Jisc's student voter registration service, which allows university and college students to quickly and easily register to vote, has reached its first milestone – more than 1,000 student sign ups.
As the government gears up for a general election, it is hoped that the student voter registration service will help to increase democratic engagement from a voting cohort that is under-represented in elections1.
It will also significantly reduce the administrative burden on participating universities and colleges in England, which are now required by the Office for Students to enable the electoral registration of students.
The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 puts the onus on universities and colleges to do this. But that means a whole lot of extra work for academic registrars, setting up a raft of new systems and revising rules and practices around the collection of data. It’s an expensive and time-consuming headache.
A simple solution for the higher and further education?sectors has been developed by Jisc, in consultation with the?Academic Registrars Council, the?Association of Heads of University Administration, and the UK’s electoral registrar community.
With students’ consent, the service collects essential information from the university (such as date of birth and full name) and the student (National Insurance number) and automatically transfers it to the relevant, participating electoral registrars at local authorities, reducing the effort and expense it would take for universities and colleges to work with multiple electoral registrars across the UK.
Jisc takes care of the contracting and the data is transferred securely via the?UK Access Management Federation, which almost every university and college already uses.
The service, which emerged from a suggestion by Dr Paul Greatrix, registrar at the University of Nottingham, was piloted successfully ahead of the launch on 1 April, 2019. So far, 17 universities have signed up, with many others interested in doing so.
Dr Greatrix, whose university has started using the student voter registration service this term, says:
“Enabling student voter registration has been a significant challenge for many years. Now that all universities in England have a legal obligation to help enable students to get on to the electoral register, every institution will want to do this, as quickly and securely as possible.
“I’ve been really keen to address this problem and was convinced if anyone could come up with a secure and smart IT solution then Jisc could. I was really pleased, therefore, to be able to support this project to develop a straightforward way to enable more students to get on the electoral register and it is great to see how many universities are now getting on board.
“It’s vital that institutions enable their students to play a full part in the democratic process and I would strongly encourage all universities and students’ unions to get involved.”
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Jisc and global publisher Wiley are poised to digitise a one-million-page collection on the history of science.
The collection will largely comprise content from the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), now the British Science Association (BSA). UK universities will also be able to put their collections forward for inclusion in this digital archive provided the content complements the BAAS archive and meets practical and logistic considerations.
The collaboration between Jisc and Wiley is the first to offer universities a chance to influence what material is digitised by a commercial publisher.
Paola Marchionni, head of digital resources for teaching, learning and research at Jisc, says:
“Digitising specialist archives is a costly enterprise and, over the last few years we have been exploring new business models to support digitisation of collections.
“This deal is a first for Jisc and Wiley and was struck in response to our members’ concern over the cost of content and the desire to democratise access to all institutions, no matter what their size or income. We are hoping this project will pave the way for similar alliances with other publishers and collections in the future.”
Through this partnership, the resulting digital collection will be free to all UK universities and colleges and, once the licences to the content expire, will be made available, openly and globally password-free. Scholars and teachers will be able to freely access materials dating roughly between 1800 to the 1970s via the Wiley Digital Archives platform.
The history of science collection will be available from March next year, giving access to primary source material that might otherwise have been hard to access, and difficult to use.
Jay Flynn, chief product officer at Wiley Research, adds,
“We are thrilled to be working so collaboratively with Jisc, the British Science Association, and leading UK universities to add a new collection to the Wiley Digital Archives program. Wiley Digital Archives allows researchers to peer into the science of the past to create scholarship for the future.
"This partnership will help the BSA and UK universities to unlock their content for a larger research audience through our global platform and expand access into educational settings at the same time. Wiley Digital Archive’s built-in text and data mining tools will increase discoverability while adding context to this powerful content.”
Katherine Mathieson, chief executive at the British Science Association, also adds,
“The British Science Association is delighted to have the opportunity to share its extensive archives of the history of science with researchers across the world. Currently these papers are only available to scholars who can travel to the archives kindly looked after by the Bodleian Library at Oxford. This transformative partnership will extend access to many more researchers.
"These papers show that from the very beginning, scientists wanted to share their knowledge with everyone. We continue to realise this vision today through our work with communities and schools which supports our vision of a world where science is seen as a fundamental part of society and culture.”
UK university libraries and archives with collections on the history of science in Great Britain are invited to put their collections forward to be included and digitised free of charge. Find out more about how to get involved.
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Today, leading independent think-tank Demos launches its interim report, Research 4.0: Research in the age of automation (pdf), supported by Jisc.
The report explores the development and impact of fourth industrial revolution technologies on the research sector and current state of play in ‘automated research’. It pays particular attention to artificial intelligence (AI) related techniques applied to modern research, from natural language programming to computer vision.
Dr Paul Feldman, Jisc’s chief executive, comments:
“The convergence of ‘Industry 4.0’ technologies like AI and the Internet of Things could transform the UK’s research sector – from how research is done to what research it’s even possible to carry out.
“Our vision is for the UK to be the best research and education nation in its use of digital technologies, which is why we’re supporting Demos’s work. We want to build on this report’s findings and help those working across the research sector understand and prepare for the new opportunities presented by these advanced technologies.”
Dr Sarah Main, CEO of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, comments:
"The government has set a target to transform our economy for the future by doubling research intensity over the next decade. Automation will play an important part in that, and this report helps us consider how to positively harness its potential."
Part of a two-phase project, this report sets out several questions for how best to forecast the impact of ‘Industry 4.0’ technologies on research in the next 20 years. The second phase will draw on the insights and expertise of researchers, technologists, policymakers, university and other civil society leaders to identify likely developments in automated research over the long-term.
A final report published in early 2020 will make recommendations to address the practical, ethical and economic challenges presented by ‘Research 4.0’ and help secure the UK’s position as a global research leader in the years to come.
Read the Research 4.0: Research in the age of automation interim report (pdf).
To contribute to Jisc’s exploration of Research 4.0 or register for our upcoming research community workshop on 28 November 2019, visit our event page.
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The cost of tuning 33 pianos twice a term and a pair of harpsichords every two weeks will strike a familiar chord with many further education music departments.
But what if only some of those instruments needed tuning? What if some were barely being played? Could you save money by only tuning the instruments you were confident needed it?
“At the moment we don’t know”, says Jon Cole of Morley College who’s on a mission to ensure the college maximises the full potential of its facilities, “but we’re going to find out.”
Since attending a Jisc event on intelligent campus, Jon, who is head of management information services at the central London college, has been working with Jisc and Safehouse to explore ways sensors can capture data from around campus to inform decisions and fine-tune efficiencies.
“Steinways, grand pianos and harpsichords must be kept in tip-top condition, and that comes at a cost. If there’s data available that helps us to reduce that, we want to find it.
“Thanks to funding from Jisc to pilot Internet of Things technology, we’ve installed two types of sensors into 35 instruments, one will capture data on environmental conditions – temperature, humidity and light – and the other, small 2cm x 5cm accelerometers, will measure the intensity at which they are being played.
“We hope that once the data starts populating the dashboards Jisc has built for us, we will begin to see how we can be more efficient with our maintenance. Who knows, if we find that some pianos are being played too intensively, we may even be able to use the data as a teaching aid.”
It’s not just musical instruments collecting data but classrooms and offices too. The campus is a varied mix of 20th-century architecture from the 20s, 50s and 70s which can create challenges.
“Some rooms have windows that can be opened, others don’t; some have air-conditioning, others don’t, so regulating temperature across the whole campus can be a challenge for the facilities team. We know anecdotally that some rooms might be warmer than we’d like in summer and others too bright or dark at certain times of day, but without quantifiable evidence it’s difficult to act on that information. What is the optimum room temperature for learning anyway?”
As part of an initial trial, Jon and the team have installed sensors and feedback buttons in five rooms on campus: two classrooms, including an IT suite, a staff room, and two open-plan offices.
The feedback buttons will capture whether students and staff were happy with the conditions of the room while the sensors will collect data on motion and environmental conditions. This will all be fed into the dashboards so the data can be read.
Senior co-design design manager Sam Thornton, who’s been leading Jisc’s work on the project says:
“The dashboards we’ve developed for Morley College will turn data from the sensors into usable information. We’ll combine it with other information, such as external weather and timetabling data, to provide a complete picture of conditions. It’s a product we’re now hoping to offer members across the country.”
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Morley College dashboard home screenAll rights reserved Morley College dashboard home screen
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Morley College dashboard room detail pageAll rights reserved Morley College dashboard room detail page
One challenge Jon is hoping to help solve at his college is capacity. He explains:
“We know that booked rooms are not always used but what we don’t know is when and how often this happens. Some sessions may be shoe-horned into gaps in the timetable or at less desirable times but having a full picture of when rooms aren’t being used would give us the flexibility to accommodate more sessions at times our students wanted.
“Evenings are typically our busiest time but as we become more and more successful, our capacity challenges are extending to all times of day. It’s never been so important for the college to be capturing this data as it is now.”
A key priority for Jon from the start was capturing and using the data ethically:
“Although we’re not capturing any personal data, as soon as you start to combine it with other information such as who is using a room, you need to give serious consideration to data sensitivity. We’re making sure staff and students are aware that no sound or images are being capture and putting labels in the rooms where the sensors are explaining what they are and how they could help improve their learning experience. It’s an area we’ll be focusing on throughout the trial.
“Now students are back on campus and the teething problems we had with sensors have been resolved, we’re at the exciting point where we can start to see the dashboards fill with data”, concludes Jon. “Any trends around environmental conditions and learning outcomes will only be visible in the long term but I’m hoping other useful insights will be available before the end of term.”
For more information on intelligent campus, see the project page or read Jisc’s code of practice for learning analytics.
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How the University of Liverpool is improving the student experience by reviewing and optimising processes.
In this episode, John Cartwright, director of computing services at the University of Liverpool, talks about how his team are improving the student experience and saving staff time with technology.
John is joined by James Clay, head of higher education and student experience at Jisc. The pair explore the world of data, looking at how better use of it can transform teaching and power technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence.
How can data help identify ways to improve the student experience?
Director of computing services, University of Liverpool.
Head of higher education and student experience, Jisc.
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Nominees for the Campus of the Future category at the annual Green Gown awards offer some great examples of innovation and emerging technologies on the university estate.
University College London (UCL), University of Northumbria, University of the West of England (UWE), University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and University of Worcester are all shortlisted in the Jisc-sponsored category of the annual Green Gown awards, which recognise sustainability best practice in further and higher education.
From the adoption of emerging technologies to innovative and sustainable practices in horticulture, the category nominees show how universities are striving to create greener, intelligent campuses that offer the best possible student experiences. Here are five examples of innovation that the nominated campuses highlight.
By capturing data on how buildings or spaces are used, universities can make decisions about utilities use and resource distribution. They can even use this data for planning the curriculum and how learning space is allocated.
Northumbria is using footfall cameras in its new computer and information science building, counting people in and out, recording their dwell times and frequency of visits. Meanwhile, at UCL, sensors are placed under each desk space in its new student centre, demonstrating occupancy rates consistently more than 80%, with hundreds of students making use of services in the evenings and at weekends.
Having the right conditions for learning is important and the Green Gown shortlist shows how universities are investing in intelligent systems that control lighting, ventilation and heating.
Worcester’s flexible open spaces are fitted with intelligent lighting, user-controlled real-time energy management, heating, ventilation and cooling, which are improving the student experience and campus sustainability.
This technology can even in be used in open plan teaching areas, allowing them to work as seven distinct zones, each with its own smart lighting system which monitors occupation and shuts down when not in use.
Northumbria also has intelligent buildings, with embedded sensors for monitoring energy, water, and temperature.
There is growing evidence that active and collaborative learning can improve outcomes and universities are responding by moving away from traditional lecture theatres to more flexible and interactive learning environments.
UWS is using emerging technologies to embrace the latest developments in higher education pedagogy in a shift away from traditional lecture layouts. By blending modern teaching methods and contemporary learning environments, UWS is seeking to provide staff and students with a flexible environment that is both fit for today and for future generations.
For UCL, with more than 40,000 students and an increasingly dense and space-constrained campus, there has been pressure to provide spaces that support its focus on flexible and adaptable spaces for learning and research. Its recent development of a student centre was conceived and designed exclusively to enhance the student experience.
Northumbria has a multi-zone space, giving 24/7 access to IT provision and providing the bulk of its active learning library, while at Worcester, the open plan nature of the teaching zones encourages interdisciplinary and inter-year collaboration with peer to peer critique.
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Nursing and midwifery students at UWSAll rights reserved
Cutting-edge technology, such as mixed reality, is increasingly used in areas where students learn and socialise, as well as research facilities. At UWS, nursing and midwifery students are learning in the country’s most modern simulated wards and the university is also home to a cutting-edge extreme environments laboratory, designed to replicate environmental extremes, including temperature, altitude and humidity.
For UWE, the future campus is one that is bee friendly. The Frenchay Beeline project is a scheme bringing nature into the heart of the university through planting edible pollinators and replacing grass and scrubland with meadows.
One benefit of the project, which runs across 30 locations on UWE’s Frenchay campus, is that it gives staff, students and visitors access to free herbs, fruit and vegetables, while also helping to enhance biodiversity.
Grounds manager Richie Fluester says that, in coming years, the university can extend the use of technologies to manage the campus, including next-generation batteries and innovative horticulture methods. But he adds that the Beeline project is proof that the future campus can also have “a softer side”.
Sue Attewell, Jisc's head of change - FE and skills says:
"At Jisc we’re always keen to support innovation and drive the use of emerging technologies. We sponsored the campus of the future category as it aligns with our intelligent campus project, plus our Education 4.0 vision, and we’re really pleased with the quality of entries."
Find out more about Jisc’s vision for Education 4.0, which embraces many of these trends. Winners of the Green Gown awards will be announced on 26 November at a ceremony in Glasgow.
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To strengthen its offer to the further education sector, Jisc has appointed former chief executive and principal of Richmond upon Thames College, Robin Ghurbhurun, to join its executive leadership team.
Robin, who is already familiar to Jisc as a former board member, starts on Monday 23 September as managing director of further education and skills.
Reporting directly to the chief executive, Paul Feldman, Robin will focus on improving the portfolio for FE, with the aim of making UK colleges world leaders in the use of edtech in teaching and learning.
CEO Paul Feldman says:
“I’m very pleased that Robin has joined the team as our senior owner of the FE sector and his knowledge and experience will be invaluable in making a real difference to our members. We have been looking to bolster our team in this space and Robin’s appointment will do just that.”
Robin says:
“I am delighted to be joining one of the world’s leading edtech organisations.
"My role will be to ensure Jisc supplies coordinated and responsive digital services to the FE and skills sector. The aim is to provide best-in-class solutions for connectivity, infrastructure, security, digital content and data analysis to power the digital experiences of today’s students and tomorrow’s colleges of the future.”?
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Jisc's new 3D scanning service takes the hard work out of creating immersive content.
Help is at hand for educators and researchers with cupboards full of rare, fragile or awkward objects and artefacts that are difficult to bring to a wider audience.
Jisc has begun trialling a studio-quality 3D scanning service focused on research and education, using state-of-the-art hardware from London-based tech startup Reality Zero One. This free service will help to plug a gap in higher education, where expensive and complex scanning equipment is a rarity.
The scanner can produce 2D or 3D images that could transport learners to places they might never be able to visit in person, travel back in time, or work with items that are too precious or fragile for them to hold in real life.
Simply send Jisc the objects to be scanned, and our experts will do the rest. The resulting digital objects can be downloaded and used in several formats, from web pages through to virtual and augmented reality apps and experiences.
Anyone who’s interested in watching the scanning process is welcome to observe in person.
Sarah Fitzpatrick, head of history and history of art at the University of Buckingham, says:
"We are very excited about giving our students access to high-quality digital imaging of key works from the curriculum so that they can better appreciate artistic techniques and detailed issues relating to conservation and restoration. Jisc’s support and expertise complements our specialist humanities knowledge. Together, we are realising the possibilities offered by digital technologies and techniques to deliver new learning experiences to our students."
By offering 3D scanning centrally as a shared service for UK educators and researchers, Jisc is able to offer huge economies of scale. The pilot 3D scanning service is free to the UK research and education sector, and organisations using it will be able to use the resulting 3D objects however they choose. Jisc will retain the right to license them to other organisations to generate income to cover running costs.
Fill in this online form to indicate your requirements, and someone will be in touch within two working days. Or come along to the Jisc-supported immersive technology in education meet-up on 3 October 2019 to learn more about 3D scanning and try it for yourself. Bring an object you'd like to scan! (Up to 50cm cubed in size).
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Jisc has announced a new appointment to its leadership team - Karen Foster. From 17 September, Karen will lead a new data analytics directorate as executive director.
Karen joins Jisc from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), with 22 members of her team. Jisc and HESA have a long-standing and successful relationship and the new directorate will build on services such as Heidi Plus and interactive insights to deliver business intelligence for HE providers, the public sector and charities.
Karen says:
“At a time when technology is ever more important in the delivery and management of education, our universities are increasingly realising the power of data-driven decision making. The new directorate will play a key role in providing higher education institutions with the information they need to enhance the student experience and meet business goals, now and into the future.
“I am delighted to be bringing together an experienced team of experts from across Jisc and HESA to deliver leading-edge products and services to higher education institutions. These services include a learning analytics solution that will enhance student teaching, learning and success, an upgraded UK HE data analytics service, and a centre for HE data and intelligence enabling data-driven business decisions.”
The integration of HESA’s data and analytics team into Jisc builds on the recommendations of the 2017 Bell Review for sector agency efficiency. HESA will continue to fulfil its role as the designated data body in England and in providing the collection, assurance and dissemination of data across the UK.
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A sticky campus is a digitally-enabled space where students want to spend time, even when they don’t have a formal teaching session to go to. It’s a learning environment designed to give students everything they need for collaborative and solitary study, and to promote active learning. It supports inclusivity and enables rich learning experiences.
Two of our student partners, Jake Forecast and Paulina Pawlak, have been trying out a sticky campus for themselves. Here’s their verdict.
The tutor can show their smart device screen on a main screen, and students’ screens can appear here, too. It enables a collective learning experience and makes it possible for teaching staff to set work and give instant comment and feedback as the students create it on screen.
Students can post questions as they think of them, and get answers straight away.
Quieter students can ask their questions without having to speak out loud. They don’t even have to identify themselves; their name only appears on screen if they choose to sign in.
Paulina and Jake both note that if lectures are dull and over-reliant on PowerPoint, there’s no real need for students to attend university – and it’s pretty unrewarding when they do. In contrast, sticky campus offers more opportunities for engagement and for learning in new ways.
...from staff and from other students. Our student guinea pigs especially like the polling tools as a way to keep people engaged and to identify topics that need more discussion.
Paulina and Jake say the sticky campus space feels like it has been designed with students and their learning needs in mind. They say they want to feel like valued customers and to be given a learning experience that is high quality. Uninspiring, one-size-fits-all teaching makes them feel fobbed off and patronised.
Richer learning experiences keep students engaged and encourage them to follow interesting new paths. And for Jake, the possibilities he sees in sticky campus are already giving him new ideas that could transform his own teaching practice when he begins working in primary schools.
Our own subject specialist Duncan Peberdy acknowledges that some teaching staff fight shy of the technology. That’s a shame because both Jake and Paulina feel cheated when a tutor doesn’t grasp the opportunities offered by digital tools and, they say, it’s easy to spot the ones who are just delivering teaching in the same way that they always have done.
And it’s not just academics who can drag their feet. Some students also aren’t motivated to work in new ways and may not want to engage with technology.
Making sure there’s enough space for people to work in, and that screens and seats are correctly spaced, is a challenge that can have a significant impact on collaborative working.
Paulina, in particular, frequently has lectures with 300 or so other students. She’s doubtful that sticky campus can work at that scale and there’s certainly an issue about how to get so many people connecting to a service simultaneously.
Throughout 2019 we’re taking our sticky campus roadshow to locations around the country so universities and colleges can try it out. Booking is now open for our Manchester event on 17 October 2019.
Find out more about the roadshow and our workshops, on our sticky campus project page.
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The results of the digital experience insights student survey 2019 explore how learners at UK universities and colleges engage with technology.
Published today (3 September), the results of our digital experience insights student survey provides powerful data from 29,531 students on how they engage with technology.
Data drawn from 13,389 further education (FE) students and 14,525 campus-based higher education (HE) respondents shows that only 40% in FE and 42% in HE feel their course prepares them for the digital workplace.
Worse, despite Office for Students predications than more than a million digitally skilled people will be needed by 2022, less than half of the FE students surveyed (49%) and only 70% of campus-based HE respondents agree that digital skills are needed in their chosen career.
Access the digital experience insights 2019 report
Launched at the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) annual conference, the digital experience insights student survey 2019 shares information from students at 50 UK institutions - including 13,389 students in further education (FE), 14,525 based on-campus in higher education (HE), and 1,617 online HE learners. Participants describe their attitude towards technologies and their digital learning experiences.
Overall, satisfaction levels are high, with 70% of FE students and 75% of those studying on-campus in HE rating the quality of digital teaching and learning on their course as ‘good’, ‘excellent’ or ‘best imaginable'. Further, 72% of FE students and 87% of campus-based HE students rated their organisation’s digital provision as ‘good’, ‘excellent’ or ‘best imaginable’.
Jisc student partner Sam Jenkins - a history undergraduate at the University of Winchester - comments:
“Using technology at university has helped me to engage with programmes and apps, which will be vital to my future career.”
He’s not alone. Around seven in ten students in HE and six in ten in FE agree that, when digital is used, they understand things better and enjoy learning more. Around four in ten students would like digital technology to be used on their course more than it is now - and mobile devices could present an emerging opportunity: 79% of FE students and 86% of HE students now have access to smartphones, suggesting there is value in ensuring education services and resources are mobile-optimised.
Currently, just 53% of FE students and 70% of HE students agree that their institution supports them to use their own digital devices.
Sarah Knight, Jisc’s head of change - student experience, says;
“With increasing demand for digital skills in the workplace, technology is no longer optional for colleges and universities. Authentic opportunities for all students to develop digital skills need to be embedded within courses.”
Since the digital experience insights student survey launched in 2016, more than 100,000 students have had their say, helping to shape the digital experience for future learners and contributing to a variety of initiatives in student engagement, curriculum design, and careers and employability services.
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Technology is often blamed for the rise in ‘essay mills’ that make cheating too easy to resist. But could technology also help address a key cause of cheating – the pressure on struggling students?
They say cheats never prosper – but recent statistics suggest otherwise.
In 2018, professor Phil Newton of Swansea University published a review of students paying for assignments, known as ‘contract cheating’. Evaluating samples from 65 higher education studies dating as far back as 1978, Newton found that around 3.5% of students self-reported as cheats each year. In samples since 2014, however, that leapt to 15.7% – roughly one in six students. If Newton’s findings accurately reflect the wider population, that’s around 2,200 cases of contract cheating per UK university.
The majority get away with it, too. The 58 UK universities that responded to Channel 4 FactCheck’s recent freedom of information request declared an average of just five or six cases of cheating each in the academic year 2017-18.
Technology could be partly to blame. While students in the 1970s, 80s and 90s may have lifted recognisable text from books or approached friends to write essays for them, today’s online ‘essay mills’ use social media to help them directly target struggling students, tempting them with bespoke content for alarmingly little cash.
These essays are readily available and written to order, making it difficult to detect – and nigh-on impossible to prove – that they’re the work of a third party.
However, perhaps the key question is: why would students engage with essay mills? Andrew Kincaid, a lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University, links the rise in plagiarism to the increasing number of students suffering with mental health problems – a pattern documented by the University Student Mental Health Survey 2018, and the spring 2019 horizons report.
“Today’s students are experiencing high levels of anxiety, pressure and stress,”
Kincaid says.
“I don’t believe that most students using essay mills are driven by a desire to cheat the system. Most of the cases I’ve seen are desperate students who can’t see any other way out.”
This is echoed by Caitlin Bloom, a former De Montfort students’ union executive who sat on the university’s academic misconduct panel, 2012-14.
“Most of the students who’d been caught cheating were people who, in other circumstances, you would be recommending for student services assessment. Students that fall prey to essay mills usually need help – whether that’s help with language skills, mental health or settling into university.”
Both Bloom and Kincaid point to the aggressive tactics adopted by essay mills.
“It’s exploitation,”
says Kincaid.
“These companies use social media to identify students that are feeling the pressure.
If a student tweets ‘so many deadlines coming up’, they’re targeted. If essay mills get just 1% of those they contact to pay for their services, it makes for an incredibly successful business.”
And there are dirtier tricks than targeted algorithms, says Bloom, who is now a sector analyst at Jisc.
“These companies don’t have obvious urls – they aren’t called essaymill.com! And some use ‘skins’ that copy institutions’ websites. For example, one UK university had its logo and branding cloned by an essay mill that used the term “advising student support”. If you chuck ‘essay help’ into a search engine, the essay mill site pops up. And if you’re a student in a mental health crisis looking for help, you’re unlikely to smell a rat.
These companies deliberately prey on vulnerable students. It’s very manipulative. Sometimes, essay mills quickly jump to offering ‘help’ in return for cash,”
Bloom continues.
“But often, they suggest a Skype chat to discuss it first, building trust. In my experience, it’s rare for a student to Google ‘buy an essay’; it’s more common for them to be led gradually down the garden path until they hand over their credit card almost without realising they’re doing anything wrong.”
Nearly every university in the UK uses anti-plagiarism software – such as Turnitin, which identifies plagiarised blocks of text – and software that tracks writing style. If an essay contains sentence structures or phrasing a student hasn’t used before, the work can be called into question – but it remains very difficult to prove foul play.
In March, education secretary Damian Hinds intervened, asking universities to impose “honour codes”1 where students pledge not to cheat, and calling on young people to snitch on their peers. Meanwhile, Universities UK and a number of vice-chancellors have called for essay mills to be banned, as they have been in other countries. Earlier this year, Google removed adverts placed by essay companies, and PayPal is blocking payments to essay mills.
“We need to help students by raising awareness about what plagiarism is,”
says Abdullah Okud, president of Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) students’ union.
“We’re working with the university on this. We have guidelines in development about good study and essay writing practice, skills training is being developed at the library and we’re working on issues around mental health.”
SHU is one of a growing number of universities to block access to known essay mills on campus, too. This sends a message – but, as our chief innovation officer Phil Richards notes:
“Offering academic support is not illegal. If essay-writing companies present themselves as helpful, supportive writing coaches, artificial intelligence can’t detect them or filter them out.”
The government’s recent edtech strategy outlined the need to develop and improve anti-cheating software ‘to help tackle the problem of essay mills’ by 2021. Meanwhile, we are working hard to support student wellbeing through our learning analytics service. It has a staff dashboard that gives, among other things, a prediction of whether each student is likely to pass or fail the academic year.
There’s also a student version, study goal.
“That uses the same data as the staff dashboard and has the same aim of helping the student succeed,”
Richards explains,
“but instead of telling the student they’re flagged as struggling, it adopts a ‘nudge’ approach. It will note that, for example, the student hasn’t gone into the library recently, so a message will pop up suggesting they go in and reminding them their essay is due. It gives pointers based on a student’s timetable and activity, their own personal track record and data history.
Most students understand that they’re being nudged because they need to up their game, but it’s done in a helpful and supportive way."
We're also looking at how data and analytics-based techniques can be used to give universities better information about students who may be in crisis or experiencing mental health issues. We are partnering with James Murray, whose son Ben took his own life last year while a student at the University of Bristol2.
Murray’s insights are helping us to understand how key data could be collated from different systems across a university to highlight students in distress. We are currently working with three institutions to pilot the Suicide Safer dashboard approach that has been championed by Murray.
The insights and understanding that we gain from this work will be widely shared across the sector and form part of UUK’s Suicide-Safer Universities guidance. The hope is that these types of approaches will alert universities to students who may need timely support that could make a crucial difference.
Richards says:
“Around half of university suicide victims had never referred themselves to student services. People who are in the darkest place are often the least likely to ask for help. These wellbeing dashboards are being developed for those students.”
Jisc is also looking across the board at how services can better support student mental health and wellbeing. For example, new elements of the digital capability service are being developed to help students and staff develop healthy online behaviours.
Ultimately, supporting vulnerable students who might fall prey to essay mills is much more complicated – and much more important – than simply catching cheats. As Richards concludes:
“Technology can provide an early alert if a student is struggling, and it can link different sets of support professionals, making sure nothing falls between the cracks, but while technology is a huge help, we need humans supporting students in every case, using their skill and judgement to decide what action to take.”
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Universities and colleges wanting to use the Internet of Things (IoT) will get affordable access to this technology under a collaboration between Jisc and Sigfox network operator WND UK.
WND UK, which operates Sigfox’s low power wide area network (LPWAN) technology in the UK and Latin America, is collaborating with Jisc to enable universities and colleges to run IoT technology on a dedicated network with low set-up costs.
WND UK is seeking universities and colleges across the UK to partner with Sigfox by agreeing to install base stations on their campus. It has offered to provide free kit to interested institutions.
Sigfox’s network allows connected devices such as sensors and vehicle equipment to communicate small amounts of data over large distances using tiny amounts of power. Because of their low power consumption, these remote sensors can run for many years on a single battery and are even safer and more secure than standard wireless networks.
IoT enables new, disruptive services and solutions in areas such as asset tracking, the smart environment and smart cities. Some universities already use IoT in libraries and others are exploring how this could be adopted across their estates. The technology would provide a modern experience that responds to student interactions to help make campuses more digitally intuitive - an integral part of Jisc’s education 4.0 vision to transform education through advanced technologies.
Some 90% of the UK’s population and 56% of its area can currently access the Sigfox network through more than 1,800 base stations. Current partners already include a number of universities as well as E.ON, Thames Water and local authorities.
WND UK will provide 100 free Sigfox subscriptions per year, per approved site, for the duration of agreements with universities and colleges. Any interested in taking part should contact WND UK directly to check coverage and make arrangements for installation.
The collaboration follows an agreement earlier this year with The Things Network (TTN), provider of another global network for IoT devices, which allowed its community network server to run on the Janet Network infrastructure.
Sue Attewell, Jisc’s head of change - further education and skills, said:
"We want to see a campus experience that meets students’ needs and prepares them for the fourth industrial revolution and beyond.
“Many of our members including Cambridge University, South West College, Newcastle University, Edinburgh College and The Open University are already using IoT in innovative ways.
“We hope by working with Sigfox we can encourage more universities to take on the opportunity to easily use this emerging technology to transform teaching, learning and the physical campus experience.”
Tim Harris, chief executive of WND UK, said:
“There are so many innovative ideas about how Internet of Things technologies could be used, and we think universities and colleges could help to unlock some of these.
“We hope that by offering the opportunity to access Sigfox equipment and infrastructure at a low cost through Jisc, staff and students will be inspired to use this technology to improve the university experience.”
To express an interest in this project, please email WND UK (network-uk@wndgroup.io).
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Jisc is supporting independent thinktank Demos to investigate how modern technology such as artificial intelligence, robotics and other emerging technologies will affect the UK’s world-leading research sector.
The interim Demos report will provide ideas and predictions to inform policies and strategies shaping future research, also referred to as ‘Research 4.0’.
Matthew Dovey, Jisc’s head of e-infrastructure strategy comments:
“Rapidly advancing technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, internet of things and augmented reality shift the way we interact with the world and have the potential to radically reform the research lifecycle. The Demos report will give us a glimpse of how research 4.0 might look and how we can best support our members to future proof their work”
Jisc and Demos will jointly present the report at the Conservative party conference this autumn.
The report findings will support Jisc in realising its vision for the UK to be the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world. The outcomes will inform the development of Jisc’s technology solutions for its members and help shape advice and practical assistance on digital technology.
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SCONUL, Jisc Collections and RLUK have contributed information and funding to a new report that shows how universities are using copyright licences to support teaching and learning.
The research, commissioned by the Universities UK, Guild HE and the HE Copyright Negotiation and Advisory Committee (CNAC), informed licensing negotiations between the UUK on behalf of universities, and the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA). It also brings more clarity around the use of the CLA licences and the terms of the Higher Education Licence.
A comparison of the educational copyright regime in other countries is included in the report, along with a list of the types of material which are scanned under the CLA Licence. The research findings show that the licences are mostly used by university staff making copies of books or text in digital formats to use in teaching and learning.
The report also explores the trends in usage of the licence by institution. Twenty institutions can be considered heavy users of the licence, however, usage of the licence in the HE sector as a whole has plateaued. It appears that the increasing availability of open access materials has, to date, had a minimal impact on how institutions use the CLA Licence.
Research for the report was carried out by Jane Secker, senior lecturer at City University of London, Chris Morrison, copyright and licensing compliance officer at the University of Kent and Elizabeth Gadd, research policy manager (publications) at Loughborough University.
Read a full copy of the report (pdf).
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Jisc is on the look out for 30 students currently studying at college or university in the UK to join its student partners project.
Jisc student partners will have the opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas on how to better education and learning experience. Their involvement will help Jisc to understand what technology and digital skills are important in their education and research.
To apply, candidates must be a current student (from September 2019 to June 2020) and aged 18 or over on 1 September 2019.
Caitlin Bloom, who runs Jisc’s student partners project, explained:
“Students are the experts in their own education, as they experience learning first hand every day.
"We would like to work in partnership with a range of students to ensure our priorities match the learning and research tools that are needed for current and future students to succeed.
“Our student partners get involved in all sorts of exciting opportunities, including attending our flagship annual edtech event, Digifest. They will have the chance to present or join panel discussions, take part in social media activity, record podcasts or provide comment for the media.”
Students interested in joining Jisc should contact studentpartners@jisc.ac.uk and Caitlin Bloom will answer queries.
The application deadline is 20 September 2019 and a shortlist will be invited to phone interviews shortly after.
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OpenAthens has launched this award to inspire publishers across the globe to invest resource into developing the best user journey to content.
The leading single sign-on provider?is calling for applications from online publishers demonstrating how they have put the needs and experience of users at the heart of changes to digital services.
The deadline for applications is Monday 30 September 2019, with a shortlist announced in February and the winner named at the OpenAthens Conference 2020 in March.
Librarians and end users will lead the initial round of voting. The shortlist will be compiled by a panel of information industry experts, including Jisc’s senior digital content and UX manager, Richard West and Andrew Preistner, trainer and consultant from UX in Libraries.
The newly established award demonstrates OpenAthens’ ongoing commitment to the evolution of the information industry and providing simple access to knowledge for the benefit of all.
Find out more about the award and submit an entry.
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Jisc is delighted to have been selected by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as one of the first ten projects to participate in the beta phase of its Sandbox.
Jisc is developing a code of practice with universities and colleges wishing to investigate the use of student activity data to improve their provision of student support services, which will help them to protect both privacy and wellbeing.
Taking part in the ICO Sandbox will allow Jisc to draw on the ICO’s expertise and advice on data protection by design, ensuring that our code represents best practice.
The sandbox service was introduced to support organisations which are developing products and services that use personal data in innovative and safe ways.
The products and services taking part of this phase have been submitted by organisations from a broad range of sectors and sizes. All met the selection criteria of being genuinely innovative and viable, with the potential for delivering real benefit to the UK public.
Jisc already has a learning analytics code of practice, providing an ethical approach to using student data to improve learning. The sandbox activity aims to extend this idea to the area of student support and wellbeing.
Andrew Cormack, chief regulatory adviser at Jisc, said:
"We are looking forward to working with the ICO on our draft wellbeing analytics code of practice. Supporting student wellbeing raises complex ethical and legal issues. Discussing these in the sandbox will help Jisc provide the best possible guidance to universities and colleges who wish to develop the use of data within their support services."
The next stage of the process will be for the ICO and participants to agree and develop detailed plans before work starts on testing products and services. It is envisaged all participants will have exited the sandbox by September 2020.
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Jisc has been named in the top 100 apprenticeship employers for 2019/20 - an index compiled by RateMyApprenticeship.
At a ceremony in central London, Jisc was unveiled at number 24 in the rankings having started its apprenticeship programme in 2017.
The apprenticeship employers’ table 2019/20 is based on reviews of apprentices submitted on RateMyApprenticeship. This year’s index was topped by truck dealer Motus Commercials, while other well-known employers appearing include BAe Systems, BBC and UBS.
Since Jisc recruited its first apprentices in September 2017, 12 people have started apprenticeships across a range of services including project management, business administration and infrastructure.
Another apprentice is expected to be taken on later this year, while all directorates are encouraged to recruit new-entrant apprentices at all levels, including degrees.
Jisc is also looking to offer apprenticeships as a development opportunity for existing employees to help develop strong leaders and great managers.
All organisations with a paybill in excess of £3million must contribute to the apprentice levy. Jisc’s contribution will be used to offer higher level apprenticeships to address skills gaps, reskilling those employees who have moved into leadership positions from more technical roots.
Joanne Stewart, group director for people, Jisc, said:
“We are delighted to hear that we have been ranked 24 in the top 100 apprentice employers by RateMyApprenticeship.
“Just under three-quarters of big firms struggle to find people with digital skills, according to government figures. As the UK’s leading education technology organisation, we feel we have a role in tackling this problem and see apprenticeships as an excellent way of uncovering and developing a new wave of talent for the sector and beyond.
“The tech sector is an exciting and inspiring place to work in and we want it to be seen as inclusive and diverse. Apprenticeships can help by bringing in talented people who otherwise may not have seen technology careers as an option.”
Georgia Stanley, Jisc’s PR and communications apprentice, said:
“This apprenticeship has offered an alternative learning route to university - which works perfectly with my lifestyle as I can learn at my own pace and split my time between working and learning.
“My specialism is PR and communications, but Jisc offers an opportunity to train for a range of professions, including cyber security, legal and strategic support, while getting paid.
“You don’t often see apprenticeships within this sector so Jisc has offered a unique opportunity to start a career in technology.”
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Jisc is launching three new library services on 31 July 2019.
Library hub discover, library hub compare, and library hub cataloguing will make it easier for UK higher education libraries and researchers to access, discover and manage academic collections.
Neil Grindley, head of resource discovery at Jisc, said:
“We are delighted to introduce these next-generation library services, which will help researchers and librarians locate and manage print and electronic books, journals, newspapers, maps and anything else listed in library catalogues.”
The library hub discover service, which is open to all, is designed to make academic library collections visible through web searches, which means they’re available to a wider audience.??
The service will feature more than 100 library catalogues at launch but will keep growing over time. Based on data held by the national bibliographic knowledgebase (NBK), it is the most comprehensive aggregation of UK academic, national, and specialist library metadata available and replaces the selective coverage of Jisc’s Copac and SUNCAT services, which are being retired at the same time as the new library hub services are launched.
Dr Amy Staniforth, resource discovery team leader at Aberystwyth University, said:
“Aggregating our library data at a national scale will allow us to see all our collections in context for the first time. We’re pleased that users will be able to find and access our resources more easily, but as a smaller institution, we’re particularly excited by the opportunity to identify and enhance our poorly described and underused material for improved discovery.”
Also launching at the end of the month, are the library hub compare service and library hub cataloguing, developed in partnership with OCLC, which will help library staff and collection managers to make more informed decisions about their holdings and to download high-quality catalogue records for use in their local systems.
In a joint comment, executive director of Research Libraries UK, David Prosser, and executive director of the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL), Ann Rossiter, say:
“We whole-heartedly support the launch of the new Library hub services and are excited about the progress this represents. The collections of UK academic and specialist libraries will be more available and visible than ever before, and new more flexible and powerful features will deliver benefits for learners and researchers.”
Jisc has provided library discovery and management tools to UK academic libraries for more than 20 years. The new library hub suite of services is in response to demand from the sector, which asked Jisc to evolve its offering to provide high-quality, efficient and effective services that will cope with the scale and scope of what will be required over the next 20 years.
For more information about these library hub services ?contact? nbk@jisc.ac.uk.
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Looking to the future, the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL)’s Summer Symposium set out opportunities for technology to enhance teaching, learning and the further education environment.
Yesterday afternoon, Parliament hosted the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL)’s Summer Symposium.
Organised in partnership with Policy Connect, the event, entitled ‘New Horizons in FE’, focused on the emerging role of technology in further education (FE) and its potential to transform teaching, learning and the education environment.
A networking lunch provided opportunities for delegates to try a variety of virtual reality (VR) tools and experiences. Jisc showcased our vision of an immersive, technology-enhanced world, seen through the eyes of Natalie 4.0, a student of the future.
This was followed by a panel discussion chaired by Lord Holmes MBE, chair of the EdTech Leadership Group. Notable speakers - including Maren Deepwell, chief executive of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and Deborah Millar from Grimsby Institute – took part in a lively and informative debate.
Jisc’s head of FE and skills, Paul McKean set the scene, saying:
“Digital technology - including artificial intelligence, automation, the Internet of Things and robotics - is affecting how we work, rest and play.”
Paul noted the World Economic Forum’s 2018 future of jobs report, which states that every business needs an ‘augmentation strategy’ to identify tasks that can be more efficiently and effectively carried out by a machine, and tasks that need to be carried out by humans. Paul commented:
“Interestingly, just last week, Amazon announced that it is set to retrain a third of its workforce for exactly this reason.”
Reflecting on the theme of the symposium, Paul concluded:
“At Jisc, we want the UK to be the best research and education nation in its use of digital technologies.
Illustrating transformation in teaching, learning, assessment and the FE environment overall, I presented my view of a college of the future at the symposium, imagining a day in the life of a college principal in a few years' time. This helps describe our vision of Education 4.0. With the support of the government’s edtech strategy, I believe much of this is within our reach.”
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Dave Coplin inspired Jisc members at this year’s Digifest with a thought-provoking keynote. We asked him: if you could redesign the education system from scratch, to make it fit for the 21st century, what would you do?
We're still preparing people for the Victorian production line. We're teaching kids not to speak out of turn and not to question. We squash creativity. We teach skills that are a commodity in today's technological world.
For example, we want children and young people to be able to remember lots of facts in a world where they have access to every fact our society has ever known. We teach our kids to be calculators when we all have access to more powerful calculators than ever before – in our pockets. But what about collaboration skills? Creativity? Empathy and relating to each other as human beings?
I see a future world where algorithms do much of the work that we do today. We will have been freed from repetitive tasks to do the stuff that doesn't fit neatly in a box, that helps us go to places that we couldn't before.
So, given that's the world, what are the skills we're going to need in people so that they can really live up to that potential? Creativity, empathy and accountability. I want an education system that delivers that.
I want an education system that helps people acquire a healthy relationship with technology, in the same way that education should help us acquire a healthy relationship with reading, writing and arithmetic. I want an education system that helps people acquire a healthy relationship with each other.
I think that's where the future of work is heading. You can see many organisations are beginning that journey but I don't see many universities or colleges, secondary schools or primary schools really leaning into that opportunity.
We've got to help people understand that vision of the future. It is easy to paint a negative picture: either, the robots are going to take our jobs, or the technology's never going to be up to scratch. What we don't do is say, “Let me show you what's possible with this technology. Let me show you what we could do as a society IF we could use it in the right way.”
We need to start with envisioning the world that we could create if only we could equip people with the right kind of skills. The first thing we've got to do is inspire people. This isn't a technological debate. It's a debate about human culture, about individuals, about effectiveness versus efficiency.
Fear is a massive barrier. But it’s often misplaced and it can make us lose sight of the opportunities technology offers. The key is to equip people to make informed decisions and help them to manage their personal relationship with technology. Schools turn off or confiscate students’ phones, but is that missing an opportunity to help teach kids to have a healthy relationship with technology?
It can be harder to make those informed decisions if the balance of power is skewed with too much power in the hands of big technology companies. Those companies need to do two things. Firstly, they have to be transparent. They need to explain, if you give me your data, this is what is going to happen. And people need to be free to make the choice as to whether they give it or don't.
Secondly, the value exchange needs to be really explicit. People need to understand not only what is going to happen to their data, but also what value they are going to receive as a result.
We cannot leave it with the tech companies alone. We all have a part to play. We have to be informed. We have to be part of the conversation whether it's Facebook, Google, Microsoft or Twitter. This is the service we expect. This is what we'd like. This is the relationship we'd like with you.
If you completely trust the algorithm without bringing in any human judgment, you deserve what you get. If you drive your car the wrong way down a one-way street or over a cliff because your satnav told you to, you’ve only got yourself to blame. Whatever the situation we need to understand how the algorithm made the calculation it did – and factor in bias – and then decide what to do.
How am I going to choose the correct course of human action? What parts of my human judgment can I add to the algorithm to give me what the right choice is? That's a core skill that we have to learn – as individuals and as organisations – and it is a core skill we have to teach. And we have to do that quickly.
Algorithms are only going to get more powerful and faster, and we are in a symbiotic relationship with them: it's humans plus machines, not humans against machines. We need to trust that the computer can calculate the answer really quickly but then we need to interpret the answer and choose the correct course of action. And that's kind of the relationship that we want.
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Jisc has appointed Liam Earney as executive director for digital resources.
From 1 August, Liam will lead on a portfolio of services which includes licensing, library, content, discovery and open access and participation in the UK Data Service - led by the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex.
Liam said:
“I’m honoured to be taking on the leadership of the digital resources directorate at this exciting and important time.
The range of new services we are developing, such as library hub services and open research hub as well as the integration of our Jisc Collections and Chest licensing services will deliver essential infrastructure on behalf of the sector, providing efficiencies and enhancing service and performance.”
Liam will be responsible for launching the open research hub, a new service that offers a one-stop-shop for managing, preserving and sharing digital research data. He will also lead the continuing transformation of Jisc’s suite of library support services bringing together its discovery, cataloguing, acquisition, subscription management and analytic services.
Liam takes this role as Keith Cole, the outgoing executive director of digital resources, plans to retire towards the end of 2020. In the coming months, Liam and Keith will work together on open science developments, while Keith will primarily focus on improvements to business processes and efficiencies. From 1 August, Keith’s title will be executive director - business process improvement.
Formerly director of licensing at Jisc, Liam has gained significant experience in Jisc Collections, particularly negotiated agreements, which covered approximately £126million of expenditure in 2017.
Liam has worked at Jisc since 2003, where he has been involved in negotiations for a wide variety of agreements in higher and further education as well as working with the NHS, museums and public libraries in the UK and overseas.
He has overseen the evolution of Jisc Collections’ approach to open access, in particular how its negotiations can best support the sector to achieve its aims around pure gold, hybrid and green open access.
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For the first time, Jisc has been named as a recognised supplier of cloud computing services to government bodies through the major procurement framework? G-Cloud 11.
The G-Cloud 11 agreement gives central government, local councils, NHS Trusts and other public sector bodies a way to purchase Jisc cloud solutions ?from a single, central website. This gives customers an easy and reliable procurement route rather than having to negotiate these services individually.
Now the G-Cloud 11 contracts have been awarded, Jisc’s cloud solutions are live on the government’s Digital Marketplace.
Our director of cloud,? Josh Fry,?said:
“We are delighted to be recognised as a credible supplier of cloud computing solutions and to have our services offered through the G-Cloud 11 framework.
This is in line with our vision of being?the number one trusted provider of cloud solutions supporting our members in UK higher and further education and research, as well as the public sector and charities. We work to empower all of our customers in their use of cloud.”
A total of 4,200 suppliers are named on the new G-Cloud agreement, with more than 31,000 services now available for public service customers. £4.79bn has been spent through G-Cloud since 2012.
See Jisc's cloud solution listing on G-Cloud.
For more information, email cloud@jisc.ac.uk.
via Jisc news
Edtech is now firmly on the political agenda.
This is partly because we’ve been listening to your challenges and experiences – and we’ve taken what we’ve learned to help influence the Department for Education’s new edtech strategy, launched this spring.
Bringing your voices to bear on a strategy that will help to shape our communities for the future is a positive step forward. It’s hard to know what the future holds but as technology keeps changing the world around us, it’s even more important to work together so we can keep up with the fourth industrial revolution.
Supporting the education community in England, the new strategy aims to develop and use technology to tackle the big challenges and opportunities you face – from reducing your workload and supporting inclusion to making sure you can access fresh and innovative edtech products to meet your needs.
To support these aims, the strategy focuses on several key themes. What do they mean for you and your organisation – and how we can support you?
As a Jisc member, you already benefit from the unrivalled connectivity of the Janet Network but what if you could do more?
The strategy commits the government to supporting Jisc in the years ahead to make sure the Janet Network remains world-class and continues to meet your needs. It will enable you to be more innovative with your digital infrastructure and support you to make the most of the opportunities available from the latest technologies.
Tim Blake, head of IT at Strode College, tells us what reliable connectivity means to the college:
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Tim Blake
“Our lecturers run their classes using technology, constantly accessing resources from the web, whether it’s video or research material. Reliable connectivity is vital to delivering our teaching and learning. The connectivity just can’t fail. It’s a core part of how we deliver learning.”
As we’re using technology more widely in education, protecting your institution from potential cyber attacks is paramount.
At Jisc we continually monitor and resolve security incidents on the Janet Network. With experts on hand to provide technical advice and on-the-ground support, you can be sure that you’re helping to keep your students, staff and systems safe.
George Wraith, head of ICT at New College Durham, explains why cyber security protection is vital:
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George Wraith
“Cyber security is very much in the forefront of everybody’s radar at the minute. If we were to lose our connection because of an attack, the effect on the college would be massive.”
Procuring digital resources and digital technology can be challenging. We work on your behalf to procure and license high-quality digital content from publishers so that you can save time and money. Negotiating with large suppliers such as Microsoft and Amazon, we aim to get you the best possible price and terms.
Audrey Stranders, head of learning resources at Havering College, tells us why this is important to her:
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Audrey Stranders
“It saves us a huge amount of time because there’s no way I could spend hours and hours negotiating with all those different publishers and suppliers for those resources. I’d rather leave negotiating to the experts.”
Knowing where to start when designing a digital strategy is a struggle but it’s crucial you ensure that your staff and students have the digital skills to use technology for teaching and learning.
We can work with you to realise the opportunities and avoid the pitfalls of a rapidly changing digital landscape, supporting your staff to develop their digital capabilities and, in turn, providing your students with access to the very best digital learning experiences.
Dr Ross Parry, associate professor and deputy pro-vice chancellor (digital) at the University of Leicester, talks about how his institution has approached its digital strategy:
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Dr Ross Parry
“For us it has been about creating together a clear vision of what we want to be, taking time to shape the narrative of what will get us there, and then – most of all – building trust in the community around the plan we have, and in the people, who will lead this change.”
Developing digital solutions to meet your needs is a key part of the strategy. At Jisc, we partner with the most promising edtech start-ups. This aids product development, reduces risk and makes it easier for you to work on solutions with the most cutting-edge start-ups.
This strategy is the first move towards using technology to transform our education community.
Simon Bowler, learning technologies and resources manager, Wiltshire College and University Centre says:
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Simon Bowler
“It is fantastic news for schools and colleges that the value of investing in and developing the use of technologies has been recognised. The framework will help develop clearer strategies and synergy across the sector which should see shared expertise and experience benefit everyone across the UK.”
Our proposals have had real impact on policymakers, driving positive change at a national level. This wouldn’t have been possible without you.
We look forward to building on this success together to make sure our communities have access to the digital technologies they need to learn, discover and thrive.
via Jisc news