Professor David Maguire, vice-chancellor at the University of Greenwich, has been appointed into the role of Jisc chair.
David is currently a Jisc trustee and in the past year has served as a member of the board of Jisc trustees, working alongside other senior leaders in promoting information and communications technology to enhance learning, teaching and research within the UK.
He follows in the immensely successful footsteps of Professor Sir Tim O’Shea and more recently Professor Martin Hall and brings with him a wealth of experience in both the US and UK, spanning the education and IT sectors. In his new role, David will play a key part in shaping the organisation’s future strategic planning and will oversee its charitable objectives.
David is an accomplished leader in the private sector as well as in higher education. An acknowledged expert in the computer mapping and geographic information systems, he has previously served as chief scientist and director of products at Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.), a global software company with headquarters in California.
In addition to being vice-chancellor at the University of Greenwich, he is a member of several other prestigious boards, including London Higher, Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex – NHS governing body, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the Universities UK Treasurer’s Committee.
The handover period between Martin Hall and David Maguire will take place during May.
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Networkshop43 - our annual technical event - came to an end last Thursday. In this podcast we hear about the highlights from Chris Whitwood, network manager from Falmouth University, and Yu-King Lau, network support administrator from UCL Institute of Education, who have both won an iPad thanks to Networkshop43 sponsors Infinity.
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Networkshop43 - our annual technical event - continues this week, with day two another busy one. In this podcast, Steve Kennett, head of operational services at Jisc, discusses some of his highlights and feedback from delegates.
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This week is Networkshop43, our annual technical event for network managers and technical staff. Tim Kidd, executive director Jisc technologies, reports back on day one.
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Springer Science+Business Media and Jisc have agreed on a new arrangement which takes into account UK scientists’ need to comply with multiple funders’ open access policies and to have access to the vast library of scientific articles published by Springer, while containing the combined costs of article processing charges and subscriptions.
The proposed agreement will cap the amount paid by UK higher education (HE) institutions to subscribe and maintain full access to Springer’s high quality subscription journals and to make their researchers’ articles open access in those journals, the latter being in compliance with the requirements of HEFCE’s Research Excellence Framework, RCUK’s open access policy and other major funders such as the Charity Open Access Fund.
It is intended that the agreement will significantly reduce the cost and administration barriers to hybrid open access publishing for UK academic institutions, while supporting the transition to open access in a transparent and sustainable way.
Jisc and Springer first entered into negotiations in response to changes to the UK’s open access requirements in early 2014. Jisc supports education and research through digital services, and approached Springer with a clear mandate and objectives to contain the costs to UK institutions. Springer is committed to recognising and accommodating the needs of libraries, funders, universities and researchers.
Extensive discussions have been necessary to understand the needs and requirements of all stakeholders and to prepare a framework that could form the basis for a sustainable model of publishing in, and giving access to, Springer’s subscription journals. As a transformative model, the two organisations will engage in ongoing co-operation and assessment so that they can ensure the arrangement continues to meet UK HE institutions’ compliance needs as open access requirements evolve. Both parties have worked together in a constructive way, echoing the process and intention of the Finch Group.
Roné Robbetze, VP Sales Northwestern Europe and Africa, said:
“Springer is proud to work so closely with Jisc on this new direction in science publishing. The UK has taken a major step in further developing open access and we are happy to be the first to have such a far-reaching arrangement here.”
Lorraine Estelle, executive director of digital resources and divisional CEO of Jisc Collections, added:
“Jisc sees the development of these models as essential in order to contain the total cost of ownership of scholarly communication. Springer has shown a deep understanding of the issue and contributed proactively in finding a model that addresses the needs of UK higher education institutions as they lead in the transition to open access.”
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Education and research institutions in the UK will be able to access improved digital certification thanks to a new agreement between QuoVadis Online Security Limited and Jisc, which provides the Janet network.
QuoVadis will provide a variety of digital certificate types via the Janet certificate service, a centralised purchasing service for institutions that allows them to manage all of their online certification needs in one place.
QuoVadis’ offer includes Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates for web encryption as well as certificates for authentication, secure email, and digital signatures.
New features of the service include:
“QuoVadis is pleased to support Jisc and its community across the UK,”
said Simon Knight, QuoVadis managing director.
“QuoVadis has significant experience serving similar research and education communities in Europe and Oceania, and will leverage our international expertise in certificate authority operations to provide UK-based service and support to Jisc and its customers.”
Tim Kidd, executive director, Jisc technologies said:
“Cyber security is high on the agenda in this digital age, so being able to provide high assurance certification – and ensuring that these certificates can be purchased quickly, seamlessly, and without huge costs – is paramount.
The new QuoVadis service will streamline the process of obtaining certificates, saving institutions time and money, and increase the use of extended validation certificates at no extra cost.”
Founded in 1999, QuoVadis is a commercial certificate authority with operations in the UK, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Bermuda. In addition to being a leading provider of SSL/TLS certificates for the web, QuoVadis is a Qualified Certification Service Provider for legally-valid digital signatures in the EU, and is accredited by the EUGridPMA, which coordinates the trust fabric for e-Infrastructure for research in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
For more information or to apply visit the certificate service webpage.
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Heart of Worcestershire College – 2014’s Association of Colleges Beacon Award winner for effective use of technology in further education – will tomorrow be hosting ‘Fast track to FELTAG’, an event designed to help colleges adopt a complete blended learning model and meet the FELTAG recommendations.
The event will feature a number of expert speakers, including Paul McKean, Jisc FE and skills customer advocate. Here, he talks to Gemma Ellis about how Jisc is supporting this move towards a blended offer and how colleges can take advantage of Jisc services.
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A new service enabling researchers to access their digital resources and applications through a single, federated sign-on is launching today thanks to Jisc.
A world-first, Assent, provided by Jisc, enables simplified, seamless and secure access to the broad range of web and non-web services that researchers commonly need – from cloud, email and file storage services, through to desktop login, high performance computing (HPC) facilities and secure data communications.
Assent uses the same open standards and open source software that underpin the two leading federated access services in global education and research: eduroam, the world-wide single sign-on roaming service, and the UK Access Management Federation, which provides web-only single sign on. It works by combining these technologies to provide a powerful and flexible access management solution appropriate to the needs of research.
There are significant benefits in adopting Assent for both institutions and their researchers.
Institutions benefit by reducing the number of credentials issued to each user, greatly reducing the administrative burden and cost. User identities are managed by the users’ home institutions, reducing the need to issue credentials to users from partner organisations.
For researchers, using Assent means they are able to seamlessly access the digital resources and applications they need to do their jobs, wherever it has been made available by a participating organisation.
Josh Howlett, head of trust and identity at Jisc said:
“Many institutions will already be using federated access in some form. Assent extends the use of this approach to a greater range of digital resources and applications, allowing them to consume a federated identity at minimal cost and effort.
“We know this to be of significant interest to research-intensive institutions, who will often be working across various applications and data sources, and regularly collaborating with others to improve research outcomes. We have already received a number of enquiries from organisations hoping to implement Assent in their own operations.”
A number of leading research-intensive institutions and HPC facilities were involved in the pilot of Assent – which went under the name of Moonshot – including the University of Glasgow and University of Cambridge, multi-disciplinary research organisation Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC), and UK synchrotron Diamond Light Source. Feedback has been extremely positive.
Dr Jens Jensen, data services leader, from STFC's scientific computing department said:
“STFC holds tens of petabytes of science data. To make the most of this, researchers need to combine their own resources with those of other data centres and research facilities.
“Single sign-on is an important aspect underpinning this. As well as making it easier for end users to take advantage of the services we provide, it enables us to manage data permissions and to track the use and impact of publicly-funded data. Assent promises to provide an enhanced flexible and interoperable infrastructure, based on open standards, that will support STFC’s work with national and global partners. We look forward to exploring these new opportunities with Jisc and other participating organisations.”
Jisc is also advising other national research and education networks to explore the use of this technology globally, and is collaborating with its European partners to develop the geographical footprint required by our research communities.
If you are interested in adopting Assent, please contact assent@jisc.ac.uk.
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Today Research Councils UK (RCUK) released a review of the implementation of their open access (OA) policy just 16 months after its introduction.
RCUK’s OA policy prefers researchers to use a gold OA model, asking for payment of an article processing charges (APC) at or soon after the point of acceptance.
Neil Jacobs, head of scholarly communications support, and part of the review panel comments:
“Jisc welcomes this review. As it comes at an early stage in the implementation of the OA policy there is currently only a limited amount of evidence, but it’s clear that Jisc is doing the right things to enable the sector to meet changing requirements.
The RCUK OA policy implies a huge change to the workflows associated with the journal supply chain and it will take time for universities, publishers, and others to embed them. The review tells us there are clear signs that this adaption is taking place, but also clear signs that considerable administrative burden remains on universities.
Nevertheless, I believe the answer is not for the Research Councils to turn away from universities as partners in the implementation of the policy, but to engage with them to get the infrastructure and workflows in place to make them work.”
As well as administrative burden the policy has caused to universities the review also mentions the impact on them of the absolute costs of paying APCs (the costs incurred when publishing an article). It states “further transparency on what is being paid in APCs by institutions to publishers will be crucial in helping to change behaviours and ease the transition towards open access”.
At Jisc we have been supporting this process through a standard data template, and many universities are now sharing data on their APC payments openly. Once this information is gathered together we will be able to provide reports on these payments across education and research, giving a level of transparency never previously seen in this market.
Other Jisc work that supports implementation of this policy includes:
The report highlights that RCUK's open access policy is being implemented alongside the Research Excellence Framework OA policy, which states that articles should be deposited into a repository at the point of acceptance by a journal.
This dual establishment of policies has created both challenges and opportunities, the different approaches seeming to require researchers to establish multiple workflows. What they have in common, however, is that they demonstrate the importance of the point at which an article is accepted for publication by a journal – both policies encourage that this is now properly managed with universities.
However, the review did find that there is some confusion around these polices and what is required; Jisc is undertaking work to standardise the language used by research funders, universities and publishers in describing their OA policies.
We see this review as a positive step on the road to an OA world and looks forward to continuing to work with all stakeholders, including the new higher education institution practitioner group recommended by the report.
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We’ve been notified by the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA) that at least one institution has been the victim of a type of 'phone hacking', whereby fraudsters make use of weaknesses in internet-connected phone systems to take control of them, and then make large numbers of outgoing calls to premium-rate phone numbers, in which the fraudsters have a financial stake.
There’s the potential for universities to lose a large amount of money (maybe in the hundreds of thousands) in a very short space of time if it is not discovered promptly. You can read more information about how this works in this New York Times article.
UCISA have sent out a communication asking universities to be extra vigilant over the next few days in case universities are targeted next.
They advise that it may also be worth looking back through phone logs for unusual (and expensive) activity and ask that universities also consider how they might combat this fraud if it was to occur overnight, or on the weekends.
At Jisc we offer a telephony purchasing service that enables customers to purchase a range of telephony services from pre-qualified suppliers for use over the Janet network. We essentially act as a broker, meaning that contracts are between customer and supplier.
We have contacted suppliers on the telephony purchasing service to inform them of this activity to make sure they are aware of the issue and are able to provide support.
Our advice for universities would be to ensure that any software on telephone services is up to date as this helps to reduce the security risk.
If hacking or unusual activity takes place we advise universities to contact our computer security incident response team (CSIRT) helpline, 0300 999 2340, where our experts would be able to offer them advice.
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Researchers from across the country are set to benefit from the development of new services which look to overcome the biggest challenges facing the research community, through our research data spring.
Research data spring is an initiative to create innovative partnerships between researchers, librarians, publishers and developers to develop new solutions to common research problems. Such problems include data being difficult to find and therefore re-use, and different data management systems being poorly integrated, making it difficult for researchers to work with one another.
Rachel Bruce, deputy chief innovation officer at Jisc, said:
“While the new Research Councils UK policies and the Horizon 2020 data pilot are laying the foundations for research data management (RDM) to be part and parcel of what researchers do, there is still a need to make access and re-use of data as painless and as rewarding as possible. By inviting those working in the sector to contribute their ideas we hope to foster innovative partnerships.
Our aim is to develop new solutions and protocols that will make it much easier for everyone to find, share and retrieve research data across different subject areas and disciplines.”
When the project launched 70 ideas for solutions were submitted. 44 were shortlisted for further consideration at a workshop in late February. Following discussions and collaborative development work, some projects merged leaving 27 pitches. Subsequently, 17 strong ideas were selected for funding by a panel of judges.
The projects include:
Over the next three months the successful project teams will work on their ideas, bringing news of their progress to another workshop in summer, when they will decide the next steps and pitch for further funding.
Following this, more funding will be released for selected projects enabling continued development of prototypes ready for a final showcase event in summer 2016.
To find out which projects have been selected for funding, and for updates on progress between now and next year’s showcase, please visit the research data management blog and research data spring project page on our website.
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Research data spring is a project aiming to find new technical tools, software and service solutions to improve researchers’ workflows and the use and management of their data. In February we held a sandpit workshop at Aston University, where selected ideas were explored and developed. In this podcast we hear from project lead Daniela Duca and a number of the participants.
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Lorraine Estelle, executive director of Jisc digital resources and divisional CEO of Jisc Collections, has announced she will be leaving the charity next month to pursue new opportunities.
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Lorraine EstelleAll rights reserved
After 12 years at Jisc, Lorraine has decided to take up a position with Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER), an international initiative that sets the standard for the recording and reporting of online usage statistics. She has supported the organisation since its launch in 2002, and will replace outgoing project director Peter Shepherd when he retires this summer.
Lorraine will be a very hard act to follow; and that daunting task will be taken forward very ably by Keith Cole as the new executive director for Jisc digital resources. Reflecting the crucial importance within digital resources of the library consortium, Liam Earney will support Keith as director of the Jisc Collections division.
Keith, who is the current deputy director of Jisc digital resources and former director of Mimas, said:
“Our sector is undeniably going through a significant period of change. Important steps have already been taken by Jisc to widen access to digital resources to further and higher education, but there is more to be done before we can claim a fairer landscape for all.
I look forward to taking over leadership of Jisc digital resources at such an exciting time and extending the positive impact of this vital work to the whole community.”
Martyn Harrow, chief executive, Jisc, added:
“I would like to thank Lorraine for the significant time and effort she has given to Jisc over the years. Her work has been absolutely invaluable for Jisc and for our communities UK-wide. She leaves Jisc very well positioned, as Keith says, to take this important agenda further forward. I wish her all the best in her new venture.”
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Teachers, IT managers, librarians, lecturers and research managers from across the UK were given the chance to discuss the positive impact of technology on further and higher education and discover new tools and approaches to its use at this year’s Jisc Digital Festival.
Held in Birmingham on 9-10 March, the largest Digital Festival yet presented the best digital talent under the theme of ‘connect more’. And featured a diverse line-up of digital innovators and leading technology organisations, including internet giant Google.
During his keynote speech on day one, Simon Nelson, chief executive of the UK MOOC platform FutureLearn, announced that the platform will be making some units from its courses available openly online – without the need to register.
Carole Goble, professor in the school of computer science at the University of Manchester called for research to be reusable and shareable during her talk on day two. Carole highlighted the 'research object' work she is doing to ensure research can be created faster and is replicable.
Bob Harrison, chair of the Teaching Schools New Technology Advisory Board, called for a significant shift in the culture of the further education sector to not only survive but to thrive in this technology driven era. He said that the further education model is no longer fit for purpose.
Martyn Harrow, chief executive at Jisc, said:
“How we connect technology and education is a journey that we’ve only just started. The Digital Festival has demonstrated just how important this is to institutions and has really celebrated all the great digital developments that are happening in the sector.
We’re looking forward to continuing to develop ideas and help institutions to use the best technology in the most effective way, now and in the future. This will all help the UK retain its position as the world’s most digitally advanced education and research nation.”
Other sessions throughout the two-day event included how to effectively use augmented reality in the classroom, how to implement BYOD (bring your own device) policies, internet safety and why open access research data is important.
Stats about the event:
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Hear from delegates and Jisc staff as we end the second and final day of our annual digital festival.
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It's been an extremely busy first day at Jisc's annual digital festival - hear from delegates and staff who've been with us in Birmingham.
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Last year we launched Digimap for Colleges specifically for the further education sector. In this podcast we talk to David Scott, head of learning centres and financial support at Kirklees College, who shares his experience of the map service and how it boosts students' learning.
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Today, Universities UK published its report on ‘Efficiency, effectiveness and value for money’, which looks at the efficiencies and cost savings that have been achieved by UK higher education in the last few years, and sets out the agenda going forward.
Jisc’s Phil Richards, chief innovation officer and Hugh Look, head of strategic support unit, attended the official launch which was hosted by Professor Sir Ian Diamond, chair of UUK’s Efficiency Task Group and principal and vice-chancellor of the university of Aberdeen.
In this podcast, Phil and Hugh talk about the work Jisc is doing to promote shared service, improve quality and lower costs for the whole sector.
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Jisc today welcomes the publication of the Universities UK (UUK) report ‘Efficiency, effectiveness and value for money’, which highlights how the UK higher education (HE) sector is balancing cost savings with raising the quality of teaching and learning through technology.
The report looks at how the community is benefiting from shared services to achieve significant efficiencies. It identifies higher education as the UK’s largest cost sharing group, thanks to Jisc, which is creating up to £2 million a year for the charity’s customers. It says:
"The potential for shared services to play a critical role in improving quality and distributing and lowering costs has long been acknowledged by the higher education sector. Sector-owned shared services such as Jisc, UCAS, the Janet network and numerous local and regional collaborations demonstrate this."
Martyn Harrow, Jisc chief executive says:
“We face an immense challenge in the UK’s education system: how to harness the power of digital technology while at the same time juggling squeezed budgets.
“As the education and research sector’s body for excellence in digital technology, Jisc works tirelessly to make sure that each penny of investment in IT is put to good use, and that these benefits can be made available to the whole community. We want every single university to profit from digital technology now and in the future.”
The money generated through the cost sharing group is on top of the other benefits Jisc provides to universities annually – an estimated £259 million in cost savings and cost avoidance, and in excess of £100 million in productivity gains.
As well as cost savings the report shows Jisc customers and users to benefit from access to world class infrastructure, such as the Janet network – which provides high capacity, resilient connectivity between UK universities and overseas – and the Jisc shared data centre, the UK’s first dedicated centre for education and research.
Jisc’s work on open data was also praised for helping universities meet the changing landscape. One key area identified was Jisc’s negotiation with publishers on both journal subscription licenses and article processing charge (APC) payments in order to offset the impact.
In addition, the report reflects on the pressures for universities to show their worth, saying "principles of transparency, openness and accountability dictate that there needs to be a greater emphasis on value for money in the future.” To this end it highlights a joint project by Jisc and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) to develop a new business intelligence shared service for universities, which will give a wide range of staff access to quality-assured data sets and analysis tools that will help them to make informed business decisions.
With annual expenditure of £27.9 billion, the UK HE sector generates £73 billion a year for the national economy and is responsible for over £10 billion in export earnings and supporting more than 700,000 jobs.
Martyn added:
“In financial terms, UK higher education is a major player. The continued health of the sector is therefore critical to supporting the nation’s burgeoning economy and ensuring that we remain a global leader.”
To extend the UK’s value agenda in HE, UUK and Jisc set up the Efficiency Exchange in 2011 in response to the Diamond Review. It is designed to help the HE sector discover and share ideas, good practice and resources to create smarter, stronger universities. Jisc regularly contributes advice and guidance on its activities, for example, recent pieces on equipment sharing and technology-enhanced learning.
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At last November's Times Higher Education Awards, we sponsored the eagerly contested Outstanding ICT Initiative of the Year category, which celebrates the use of innovative and strategic digital technologies. The winner was the Open University's OpenScience Laboratory, and in this podcast, laboratory director Nicholas Braithwaite tells us about what it does and what it means for students' and researchers' learning experience.
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Research has revealed a sharp rise in the number of students using social media to stay in touch with tutors at college and university, with 40% of students now using social as a means of communication with lecturers.
Facebook is the most popular form of communication, followed by Twitter and WhatsApp, and a startling 12% of those students using social channels to stay in touch use Snapchat.
Jisc conducted a study into the use of technology in higher and further education to mark the launch of the Jisc Digital Festival, which is helping those delivering education in the UK to be at the forefront of technology practice.
The study also found that more than a quarter (28%) of students use their smartphones to draft essays, while 30% use tablet computers when studying. It also revealed that when it comes to choosing where to study, students are taking technology facilities into account, with 45% of students saying technology played a part in their choice of university or college.
“With increased fees and greater competition for a job after graduation, students are choosing their Universities very carefully now, and rightly so,”
said Martyn Harrow, Jisc chief executive.
"Institutions need to make sure they’re providing the best possible tech facilities, and communicating with students over channels those students are already using.
At Jisc, we’re helping universities to use the best technology in the most cost effective way, so the UK higher education sector can maintain its reputation as being among the best in the world.”
The Jisc Digital Festival takes place on March 9–10 at the ICC in Birmingham. Attendees will be able to see examples of how new technologies such as augmented reality and 3D animation can be used in the lecture hall or classroom.
There will also be debates on internet security for students, universities and colleges and speakers during the event including internet giant Google.
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Earlier this week, Jason Miles-Campbell, head of Jisc Scotland and Jisc Northern Ireland, attended the Scotland’s Colleges conference. Here he talks about how Jisc’s new customer services model is helping to engage customers on a local level and support changes in the sector.
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New major release of free open source federated identity solution adds user consent capability and support for Central Authentication Service protocol.
The research and education community is set to benefit from an upgrade to a free open source software system that will help them better deliver access and identity management services.
The Shibboleth Consortium — a collaborative group of international research and education organisations — has released version 3 of the Shibboleth identity provider, its free open source software that enables secure web single sign-on. Institutions are able to use the software to enable learners and researchers to safely access library resources, databases and collaboration tools using only one log-in, doing away with the need to set up new accounts as they move between locations.
Developed following extensive consultation with the community, the new release offers significant functional and security enhancements, including user consent and on-demand metadata lookup. It also supports the Central Authentication Service (CAS), the internationally-recognised single sign-on protocol used by many universities and research organisations.
Shibboleth is among the world’s most widely deployed federated identity solutions, providing single sign-on capabilities and individual access to protected online resources, in a privacy-preserving manner.
The Shibboleth Consortium funds the ongoing development, support and maintenance of the software, keeping every component of the Shibboleth system free to use. The two principal members are Internet2 in the US and Jisc in the UK. Jisc also acts as consortium operator, managing the day-to-day running of the group.
Shelton Waggener, senior vice president at Internet2 and chair of the consortium board, said:
“This new release comes with many new features requested by the broad international community that uses Shibboleth to make informed access decisions and protect their online resources. We are grateful for the tremendous collaboration in developing this important new release.”
Josh Howlett, head of trust and identity at Jisc, said:
“Seamless and secure access to systems and services is paramount to the continued health of the education and research sector, which makes Shibboleth a vital tool in delivering effective access and identity management services.
The latest release has been developed for the community, by the community, listening to their feedback to ensure the software truly meets their needs, both now and in the future. We will continue to work with the consortium to ensure this remains to be the case.”
The new features and functionality include:
Originally released in 2003, the growth of cloud services has led to an increase in the deployment of Shibboleth worldwide as a core component of campus identity and access management.
Shibboleth version 3 will come to replace previous versions. The consortium urges deployers to plan their upgrade now to take advantage of the security and functional improvements and ensure they are fully compliant before the discontinuation of support for Version 2.4, expected later this year.
For more information on Shibboleth visit www.shibboleth.net or contact Justin Knight, Sibboleth Consortium manager at Jisc justin.knight@jisc.ac.uk.
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Our futurist Martin Hamilton takes a look at how institutions can share equipment, talent and expertise in order to open up new opportunities to boost the UK's technology sectors. Find out more on his original blog post or visit our project pages on equipment sharing.
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A Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) update on the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (FELTAG) report has recognised Jisc’s efforts in helping providers in the further education (FE) and skills sector to meet the recommendations.
The report claims Jisc is a ‘valuable resource’ for learning providers. Nick Boles MP, the minister of state for skills and equality, claimed that along with the Education and Training Foundation, the charity has ‘stepped up to the mark’ in their support for the sector.
Jisc is praised for extending access to internet and digital services and resources to support the learning experience. This includes increasing the internet resilience of almost 100 further education (FE) colleges by providing new connections to the Janet network, and doubling the take-up of eduroam, the secure single sign-on system, to 86 colleges. The organisation was also recognised for its work with the Education and Training Foundation and other national bodies to support the adoption of technology across FE.
An example of where Jisc is helping organisations is promoting the use of technology to improve OFSTED ratings. Where a need for improvement is identified Jisc will work with the provider to address any weaknesses where technology can help, as it did with South Worcestershire College to improve from a Grade 4 to Grade 2.
Nigel Ecclesfield, head of change implementation support programmes – further education and skills, Jisc, said:
“As education and research’s digital champion, Jisc rightly sees itself as responsible for helping customers in delivering the FELTAG recommendations. We are delighted to note the acknowledgement from UK government of the benefits of our work to customers and for supporting and enabling collaboration between organisations.”
As the FELTAG agenda affects a number of agencies and sector bodies, Jisc is now working in collaboration with peer organisations through its FELTAG coalition. The group works to directly engage with stakeholders in the FE sector, from learners and teachers to senior leaders, governors and employers to identify ways forward with digital technologies.
Nigel added:
“There has already been significant progress made across the sector – but we know there is more to be done. By collaborating with other sector bodies we will continue to work on new projects that help to extend the use of technology to improve learning and teaching and meet the needs of learners, employers and their communities.”
via Jisc news