Developing the JISC Information Environment Service Registry

The JISC Information Environment Service Registry (IESR) is a pilot project that has been funded by the JISC for 14 months until December 2003, under its Shared Services Programme. The Information Environment [1] aims to provide users of electronic resources in higher and further education in the UK with easy access to high quality information and learning resources. The JISC already provides numerous resources but these are unfortunately not used to their full extent, as many users are unaware of their existence and the means of access to them. The Information Environment will supply an architecture to support easy access to existing services and resources in an integrated way that minimises effort by the user. This architecture [2] specifies standards and protocols that will be used to bring all these disparate resources and services together.