format they are increasingly digital.

There is now a critical mass of digital information resources that can be used to support researchers, learners, teachers and administrators in their work and study. The production of information is on the increase and ways to deal with this effectively are required. There is the need to ensure that quality information isn’t lost amongst the masses of digital data created everyday. If we can continue to improve the management, interrogation and serving of ‘quality’ information there is huge potential to enhance knowledge creation across learning and research communities. The aim of the Information Environment is to help provide convenient access to resources for research and learning through the use of resource discovery and resource management tools and the development of better services and practice. The Information Environment aims to allow discovery, access and use of resources for research and learning irrespective of their location.



A changing environment

Over time there has been a great deal of change to the context in which we are working. The Information Environment programmes have primarily worked with the over-riding aim of improving access to and use of heterogeneous resources but have also taken account of changes and provided a way to test, develop and evolve appropriate means to manage and use resources.

The significant environmental changes have been:

* moves towards Open Access research and learning being undertaken on the Web as the Web is able to support flexible models of research and learning
* dominance of search engines e.g. Google
* the development of ‘Web 2.0’ applications and services which support collaborative working and the creation and sharing of digital resources
* cloud computing
* the huge and continuing growth in digital 'data'
* increased awareness of the utility of service and resource orientated approaches to designing services

Cloud computing is a paradigm of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them.

The rise in importance of repositories as a means of managing and sharing digital resources created as part of learning and research has meant that since 2005 much of the JISC Information Environment programme investment has focused on that area. Whilst in the last tranche of repository funding there was some work in the area of preservation, discovery, and other shared infrastructure, there is now a need to move away from the emphasis on 'repository' and to see repositories and the wide variety of resources and delivery mechanisms as part of the wider Information Environment context.




References:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/informationenvironment.aspx