The Eduserv Foundation was a UK nonprofit educational 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...

 that worked to realise the benefits of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for learners, researchers and the institutions that serve them.

The Foundation operated between July 2003 until 2008 during which period it launched a number of programmes of activity including: Eduserv Research Grants; Assistive Technology Licences; Tutor Guides for Vocational Education; and Information Literacy initiatives.

The Foundation primarily funded work in the areas of:

• repositories
  Institutional repository
  An Institutional repository is an online locus for collecting, preserving, and disseminating - in digital form - the intellectual output of an institution, particularly a research institution....
  
  , metadata
  Metadata
  The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
  
   and open access;
• access and identity management;
• service architectures
  Service-oriented architecture
  In software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
  
  ;
• effective elearning.

The Foundation was part of Eduserv, which is based in Bath, UK, and which continues to carry out research and innovation projects that build on the Foundations work.

External links

• Eduserv Research and Innovation page - http://www.eduserv.org.uk/research/
• eFoundations blog - http://efoundations.typepad.com/