Intute
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Intute is a free Web service facilitating access to online resources for students, teachers, and researchers in the UK further education and higher education sectors. The basis of the Intute service is a large database of resources submitted and edited by subject specialists. Each resource is reviewed and described via various metadata fields, such as which subject discipline(s) it will be useful to, what type of resource it is, who created it, who its intended audience is, what temporal or geographical coverage the resource has, and so on.
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[edit] History of Intute
Intute was formed in July 2006 after the merger of the eight semi-autonomous "hubs" that formed the Resource Discovery Network (RDN). These hubs each served particular academic disciplines:
- Altis - Hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism
- Artifact - Arts and creative industries
- Biome - Health and life sciences
- EEVL - Engineering, mathematics, and computing
- GEsource - Geography and the environment
- Humbul - Humanities
- Psigate - physical sciences
- SOSIG - Social sciences
The restructuring and rebranding was undertaken to create a service with a more uniform identity and appearance, better cross-searching facilities, and more focused technical and management teams. As part of the restructuring, the eight RDN hubs were reorganised into four subject groups. This process also incorporated the Virtual Training Suite, a series of continually updated, free online Internet training tutorials for over 65 subject areas.
Despite the creation of the new groups, the Intute service is still geographically distributed, with staff based at several UK universities.
- Intute Executive (MIMAS, University of Manchester)
- Intute Arts and Humanities (University of Oxford / Manchester Metropolitan University)
- Intute Health and Life Sciences (University of Nottingham)
- Intute Science and Technology (University of Manchester / Heriot-Watt University)
- Intute Social Sciences (University of Birmingham / University of Bristol)
- Intute Virtual Training Suite (University of Bristol)
[edit] Funding
Intute is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). Some of the subject groups receive funding from additional sources: Intute Arts and Humanities receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC); Intute Health and Life Sciences receives funding from the Wellcome Trust; and Intute Social Sciences receives additional funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
[edit] Functionality
Intute's online database may be searched or browsed using a standard Web browser. The database contains well over 100,000 records and continues to grow. Old records are reviewed regularly by subject experts to ensure that information is as current as possible. The advanced search engine enables users to search the database by keyword, subject, or resource type, whilst the browse structure enables time period and resource type filtering, as well as the ability to restrict searches to within particular browse headings.
Intute offers a personalisation service, "MyIntute", which enables users to tag records, set up email alerts, export data, and construct remotely-maintained lists of resources that can be used as reading lists.
It also offers the Virtual Training Suite, with over 60 free online tutorials teaching Internet research skills for most of the subjects taught in UK universities and colleges.
