Scran
Encyclopedia
Scran is a Scottish
online resource for educational use by the public, school
s, further education
and higher education
. It presents 360,000 (still and moving) images and sounds contributed by museum
s, galleries
, archive
s and the media
. It is a registered charity
, originally set up using National Lottery
funding.
or for particular learning applications. The online service also provides a range of tools for users "to do stuff with things they find". A number of institutions use Scran's open source
online solution - Scran-in-a-Box - to provide access to their own data.
(RCAHMS), The Scran Trust and Scran Ltd.
, The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland
, Museums Galleries Scotland
and, by invitation, the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum.
funded through the UK Lottery. It developed an advanced licensing system, commended by many, in which the institution retained ownership of the digitised assets, but made these available under licence to Scran. There followed further large grant aid partner projects with NOF Digitise funding through the National Library of Scotland
.
and Google Earth
and enhanced cross searching such as SRU
/SRW.
and PHP
under Linux
. The searchable database is over 1.5GB
and total storage including all assets is over 5TB
. Sixty additional websites are hosted as linked services.
and Robert Gordon University
use "Scran-in-a-Box" solutions.
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
online resource for educational use by the public, school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
s, further education
Further education
Further education is a term mainly used in connection with education in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is post-compulsory education , that is distinct from the education offered in universities...
and higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
. It presents 360,000 (still and moving) images and sounds contributed by museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
s, galleries
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
, archive
Archive
An archive is a collection of historical records, or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of an organization...
s and the media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
. It is a registered charity
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
, originally set up using National Lottery
National Lottery (United Kingdom)
The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the then...
funding.
General Description
Scran works in partnership with over 300 cultural institutions in Scotland and the rest of the UK who contribute material to the online service. The online learning resource service hosts 360,000 images, movies and sounds from museums, galleries, archives and the media. It can be used as a superior form of clip artClip art
Clip art, in the graphic arts, refers to pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively in both personal and commercial projects, ranging from home-printed greeting cards to commercial candles. Clip art comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However,...
or for particular learning applications. The online service also provides a range of tools for users "to do stuff with things they find". A number of institutions use Scran's open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
online solution - Scran-in-a-Box - to provide access to their own data.
Scran's Organisational Structure
Scran has three organisational levels: The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of ScotlandRoyal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government 'sponsored' [financed and with oversight] through Historic Scotland, an executive agency of the Scottish Government...
(RCAHMS), The Scran Trust and Scran Ltd.
The Scran Trust
The Scran Trust - a registered charity - aims to provide educational access to digital materials representing material culture and history.Scran Ltd
Scran Ltd is the wholly owned trading arm of the Scran Trust. It provides the public service website of the Scran Trust and the online subscription service. It is one of the largest educational online services in the UK, supporting over 4,000 schools, libraries, colleges and universities.Formation
Scran was formed in 1996, and its founding partners were The National Museums of ScotlandNational Museums of Scotland
National Museums Scotland is the organization that runs several national museums of Scotland. It is one of the country's National Collections, and holds internationally important collections of natural sciences, decorative arts, world cultures, science and technology, and Scottish history and...
, The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland
Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government 'sponsored' [financed and with oversight] through Historic Scotland, an executive agency of the Scottish Government...
, Museums Galleries Scotland
Museums Galleries Scotland
Museums Galleries Scotland, until 2008 the Scottish Museums Council, is a membership organisation offering support to museums and galleries throughout Scotland...
and, by invitation, the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum.
Initial Work
In its first five years, it engaged in a wide ranging scheme of grant awards which allowed cultural organisations to digitise parts of their collections to be made available for educational purposes. This was Millennium CommissionMillennium Commission
The Millennium Commission in the United Kingdom was set up to aid communities at the end of the 2nd millennium and the start of the 3rd millennium. It used funding raised through the UK National Lottery....
funded through the UK Lottery. It developed an advanced licensing system, commended by many, in which the institution retained ownership of the digitised assets, but made these available under licence to Scran. There followed further large grant aid partner projects with NOF Digitise funding through the National Library of Scotland
National Library of Scotland
The National Library of Scotland is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. It is based in a collection of buildings in Edinburgh city centre. The headquarters is on George IV Bridge, between the Old Town and the university quarter...
.
Recent Work
Most recently, Scran has added records from Rotherham Council and from the Scottish Motor Museum Trust. Technical additions include "create" functions that allow user creation of instant PDFs, the ability for users to output mini-websites, "mash up" facilities to Google MapsGoogle Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
and Google Earth
Google Earth
Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...
and enhanced cross searching such as SRU
Search/Retrieve via URL
Search/Retrieve via URL is a standard search protocol for Internet search queries, utilizing Contextual Query Language , a standard query syntax for representing queries.-External links:* at Library of Congress...
/SRW.
Awards
- Silver MUSE from the American Association of MuseumsAmerican Association of MuseumsThe American Association of Museums is a non-profit association that has brought museums together since its founding in 1906, helping develop standards and best practices, gathering and sharing knowledge, and advocating on issues of concern to the museum community...
(AAM), 'In recognition of the Highest Standards of Excellence in the use of Media and Technology…'. - The ‘Jason Farradane’ award of the Institute of Information Scientists as "an outstanding piece of work in the Information Field".
- Listed as one of the top ten NGfL sites in the BECTaBectaBecta was a non-departmental public body ] funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, in the UK It was a charity and a company limited by guarantee. In the post-election spending review in May 2010, it was announced that Becta was to be abolished...
/GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
Awards - Listed as one of the Top Ten Online Museums in the world by The Guardian newspaper.
- Scottish Museum of the Year award for multimedia
- British Archaeological Society / Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
award for multimedia
Scope
The service hosts over 360,000 resources with educational materials on top of that and delivers a peak of 1.1 million hits per day.Software & Hardware
Scran utilises open source software and runs on a cluster server configuration with MySQLMySQL
MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
and PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
under Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
. The searchable database is over 1.5GB
Gigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
and total storage including all assets is over 5TB
Terabyte
The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes...
. Sixty additional websites are hosted as linked services.
Scran-in-a-Box
The whole system developed by Scran including ScranBase and all the tools like Create and Albums is available for others to use as Scran-in-a Box. The National Museums Scotland Collections Database, the National Burns Collection, the William Wallace Website, The Virtual Hamilton Palace TrustHamilton Palace
Hamilton Palace was a large country house located north-east of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. The former seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, it was built in 1695 and subsequently much enlarged. The house was demolished in 1921 due to ground subsidence despite inadequate evidence for that...
and Robert Gordon University
Robert Gordon University
Robert Gordon University is located in Aberdeen, Scotland. Building on over 250 years involvement in education, it was granted university status in 1992. Robert Gordon University currently has approximately 16,407 students at its two campuses at Garthdee and the City Centre, studying on over 145...
use "Scran-in-a-Box" solutions.