MARTINI: Managed Access to Real-Time Institutional Networked Information
MARTINI, or Managed Access to Real-Time Institutional Networked Information, was a project funded under the JISC 7/99 call, Building MLEs in HE. The project was based at the University of East Anglia, and its main objective was to allow all students to have direct, seamless and secure access to all personal data held about them on university databases, combined with easily navigable links to related data of interest to them. A student would have access to both static and dynamic personal information through a web interface, and would be able to tailor the appearance and presentation of the interface to his or her personal preferences.
The project therefore encompassed the technical challenge of linking the University’s administrative databases to a web-based front end while also managing the change which such a project would inevitably cause within the institution, especially for technical staff and data providers. For the wider community, the project delivered a generic toolkit of open source code which can be used by other institutions to provide a similar service to their students, either as a stand-alone interface or through an MLE or student portal. The project also contributed to emerging metadata standards activity.
CERLIM provided both formative and summative evaluation of the MARTINI project. Formative evaluation included the provision of advice, guidance and support for a range of user testing activities, as well as the monitoring of the achievement of project milestones. Summative evaluation included environment scanning, documentary analysis, interviews with key stakeholders, and also the monitoring of project outputs to ensure compliance with project objectives, conformance to formal standards, and applicability to the wider community. CERLIM reported to the MARTINI Project Steering Group, of which the Director of CERLIM is a member.
The project ran from July 2001 to July 2003.
Interim evaluation report available in MS Word format (61kb)
Final evaluation report available in MS Word format (71kb)
For further details about this project please contact:
Margaret Markland
Research Associate
CERLIM
Manchester Metropolitan University
Department of Information and Communications
Geoffrey Manton Building
Rosamond Street West
Off Oxford Road
Manchester M15 6LL
Tel: 0161 247 6142
Email: m.markland@mmu.ac.uk