************************************************************************
CHEST DATA NEWS * CHEST DATA NEWS * CHEST DATA NEWS * CHEST DATA NEWS *C

H                         The CHEST DATA MESSENGER                     H

E              - bringing you news, updates & other snippets           E

S             19th January 2001      URL:http://www.chest.ac.uk/       S

T DATA NEWS * CHEST DATA NEWS * CHEST DATA NEWS * CHEST DATA NEWS *CHEST
*************************************************************************

This issue is being sent to:

   * CHEST HE and FE Site and Data Contacts
   * CHEST (Ireland) Site Contacts
   * CHEST Associated Site Contacts
   * chest-news: register yourself on chest-news to ensure you keep up
     to date with all that's going on.
   * lis-link
   * lis-sitereps


CONTENTS
========

        a) Scheduled At-Risk information
        b) BIOSIS Renewal
        c) Training for Blackboard


a)Scheduled At-Risk information
-------------------------------

We have been asked to let you know that two services available under
CHEST Agreements, BioMed and PsycINFO may be unavailable during the
At-Risk
period (08:00 - 10:00) on Tuesday 30th January 2001. This is due to
scheduled
server maintenence. We apologise for any inconvenience that is caused by
this
work.



BIOSIS Renewal
--------------

Discussions with the Content Working Group of the JISC Committee for
Electronic Information have resulted in changes to arrangements for the
continued provision of BIOSIS Previews.

CHEST wishes to advise you of the following:

i) Access to the data at EDINA will now terminate with effect from
Wednesday 31st January 2001 for any institution that has not signed a
new licence and returned the same to CHEST, at least by fax, by close of
play on 31st January 2001.

ii) Institutions which complete a new licence will be billed for 7/12 of
the announced charges (http://www.chest.ac.uk/datasets/biosis/) for the
period to 31st July 2001. The new licence form will be available next
week.

iii) The licence will terminate automatically on 31st July 2001 and any
further access be denied unless written agreement to extend has been
received by CHEST by 31st July 2001.

iv) Hopefully by the end of March 2001 advice will be issued from
JCEI/CWG via CHEST, on the future service provider(s) so as to enable
institutions to make a decision about the remaining period of the
licence (possibly to 31st July 2006).

Institutions which have already returned licences will be contacted by
Heather Franklin next week.


Training for Blackboard
-----------------------
The following message has been received from Blackboard:

Dear Colleague,

Before Christmas you may have received details of the offer that
Blackboard has negotiated with CHEST for purchase of the Blackboard 5
e-Learning software platform. Further details can be found at -

http://www.chest.ac.uk/datasets/blackboard/

As a quick recap, in return for a three year commitment to Blackboard
this agreement offers 20% off the purchase of Level 1 (the VLE) and
Level 2 (VLE plus the educational Portal) of Blackboard for the first
year, 10% for the following year and a further 10% for the final year.

At this stage we would like to take the opportunity to remind you that
we are also offering institutions that license before January 31st 2001
a free one day 'train the trainer' course for two individuals at the
training events listed at -
http://www.chest.ac.uk/datasets/blackboard/training.html

The cost of this to you would normally be $1800

For those institutions that are awaiting funds from FEFC, CHEST
will invoice upon purchase of the licence, but will agree a delay in
payment of the invoice for those funds as they become available to your
institution - but ultimately May 15 2001.

During late February and early March we will be holding Blackboard days
across the UK  - the likely venues being London, Birmingham, Manchester
and Scotland.

If you have any further questions/queries regarding the above, or the
Blackboard days, then please do not hesitate to contact me at the
details below.

Regards,

Carl O'Keefe
Regional Sales Manager UK and Ireland

9 Tedburn Close
Liverpool
L25 3NS
Tel/Fax 0151 498 4583
Mobile  0498 855428

Create a free course at http://www.blackboard.com
[log in to unmask]

Visit the Blackboard Resource Centre:Discipline specific news, full text
articles. Click the Resources button or go to
http://resources.blackboard.com


********* END OF CHEST DATA MESSENGER: 19th January 2001 ***********