The UK MAN Managers Group (originally known as the UK MANs Group) was formed in 1998 and has met regularly, four times a year with high attendance. The meetings are usually attended by one person from each MAN, who represents the MAN rather than their own institution. There has been a high level of continuity of representation at the meetings, which has been very productive.
The Group’s mailing list has three people per MAN (typically the chair of the board or management committee, the day to day manager and the chair of the technical group). The mailing list is closed to allow reasonably confidential discussions.
The Group took a positive decision, which has recently been reconfirmed, to be independent of any of the existing committee structures and this has worked well. The Group functions more as a trade association than as an advisory or decision making body.
One of the Group’s functions is to help maintain a consistent approach to the provision of MANs across the UK. To this end the Group welcomes regular liaison with other bodies with an interest in MANs, such as JISC, JCN, UCISA, UKERNA, UCISA NG and JNUG as well as providing a forum for information exchange between the MANs UKERNA regularly attends a portion of the UK MAN Managers Group meetings and liaison with other groups is maintained by cross membership. Collective negotiation with UKERNA on contractual issues has avoided considerable duplicated effort
The Group has also worked with OFTEL on MAN licensing issues.
The Group has a different focus to the JISC Chairs of MANs Group, as it is made up of people who have a day to day involvement in the operation of MANs. The UK MAN Managers Group deals with high level technical issues as well as organisational, financial and contractual matters. Many of the regular attendees are also members of the JISC Chairs of MANs Group which facilitates good liaison and avoids duplication of effort.
The Convenor of the Group is Dave Vinograd (vinograd@multics.org), formerly a Board member for LMN. The Deputy Convenor is Mike Byrne (mike.byrne@lense.net.uk) from LeNSE and the Secretary is Kit Powell (c.j.powell@bristol.ac.uk), from SWERN.
MANs that are members of the Group.
A checklist of issues relating to formation of MAN companies.