Andrew Bevan, Helen Chisholm and John MacColl (EDINA)
Andrew Bevan gave an overview of current promotion strategy:
The discussion covered the following topics, it should be noted there was a number of JISC service providers in the discussion group:
One JISC provider had found that small workshops, organised with plenty of time for interaction, followed by word of mouth between colleagues was very effective promotion for use of their service.
Others found that it was important to analyse the target audience prior to an event and to ensure that the content was relevant, e.g. mount a targeted subject area event.
It was agreed that it was important for service providers to work closely with the JISC Regional Support Centres. It was recognised that the services from the JISC data centres were starting to become relevant to FE but were not yet "FE ready"
It was recognised that EDINA had begun to hold events with many of the RSCs and that we should continue to explore possibilities for collaboration. NLN was cited as a good example of collaboration between EDINA and MIMAS and the FE sector. The JISC pilot project to investigate the requirements of a Service Registry for the Information Environment should provide useful information on the relevance of JISC services for FE and HE.
There is a lack of control of communication within institutions which means it is very difficult to gauge the impact of printer newsletters which are sent to nominated individuals within institutions.
The question of the effectiveness of the policy of having site representatives for individual services was raised. There was concern that it is very difficult for the data-centres to measure the level of effectiveness but there seemed to be a consensus that librarians are very busy and find it difficult to find time to fulfil their promotional "duties". Although users of the services are aware of the name of their site representative as this information is provided at the login page, there was concern that library colleagues seemed unaware of who were the EDINA service representatives within institutions.