Mark van Harmelen was directly appointed by the South African Cabinet to lead a senior-level team to align government, industry and educational stakeholders, and to formulate the initial shape of and strategy for the Meraka Institute. The Institute was subsequently established in 2005.
Jorum
Strategic consultancy for Mimas, A JISC National Data Centre, examining the future prospects for Jorum, an elearning specific repository. Recommended the establishment of an open access service, subsequently established as JorumOpen.
Other
Mark has also performed strategic work for a variety of clients, including research strategy for National/Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd), and implementation strategy for diverse multinationals.
Audit, change management, education
Audit
We have performed business process and content audits for a variety of multinational clients. Our largest success to date has been saving a client US$24M in direct costs (mid 90s value) together with retention of a significant market share.
Technical transformation and change management
We design and manage change in specialist technical areas. This varies from client adoption of specific design methods, e.g. use of UML in the design and implementation cycle, to the use of a particular implementation technologies technology across an entire organisation.
For example, we advised on the transformation of an EDS-owned company’s implementation process, achieving a transformation from FORTRAN and assembly language to object oriented model-based design and implementation in C++.
Education and training
We teach advanced Computer Science courses at MSc level in the University of Manchester’s top-rated School of Computer Science.
We also occasionally provide educational services for commercial clients. We have delivery capacity in diverse topics spanning design, operating systems and implementation technologies.
Technical and applied research
doop
A little hack with Spotlight Kid (about four days work in total) to create an augmented reality iPhone app that is mashed up with Twitter and Google myMaps. For demonstration at ALT-C 2009.
EIE
Extensions for the Information Environment: Design and construction of the Manchester Personal Learning Environment, mPLE, and treatment of library catalogue records as social objects; a la Flickr images, both in mPLE and on the Web.
Enabling search of library catalogues and reading lists that is personalised and explorable on the basis of personal context and library loan data that is aggregated from participating libraries.
Public demonstrator, personalised search engine: September 2009, see also this post.
Improving the Copac user experience:
The project includes building a structured (FRBRised) database of the 32 million library catalogue records in Copac, creation of an prototype interface for Copac to provide a better user experience when searching and using search results, and assessing the usability of the interface in user trials.
The project recommended leveraging aggregated library use data to provide search personalisation facilities for learners, teachers and researchers, and proposed an architectural approach at a national scale.
The DPIE (Developing Personalisation for the Information Environment) Project investigated ways of increasing the usability and utility of the JISC Information Environment (IE) and some of its constituent services. The project was particularly concerned with two topics, personalisation for users of IE services, and integration of Web 2.0 services into the IE.
The architectural approach formulated during the project is being implemented in the Extensions to the Information Environment Project. This architecture was prototyped during the DPIE Project.
A project in conjunction with the University of Manchester. The project predated the current PLE movement, and developed a framework for central server and personal computer based learning support.
The virtual file system developed in the project won an award for code quality, and subsequently became the core of the University of Oxford’s ASK repository.
past projects
Strategy
Meraka Institute
Mark van Harmelen was directly appointed by the South African Cabinet to lead a senior-level team to align government, industry and educational stakeholders, and to formulate the initial shape of and strategy for the Meraka Institute. The Institute was subsequently established in 2005.
Jorum
Strategic consultancy for Mimas, A JISC National Data Centre, examining the future prospects for Jorum, an elearning specific repository. Recommended the establishment of an open access service, subsequently established as JorumOpen.
Other
Mark has also performed strategic work for a variety of clients, including research strategy for National/Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd), and implementation strategy for diverse multinationals.
Audit, change management, education
Audit
We have performed business process and content audits for a variety of multinational clients. Our largest success to date has been saving a client US$24M in direct costs (mid 90s value) together with retention of a significant market share.
Technical transformation and change management
We design and manage change in specialist technical areas. This varies from client adoption of specific design methods, e.g. use of UML in the design and implementation cycle, to the use of a particular implementation technologies technology across an entire organisation.
For example, we advised on the transformation of an EDS-owned company’s implementation process, achieving a transformation from FORTRAN and assembly language to object oriented model-based design and implementation in C++.
Education and training
We teach advanced Computer Science courses at MSc level in the University of Manchester’s top-rated School of Computer Science.
We also occasionally provide educational services for commercial clients. We have delivery capacity in diverse topics spanning design, operating systems and implementation technologies.
Technical and applied research
doop
A little hack with Spotlight Kid (about four days work in total) to create an augmented reality iPhone app that is mashed up with Twitter and Google myMaps. For demonstration at ALT-C 2009.
EIE
Extensions for the Information Environment: Design and construction of the Manchester Personal Learning Environment, mPLE, and treatment of library catalogue records as social objects; a la Flickr images, both in mPLE and on the Web.
mPLE announcement, demonstration and trial use: ALT-C 2009.
The social objects from EIE are being used as the search results in the Mosaic demonstrator. See above.
Main technologies: PHP, Flex, mySQL
Client: JISC
Mosaic
Enabling search of library catalogues and reading lists that is personalised and explorable on the basis of personal context and library loan data that is aggregated from participating libraries.
Public demonstrator, personalised search engine: September 2009, see also this post.
Main technologies: Java, Solr
Client: JISC via Sero Ltd
iCue
Improving the Copac user experience:
The project includes building a structured (FRBRised) database of the 32 million library catalogue records in Copac, creation of an prototype interface for Copac to provide a better user experience when searching and using search results, and assessing the usability of the interface in user trials.
Main technologies: Python, Solr, mySQL
Client: Mimas
TILE
The TILE (Towards Implementation of Library 2.0 and the E-Framework) Project investigated the implementation of library services based on Web 2.0, their professional implications and their institutional impacts.
The project recommended leveraging aggregated library use data to provide search personalisation facilities for learners, teachers and researchers, and proposed an architectural approach at a national scale.
With Sero Ltd, PsyDev Ltd, and Ken Chad Consulting.
DPIE
The DPIE (Developing Personalisation for the Information Environment) Project investigated ways of increasing the usability and utility of the JISC Information Environment (IE) and some of its constituent services. The project was particularly concerned with two topics, personalisation for users of IE services, and integration of Web 2.0 services into the IE.
The architectural approach formulated during the project is being implemented in the Extensions to the Information Environment Project. This architecture was prototyped during the DPIE Project.
SERM
Analysis and Synthesis of Reference Model Projects One major output produced as a result of our contribution to this project was a synthesis of design methods. This continues in the tradition of model-based design described in Object Modeling and User Interface Design, a book edited by Mark van Harmelen.
The Manchester PLE/VLE project
A project in conjunction with the University of Manchester. The project predated the current PLE movement, and developed a framework for central server and personal computer based learning support.
The virtual file system developed in the project won an award for code quality, and subsequently became the core of the University of Oxford’s ASK repository.
Pure research
Web 2.0 in Higher Education
Web 2.0 Content Sharing for Learning in Higher Education, by Tom Franklin and Mark van Harmelen, was an early influential report on the use of Web 2.0 in higher education in the UK. The report was later broadened to international coverage and refined for the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education.