PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release, 13th July 2007
Great strides for Intute - one year on.
Intute, the free national online service, celebrates its first birthday
today by renewing its commitment to enable lecturers, researchers and
students to discover and access quality Internet resources. Over the
last year, Intute has seen a rapid rise in usage and the launch of new
value added features and services. It now looks forward to a future
based on this strong foundation which will see Intute continue to take
innovative approaches to delivering the best of the Web for education
and research within this ever changing Internet environment.
Intute, funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), offers
a range of tools and services, responding to the need for quality
assured Internet information and Internet research skills for the
academic community. "Intute offers what search engines don’t” says
Stephen Hoare in The Guardian, “commitment to quality – by using subject
specialists in universities and colleges to hand-pick Web resources that
will support education and research.” What this means in practice is a
searchable database, across all subject areas, of over 115,000 Internet
resources and websites, complimented by over 60 revised and updated
Virtual Training Suite tutorials, Blogs, MyIntute, and much more.
“I’m delighted with the success of the service so far and the
opportunities we have had to engage with the community and take on other
exciting developments, for example the Intute Repository Search project”
says Caroline Williams, Executive Director of Intute. “We have
established a unique collective expertise through our partner
institutions and contributors which I believe will enable us to go from
strength to strength.” The success of Intute over the last year
has been unquestionable, with over 250,000 hits on the website every day
and over 3,000 registered users of the MyIntute personalisation service.
In addition, since the successful launch of the new Informs, the
interactive tool for creating online tutorials, the number of
subscribers has doubled. In response, JISC has made a commitment to
funding Intute for a further five years.
As Intute looks to the future, the needs of its users are at the
forefront of its drive to be a service developed for the community by
the community. As Stephen Downes of the Canadian National Research
Council observes, "What Intute represents is a turning point in the
sharing of academic resources.” To this end, Intute proactively works
with institutions and national bodies to integrate and tailor-make its
services to fit individual needs. New technologies and the advent of
Web 2.0 present exciting opportunities to engage and collaborate with
teachers, learners and researchers.
Intute is freely available at www.intute.ac.uk
UK university and college staff are invited to order free Intute flyers
and support materials for their departments and libraries from
www.intute.ac.uk/feedback
For further information, please contact
Lisa Charnock
Intute Executive
Mimas
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester
M13 9PL
Tel: 0161 275 0620
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Notes for Editors
Please feel free to use any of our logos and graphics, which can be
downloaded from:
http://www.intute.ac.uk/media.html
Intute is hosted by Mimas at The University of Manchester, and is a
collaboration between a whole host of partners and contributors. At the
heart of the organisation is a consortium of seven universities,
bringing together a wealth of expertise and knowledge. Intute is funded
by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), with support from the
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The seven collaborating institutions are:
University of Birmingham
University of Bristol
Heriot Watt University
The University of Manchester
Manchester Metropolitan University
University of Nottingham
University of Oxford
For further information about Intute see:
http://www.intute.ac.uk/about.html
For further information about JISC see:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk
For further information about the AHRC see
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/
For further information about Mimas see
http://www.mimas.ac.uk
Contact:
Lisa Charnock
Intute Executive
Mimas
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester
M13 9PL
Tel: 0161 2750620
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For up to date information on forthcoming workshops and free visits
please see the online ARLIS/UK & Ireland Events Calendar 2007 at
http://www.arlis.org.uk/even/
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