Quarterly Progress Report
December 2001 - February 2002
Project No: 8/99
Project Title: Do IT PoMS
Date: 1 March 2002
1. Key achievements in the last period
Development of the Micrograph Library has continued. The metadata describing many
micrographs have been improved. A few micrographs have been retaken to achieve a higher image
quality. Some additional micrographs and metadata from other members of the Department in
Cambridge have been incorporated, with the procedure for donating to the Library having been
tested in the course of this. A good number of micrographs have been received from Leeds for
incorporation into the Library once the metadata describing them have been assembled. Very few
micrographs of ceramics have yet been included in the Library but, with input from Professor Lee
(Sheffield), a list of types of micrographs to be sought has been produced.
Links between keywords in the Micrograph Library and the on-line MATTER Glossary have been
implemented. The MATTER project team has converted the Glossary to a database-driven form to
facilitate this. In addition, an interface has been developed to allow the DOITPOMS project to add
new entries to the on-line MATTER Glossary as required. The MATTER project team have also
undertaken to provide binary alloy phase diagrams for use in the Library, in Flash vector-image
format.
The on-line demonstration of stress distribution in 3- and 4-point bending has been completed
using the text, image and video resources produced last summer. This employs a similar format to
the on-line demonstration of thermal expansion and the bimetallic strip, while taking account of
comment received about the latter. Discussions with students in Cambridge indicate that the latter
might best be categorised as a resource for teaching staff seeking ideas for student
experiments/demonstrations while the former could exemplify a resource to be used directly by
students.
Existing analogue video resources available in the Department have been catalogued and evaluated
for suitability for digitising, and thought is being given to the structure of the video clip library.
2. Performance against plan
Has there been any variance from planned activities?
The target of 50 ceramics micrographs to be included in the Micrograph Library by December 2001
has not been met but a list of types to be sought has been produced. Phase diagrams for binary
alloys have not been incorporated yet, but work on this is now under way. Because of constraints
imposed by teaching timetables, formal evaluation of the Micrograph Library has been delayed.
Plans are in place for this to be piloted at Cambridge in mid-March but this means that evaluation
by staff and students at partner institutions will be delayed beyond the target date of April 2002.
The functions of the 'Aids to student laboratory experiments' are still under discussion (target date:
September 2001). There have been informal discussions about them with students in Cambridge
(see above) but it is unlikely that systematic evaluation by partner institutions of the two prototype
aids produced to date will be possible by the target date of April 2002.
Progress on the video clip library of industrial processes has also slipped behind schedule because
priority has deliberately been given to work on the Micrograph Library. While there has been some
cataloguing and evaluation of resources with the assistance of students in the Department at
Cambridge, a list of suitable video clips, with copyright checked, has yet to be produced (target
date: September 2001), and there has been no distribution of items to partners for evaluation (target
date for receiving evaluations: March 2002).
3. Key problems impeding progress
Although the procedure for adding micrographs to the Library is now established and explained online, donors do not always provide the descriptive metadata necessary for the micrograph to be
useful. We are aiming to make progress on this front in the next quarter.
Priority has been given to work on establishing the prototype Micrograph Library, the major
resource to be created in the project, so that it can be systematically tested. Inevitably this has
delayed other parts of the project.
4. Notes
Details of meetings held within the last quarter:
Meetings within the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, University of Cambridge
 Monthly internal project group meetings.
 Regular update meetings between the project manager, IT Teaching Resources Manager, and the
IT Secretarial Administrator in addition to frequent e-mail discussions.
 Meeting with Rachel Segal, the project's new National Co-ordinator.
 Meetings with Rob Wallach and David Cebon (Granta Design) regarding possible liaison on
micrograph library issues.
Other meetings
 Steering Group Meeting, Oxford Brookes, 15 January (attended by all partners except Professor
Bill Lee from Sheffield).
 Attendance by Mary MacGinley at NCT workshop on 'Managing Change'.
 Attendance by John Leake and Dave Hudson at the Cambridge-MIT Institute 'Copyright and elearning' workshop.
 Attendance by Dave Hudson at ALT-arranged workshop on 'XML and Content Management'.
 Attendance by John Leake and Dave Hudson at NCT workshop on 'Getting the best from your
Evaluation'.
Report Number: Year 2, Quarter 3
Report completed by: Dave Hudson and John Leake