Seven European countries are launching 4C (the Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation) to help public and private European organisations invest more effectively in digital curation and preservation, sustaining the long-term value of all types of digital information.
Curation ensures digital objects remain understandable, accessible, useable and safe over time. 4C will provide practical guidance to help organisations estimate the cost of digital curation work and demonstrate the long and short term benefits.
Alex Thirifays, National Archives of Denmark, explains: “As well as bringing together a fragmented research landscape, the project will create an online ‘curation costs exchange’ which will help users to model their costs and in this way predict more accurately the sorts of costs and benefits that are likely to result from the positive decision to preserve. This will be useful for managers in major archives and data centres and we hope it will support preservation planning functions. These tools will be particularly useful for policy-makers concerned about long-term access to data. In addition we will publish a roadmap for future work in modelling costs which will help to clarify the areas which need more support.”
Neil Grindley, project co-ordinator from Jisc in the UK, explains: “It can be difficult to make a convincing case for investment in digital curation for two reasons. Firstly the costs of curation are currently hard to predict and secondly the short term benefits are hard to define because curation implicitly addresses long-term challenges.” 4C will address both concerns and provide practical guidance that will help practitioners persuade executives to invest in new services.
4C is described as ‘open and social’ and rather than waiting for perfect and polished results, they will be blogging and sharing findings as they go. 4C hope that this will encourage debate and increase the likelihood that their findings and guidance are useful.
Sabine Schrimpf of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Germany, says: “We are looking to engage with many different kinds of organisations and to set up partnerships and have discussions with everyone who would like to get involved in the development of these tools. We’ll be inviting people to workshops and focus groups during the next two years, and we’ll be organising a conference to share our results at the end of the process.”
The partners involved are: Danish National Archives (Denmark), DANS - Data Archiving and Network Service (Netherlands), Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (Germany), Digital Curation Centre (UK), Digital Preservation Coalition (UK), Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (UK), Institute for Information Systems and Computing Research (Portugal), Jisc (UK), Keep Solutions (Portugal), National Library of (Estonia), Royal Library of Denmark (Denmark), Secure Business (Austria), UK Data Archive (UK).
Launched today, Manuscripts Online, funded by Jisc, brings to life early printed primary sources of medieval Britain, giving online access to written materials from 1000 to 1500. Manuscripts Online is also a crowd sourcing tool, encouraging users to attach comments about the manuscripts they view to an online map.
This freely available literary resource is the first of this kind. Michael Pidd, project lead and digital manager at the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield says: "The crowd sourcing aspect of Manuscripts Online gives people an opportunity to share their understanding of the manuscripts so that they can learn from one another. It allows collaboration in a way that hasn’t been possible in the past and we hope it will build up a central geographical view of people’s interpretation of the information which can be used by others in the future."
Dr. Da Rold, lecturer in medieval literature, University of Leicester says: “This resource provides the public with a greater insight into medieval Britain. It allows access to a wealth of data which is central to the study of English language, literature and history during the middle ages. A single search engine will enable users to search for literary manuscripts, historical documents and early printed books which are located on websites owned by libraries, archives, universities and publishers and which were previously unavailable to them.”
Users will be able to search the resources by keyword, but also by specific keyword types, such as person and place name, date and language. For example, if you search the word York, and include all possible variation in its spelling, it will bring up around 4,000 results and tell you how this word is spelled and used in medieval records.
Peter Findlay, programme manager at Jisc comments: “Manuscripts Online enables a single search of multiple libraries containing wonderful records from our past. Jisc is delighted to have worked with the Humanities Research Institute, Dr. Da Rold and the other partners to make these valuable resources much more visible to both academic researchers and to those with a more general interest in the history of these islands.”
Users can search an enormous body of online primary resources including:
Visit the Manuscripts Online website for a full list of the resources.
ACCESS: YouTube simplifies the standard You Tube site making it easier to search and play videos, and allows the use of assistive technologies. It is now publicly available so everyone can benefit from this accessible method.
Mike Thrussell, assistive technology coordinator, explains the challenges facing many of his students when trying to use the standard YouTube website: “Students at Henshaws College have a range of needs from visual impairments to additional learning difficulties and disabilities. Our students love YouTube, but the standard site contains a lot of extra content such as adverts, comments and links which can be distracting. This makes the site difficult to navigate using assistive technologies such as screen-readers and as a result some students require support to use it.”
Mike has spent the last 18 months developing ACCESS: YouTube to try and overcome these issues, and allow students to use the site more independently: “I have used large fonts, visual cues and a logical layout to improve access using assistive technologies. By simplifying the site and removing content such as adverts and comments, the website is more accessible to screen readers.” For Henshaws students, this means they can independently control their leisure time without the need for support. Staff can also be confident that students will be kept safe as the site automatically filters out any inappropriate material.
Nigel Ecclesfield, programme manager at Jisc Advance says: “We are delighted to have provided the funding for the development of this wonderful tool that opens up the world of YouTube to those with visual difficulties. YouTube provides access to many exceptional educational resources and we are proud to be associated with a project that will make a real difference to the lives of many learners as they can now access these materials independently.
“For example, twenty one year old Billy is severely sight impaired and has cerebral palsy which affects his movement. He uses two large switches and scrolls through the simplified menu to navigate ACCESS: YouTube. Screen reader software then reads out each option for him so that he can select or search for videos he wants to listen to.”
Billy explains: “When I first started, I didn’t know how to use it, but now I can play videos without help. I have made my own playlists for my favourite videos including Take That and Kylie Minogue. I can use the site out of college sessions. It’s great to have the freedom to do this.”
Chris Surtees, from the North East Autism Society says: “ACCESS: YouTube is minimalistic, clean and allows a learner with additional support needs to increase their independence whilst accessing a form of media which appeals to them.”
Henshaws hopes the technology will have a positive impact even beyond the specialist education sector, as Mike explains: “ACCESS: YouTube is just the first in a whole suite of accessible websites which we are developing at Henshaws College thanks to funding from Jisc service - Jisc Advance. The launch of similar accessible websites later in the year will allow users of assistive technology to search for images online, to give honest independent evaluations using a feedback tool and to access personal email accounts. These sites have huge potential to make browsing the internet easier for a whole range of people.”
The developments come at an exciting time for Henshaws as they coincide with the college’s new Media and IT Centre which is due to open this spring. Facilities will include an IT suite, two recording studios and a print centre which will be fully accessible to students and local community groups. The building of this new facility was made possible by the generosity of Henshaws supporters. Henshaws thank the trusts, businesses, individuals and students who made this happen.
Henshaws welcome any comments or feedback on the ACCESS: YouTube website. mailto:mike.thrussell@henshaws.org.uk
Last 15 places now available - register online and join the first international discovery summit, in London on 21-22 February. Jisc and the British Library are calling university librarians and archivists, library staff, museum curators and expert developers from across the globe to ask ‘how is open data transforming the world’s great collections at universities, galleries, libraries, archives and museums from being on the internet, to being of the internet?’
The aim is that by the end of the summit there will be an international action plan which will bring together collaborative next steps on the road to discovery. This two day summit is also open for online attendance so get the date in your diary now. There is no need for registration, simply visit the Jisc website to join in on the day.
Discovery of resources for research and education is an area of almost continual upheaval and this presents many challenges. Jisc and the British Library want to find out how open data can be used to make library, archive and museum collections easier for the public to find and use.
Effective resource discovery services are important for the student and research experience and for ensuring that valuable and unique collections are accessible as widely as possible. There are often barriers in place which prevent resources being openly discoverable, such as technical and licensing requirements. This summit, which will also be live streamed, invites attendees to share ideas and approaches to these challenges. It will compare and contrast endeavours that desire to meet the opportunities that open data presents. The summit will:
Andy McGregor, Jisc, programme manager says: “Jisc has been working on making library, museum and archive collections easier to find on the web for the last two years. The approach we have taken has been based around taking an open approach to metadata. One of the really exciting aspects of this work is how many other people around the world are pursuing similar strategies. Europeana, The Digital Public Library of America, the BBC and the British Library are all pursuing exciting new developments based on open metadata. The Discovery Summit has been designed to explore these similarities and allow us to work out how we can work together to address shared challenges.”
The two day programme includes presentations from:
Neil Wilson, British Library says: “The British Library is participating in several international initiatives building standards to be used in the next generation of resource discovery systems. We also work with partners in the wider community via our open metadata strategy to explore the possibilities of new resource discovery technologies such as linked open data. The common factor is collaboration since whatever the technologies, our users need interoperable solutions and we can no longer afford to use standalone approaches. Events like the Discovery Summit are therefore essential in enabling us to clearly identify the shared challenges libraries, galleries, archives and museums face together with the joint actions needed to address them.”
The hashtag for the event is #disc13
Listen to the podcast (Duration 3:01)
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
As part of Safer Internet Day on 5 February and in support of new Ofsted guidelines, Jisc is offering advice, guidance and tools to improve internet safety within colleges and schools.
In September 2012 Ofsted produced new guidelines to ensure e-safety measures are commonplace within schools. By this they mean, how the school protects and educates staff and students in its use of technology, and what measures are in place to intervene and support should a particular issue arise. Due to the importance of safeguarding students e-safety is now seen as a top priority within education.
Malcolm Bodley, further education advisor at Jisc comments: “E-safety has been raised high on the agenda for schools, but there are also risks for colleges. Although students may be older, technology in colleges is becoming more and more widely used and students often have more online freedom.
“I believe it’s important to put e-safety measures in place within any learning environment to protect students and staff.”
Jisc aims to raise the agenda of e-safety and encourages colleges and schools to:
Malcolm continues: “Jisc offers a wealth of tools and assistance that can help colleges and schools to ensure they are safeguarding their staff and students.”
For more information on internet safety from Jisc:
Today, the third round of the Digging into Data Challenge, a grant competition designed to help develop digital research in the humanities and social sciences launches in Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and the United States.
This international grant competition sees Jisc in the UK deliver the programme management and grants administration, with £1 million funding for the successful UK grantees coming from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Stuart Dempster, programme manager for the Digging into Data project at Jisc says: “To enable new research opportunities to flourish and for our universities to remain competitive in an international environment, our researchers and computer scientists need new skills and approaches. We need more data scientists, we need advanced analytics to capitalise on big data and one way to achieve this is through this transformative international challenge. Building on from two previous successful phases we are pleased to announce a third phase of Digging into Data which aims to help our arts, humanities and social science researchers and developers build new insights into data on both sides of the Atlantic.”
During the first two rounds of the Challenge, held in 2009 and 2011, nearly 150 teams, representing universities from across Canada, the Netherlands, the US, and the UK, competed to demonstrate how innovative research methods could be used to address questions in the humanities and social sciences. Twenty-two of those teams were awarded grants during those earlier rounds, each of them demonstrating new methods for analysing vast digital resources used for humanities and social science research, like digital books, survey data, economic data, newspapers, music, and other scholarly, scientific, and cultural heritage resources that are now being digitised on a huge scale.
Due to the overwhelming popularity of the earlier rounds, two additional funders have joined for round three, enabling this competition to have a world-wide reach into many different scholarly and scientific domains.
The nine sponsoring funding bodies include:
The deadline for applications is 15 May 2013. Further information about the competition and the application process can be found at www.diggingintodata.org.
Teaching models in higher education are still not green enough, a study from The Open University (OU) has found, with institutions urged to look beyond greening campus buildings and teaching about sustainability, to lower their carbon-based environmental impacts.
The SusTEACH project run at the OU, and funded by Jisc, found that while there are some good, sustainability programmes in operation in HE institutions, there is more to be achieved by looking at how we teach and by embracing online methods and using ICTs. The study examined the role of ICTs in higher education teaching models and their effect on carbon reduction.
The research project culminated in the design of the SusTEACH toolkit – a resource available online offering tools and resources for lecturers, academic designers and students to help transform behaviour and make institutions “greener”.
The Open University is already embracing the use of ICT and online learning worldwide - through its existing teaching methods and new initiatives such as OU Anywhere and OpenLearn and is leading the way by adopting some of the SusTEACH practices to achieve greater sustainability in teaching.
As well as adopting SusTEACH findings to look at the design and delivery of teaching and learning on its full qualification programmes, the OU is widening the net to allow students to utilise a “carbon calculator” and indeed the general public will be provided access to a study unit on sustainable learning via the OU’s award-winning OpenLearn website.
Professor Andy Lane, professor of environmental systems at the OU and report co-author, said: “The main source of carbon impacts in HE teaching is associated with travel to and from campus, residential energy consumption and the many campus site operations.
“We found that the use of online and ICT enhanced teaching delivery methods, as well as traditional distance teaching methods, reduced the above key areas of energy consumption and therefore achieved significant carbon reductions.”
The study represents the first time complex online HE teaching models have been compared with traditional face-to-face and distance teaching methods to test their environmental sustainability.
Rob Bristow, Jisc programme manager for Greening ICT said “We’re delighted to have funded the work of the team at the OU. I'm really pleased with the way that they have taken the task of understanding the environmental impacts of the rest of what universities do beyond IT. This tool kit is something that will help academics, curriculum designers and planners to at last get some understanding of the environmental implications of the decisions they make.”
The first major quantitative study to assess the energy consumption and carbon impacts of traditional campus-based and distance higher education systems was the Factor 10 Visions study ‘Towards Sustainable Higher Education’ led by Robin Roy and Stephen Potter. It found that on average, the production and delivery of distance teaching consumed nearly 90% less energy and produced 85% fewer CO2 emissions than campus-based higher education courses and modules.Building on this study, the SusTEACH project assessed some 30 higher education courses and modules in 15 UK institutions where a range of teaching models were used, including face-to-face, fully online and a range of blended teaching methods.
To permit a clear, comparative assessment, the study classified lecturers’ ratings of their use of face-to-face teaching, print-based materials and ICT-based teaching and learning. In addition, a carbon-based environmental assessment methodology was used to measure the carbon impacts associated with typical factors of HE courses including: staff and student travel; purchase and use of ICT devices and educational materials; residential energy consumption and campus site operations.
The study – which was shortlisted for the prestigious Green Gown Awards for best practice in the HE sector - found that the growth of ICTs is enabling more innovation and has created more teaching models and approaches, but also raises the question of whether this is environmentally better or worse than traditional teaching methods. The findings support the sustainability credentials of online teaching and learning.
About 6,500 newly digitised objects from University College London and the University of Reading’s diverse museum collections are now openly accessible to students, teachers and the public at large, thanks to funding from Jisc.
The objects include rare Ancient Egyptian artefacts brought to life in twenty-first-century 3D; digital images of zoological specimens in glass jars, strange and beautiful anatomical prints, sixteenth-century portraits, and intriguing nineteenth-century scientific gadgets. The digital artefacts encompass a range of disciplines from sciences to the arts.
In addition to the digitised objects, which can be freely viewed, downloaded and used on a Creative Commons licence, the two museums have also produced a range of Open Educational Resources (OER) such as videos and worksheets to support object-based learning. The interdisciplinary nature of these resources makes them particularly versatile for online learning and suitable for the growing number of initiatives such as Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
Leonie Hannan, teaching fellow in object based learning at University College London says: “Teaching using museum objects is increasingly popular in universities, owing to the active and experiential nature of object-based learning. However, hands-on time with collections is always limited and the ability to provide access to our collections digitally overcomes barriers to independent student learning. By making these resources open access they will not only benefit our own teachers and learners, but also much wider audiences across the education sector. We are really fascinated to find out how others use these resources and we hope they can be adapted to meet a whole range of learning needs.”
Paola Marchionni, programme manager at Jisc says: “This project shows how digitisation can help institutions enhance teaching and learning while at the same time benefit the wider public by making a huge range of resources openly available for everybody to use and enjoy. We’re proud at Jisc to see how museum staff from the universities joined forces with their academic colleagues as well as students in an exemplary partnership which has ensured the resources created respond to the needs of the teachers and learners.”
The digitised objects, which will add to a bank of 150,000 already existing digital resources from the two museums, are available through Culture Grid, the UK gateway to heritage resources. The OERs can be accessed through JORUM, the online educational resource sharing site, using the search term OBL4HE.
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
Jisc has launched the first national eMarketplace for the Work Based Learning (WBL) sector. It will ease the purchasing process and offer savings of up to 20%.
GeM for WBL is a website offering users savings on everyday products and services via quality-assured suppliers and negotiated contracts. All suppliers have been carefully chosen for their competitive prices and level of service to the WBL sector, giving users the reassurance that they can buy with confidence.
With independent training providers spending, on average, £170 million per year on procuring products and services, this is a welcome initiative for the growing WBL sector. Users can initially gain savings on a wide range of office equipment including furniture, stationery and uniforms via the website’s first supplier, Office Depot. Other suppliers will follow shortly and will focus on typical high-spend items for the WBL sector including:
A number of training providers have already had a sneak preview of the site whilst piloting the service. Carl Johnson, Finance Director at the Training for Travel Group Ltd said: “We did a full cost analysis of our 20 top ordered items in comparison to the two stationery providers that we use and found that we would get a 39% saving with Office Depot. This amazed us as we had been using local suppliers and had spent a long time negotiating the prices down. Add to that the online ordering system, quick delivery and range of products..."
Paul Warner, director of employment and skills at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), the national membership organisation representing the WBL sector, said: "Healthy cash flow is as vital as ever for work based learning providers when margins are tight. The GeM for WBL service could therefore be a critical tool in helping to minimise outgoings and I encourage AELP members to check it out, especially as it's free!"
The service - being led by Jisc Advance and using breakthrough cloud technology from @UK PLC - is free for training providers [1] to use. It is funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and supported by AELP. Local WBL provider networks have been crucial in shaping the service with the Greater Manchester Learning Provider Network being a key project partner.
Guy Lambert, CEO of Jisc Advance said: “This new service is based on the established GeM service for higher and further education which has helped institutions buy more competitively and simply over the last year, saving money both on external spend and internal administration. We are therefore delighted that we can now offer a service to training providers which combines these efficiency savings with access for the first time to nationally-negotiated contracts, thus providing a double benefit.”
Ronald Duncan, chairman of @UK PLC comments: “Jisc is once again leading the way with this new and innovative service that will transform the relationship between training providers and suppliers. We are delighted to be providing our unique technology to help achieve this transformation.”
To register to use the service visit www.gemforwbl.ac.uk or contact steve.durham@jiscadvance.ac.uk
[1] Providers of work based learning include Independent Training Providers, Further Education Colleges, Local Authorities and Employers. The main focus of this project is to get Independent Training Providers to use this service as at present they are unable to access any national purchasing agreements. All of the other three subsets have access to their own aggregate procurement arrangements.
Jisc Collections, the UK academic community’s shared service for content licensing and administration, has entered into an agreement with Open Access Key (OAK), the online payment platform for open access publishing, to run a 12 month pilot project, Jisc APC, to test its role in managing and processing Gold OA article payment charges made by its member institutions.
Lorraine Estelle, CEO of Jisc Collections said: “We are very pleased to be partnering with OAK which will test the efficiencies that a trusted third party can bring to the processing of Gold OA payments for both institutions and publishers. We hope that this extension of our established activity in the area of subscription-based resources will help all relevant stakeholders move forward during this transition phase in scholarly publishing.”
The new Jisc APC service will seek to reduce the administrative burden on the various parties involved in making an article available. The combined offering brings together OAK’s innovation in this new area and the trusted status of Jisc Collections in processing and managing payments on behalf of UK institutions and publishers. An invitation to participate will shortly be issued by Jisc Collections to UK Institutions interested in joining the project. Discussions with publishers will commence at the same time. The pilot will be overseen by a Steering Group comprising stakeholders and funders from across the education and research sector.
Simon Thomson, CEO of Open Access Key said: “Jisc Collections has shown tremendous initiative with this project to provide leadership and structure for the academic and publishing community following the Finch Report recommendations. We in turn are delighted that OAK has been selected to provide the financial and administrative workflow platform. We have worked closely with individual academics, universities, research funders and publishers to create a time and cost efficient service with user friendly functionality. We are excited to continue this development working for Jisc Collections and the stakeholders in the project.”
The pilot commences officially on 2 April 2013 and is in response to the publication of the Finch Report in the UK and the subsequent announcements from RCUK. The report recommended a balanced programme of action to enable more people to read and use the publications arising from research, and to accelerate the progress towards a fully open access environment. The report also made a clear policy direction towards the support for Gold OA publishing in the UK, where publishers receive their revenues from authors rather than readers, and so research articles become freely accessible to everyone immediately upon publication.
To find out more please contact Paul Harwood, Jisc Collections deputy CEO on p.harwood@jisc-collections.ac.uk.
Jisc is delighted to have finalised an agreement to preserve and host the Vital subject portals, an invaluable resource for schools.
From 1 April 2013, management of the established subject and special interest portals will move from The Open University. The portals direct teachers to some of the best subject resources available, helping to bring about innovation in the classroom to inspire learners.
Guy Lambert, CEO of Jisc Advance said: “We are delighted that the DfE and The Open University selected us to provide a legacy for the Vital programme. We’re looking forward to taking over the reins of these established resource portals, accessed by up to 6,000 users every year. Over time, we aspire to be in a position to extend the value the Vital portals already deliver to the curriculum and to teaching and learning. Vital currently serves teachers in England; our ambition is for all teachers across the UK to benefit from this invaluable resource.”
The portals will be free to access, complementing Jisc Advance’s new subscription offer to schools which is due to be launched in Spring 2013. This service will provide local hands-on practical support to:
• Optimise the use of schools’ and academies’ existing technologies
• Link the use of technology to improvements in learning outcomes and progression
• Provide opportunities to share with and learn from peers
• Provide open access to resources and professional development opportunities.
Peter Twining, director of Vital, commented, "I'm thrilled with this agreement with Jisc Advance which is a win-win for everyone concerned. It provides a huge endorsement of the work Vital has been doing, it will help Jisc raise its profile within schools, and most importantly ensures the ongoing support for teachers that the Vital subject portals provide."
Current Vital users will be contacted by Vital in Spring 2013 informing them of the changes and increased benefits. They will be offered the opportunity for their registrations to be transferred to Jisc to ensure continuity of service. Users can rest assured that the portals will remain similar with possible enhancements introduced in the future.
Jisc joins organisations from across the UK higher education network to welcome the launch of the Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID).
There are more academic articles being published than ever before and more authors working together. In order to be able to identify an author correctly a unique identifier is needed that can then link to each author’s publications. ORCID provides this link and if widely used would:
It also provides researchers with their own ORCID. Researchers are able to control how much information it holds about them and who that is shared with. The adoption of ORCID is a solution to the current challenges of being able to search for work accurately. By researchers volunteering to adopt its usage it could improve discoverability and accurate referencing.
Neil Jacobs, programme director, Jisc comments: "We welcome the consensus that has been achieved on this issue, which should pave the way for better research systems, less work for researchers re-keying details, and more efficient operations across the sector. We recognise that this is only the start and that work needs to be done to implement ORCID in the UK. However, we have a solid beginning and we look forward to working with our partners across the sector to build on it."
Alongside Jisc, the organisations below are encouraging the adoption of ORCID:
Find out more about ORCID on Jisc's website.
University and research libraries in London and the South East are benefiting from Search25, an online catalogue of world-renowned institutions and specialist collections, thanks to funding by Jisc.
Search25 allows users to access the catalogues from within the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries, giving their learners greater choice and access to materials. There are also cost and time benefits too as John Tuck, chair of M25 consortium of academic libraries and director of library services, Royal Holloway, University of London explains: “Search25 makes it easier to search, locate and obtain resources at any library in the group. This is the only service that allows students and researchers to benefit from and hop between a vast range of large academic institutions and rare specialist collections densely packed within South East England.”
Andy McGregor, Jisc programme manager says: “Recent work on resource discovery has highlighted the importance of open metadata and application programming interfaces, which allow computer systems to speak to each other. The M25 team have taken these principles and used them in their development of a useful new search service for their users. It is great to see the principles being tested in practice and I can’t wait to see where the team take the service next.”
Cathy Phillpotts, head of library resources and e-strategy development at London Metropolitan University adds: “First impression - wow! Well done to the M25 team. I think Search25 looks really good and works well and I really like the online video too which explains how to use it. I think it’s a good balance of form and function.”
Search25 allows users to locate specific items in an M25 library. Once researchers have found what they need, they can check whether they are eligible to access the library and material through the ‘user options’ section.
See how the group realised this project through their blog which relates lessons learnt and how they collaborated.
Jisc welcomes the announcement by the Open University today to bring together a range of free, open, online courses from leading UK universities through MOOCs (massively open online courses).
Professor Martyn Harrow, chief executive at Jisc said: “The development of Futurelearn aligns with Jisc’s vision to make the UK the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world. We are excited about the possibilities MOOCs offer and are looking forward to supporting the Open University and other education institutions in exploring their benefits.”
Jisc has been supporting activity within online learning across the UK to enhance the learner experience and open up access to education and learning for over 20 years.
One recent example has been the development of the ‘open classroom’ model funded by Jisc at Coventry University - linking in with over 60 universities across the world. The MOOC is a photography module which is being run with fee paying students as well as virtual learners. The benefits are already being realised as the larger class size means international contacts can be made, renowned and higher profile speakers and lecturers are secured and learners gain a wider variety of peer reviews from around the world.
This announcement by the Open University is an important step in allowing UK education to be at the forefront of the next generation of MOOCs – helping to build an online community for learners.
If you’re new to MOOCs read David Kernohan’s blog post on an introduction to what they are and how they can benefit learners.
A new interactive map of London showing where German bombs landed over the course of eight months during World War II gives new meaning to the word Blitz.
The entire greater city from Egham in the west to Dartford in the east, and from Potters Bar in the north to Caterham in the south appears to be obliterated by the red bomb symbols used to illustrate where a dropped bomb landed.
The year-long Jisc-funded mapping project, called Bomb Sight, has just been launched and was devised by geographer Dr Kate Jones, of the University of Portsmouth.
She said: “When you look at these maps and see the proliferation of bombs dropped on the capital it does illustrate the meaning of the word Blitz, which comes from the German meaning lightening war. It seems astonishing that London survived the onslaught.
“The Bomb Sight project demonstrates the clustering together of lots of different data using the power of geography.”
Dr Jones chose to focus on the period of the most intensive bombing period in London during WWII, the Blitz. In that period, Germany’s Luftwaffe killed thousands and destroyed more than a million homes. The Blitz ended, and with it the fear of a Nazi invasion, in May, 1941 when it became apparent that Britain’s spirit would not be broken.
The Bomb Sight project uses a slightly longer time-frame for mapping what bombs fell where because it uses maps of the London WWII bomb census, taken between October 1940 and June 1941 and until now only available to view in the Reading Room at The National Archives.
The locations of the bombs have been combined with geo-located photographs from the Imperial War Museum and geo-located memories from the BBC’s WW2 People's War Archive.
Users can manipulate the map and zoom into specific streets or boroughs as well as find out what type of bomb was dropped where.
Dr Jones won funding from Jisc to establish the project and has made the website and app available for public use to allow everyone, particularly students and teachers in schools and universities and citizen researchers to discover where the bombs fell and to explore memories and photographs from the period.
Paola Marchionni Jisc programme manager said: “Bomb Sight is a fantastic resource and it shows the power of what is possible by mashing up content that resides in different places. The original Blitz maps have been scanned and geo-referenced thanks to the National Archive and testimonials from the BBC have been incorporated together with historical images from the Imperial War Museum to create an interactive teaching and learning resource that is similar to a map sat nav. The augmented reality and mobile version is now available for Android users, making the resource even more interactive.”
The website allows people to find out where and what sort of bombs fell in their area, and explore photos and stories from those involved or affected by the war.
The associated Android app also gives users an augmented reality view which allows users to point their phone at a street scene and, using the phone’s camera and GPS, the app will display the bombs that fell nearby.
Today, the Association of Colleges (AoC), GuildHE and Universities UK (UUK) along with Jisc’s non-executive directors and trustees take the first steps in leading the organisation into 2013.
Over the past 11 months Jisc has been moving towards becoming a separate legal entity and this week becomes a registered charity with a new board of non-executive directors and trustees.
Professor Sir Tim O’Shea, Chair, Jisc and Principal of the University of Edinburgh said: “We are delighted that we are embarking on a new phase of Jisc’s history; being owned by the communities that we serve and truly delivering against their needs.
“Our owners, funders and trustees will play a pivotal role in ensuring Jisc is leading the communities that we serve through our strategic pillars. These include providing a high performing digital infrastructure, developing online content and delivering practical advice and guidance that aligns with the needs of UK further education, higher education and skills sectors.”
The non-executive directors and trustees share their ambitions for what they see for Jisc’s future:
HEFCE welcomed the news of Jisc's achievement in becoming independent and a registered charity.
Prof Celia Duffy
Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Prof Robin Baker OBE
Director and Chief Executive, Ravensbourne, appointed by GuildHE
Prof Martyn Harrow
Chief Executive, Jisc
Prof Martin Hall
Deputy Chair Jisc – Vice Chancellor, University of Salford, appointed by UUK
Prof Noel Lloyd CBE
Retired Vice Chancellor, Aberystwyth University
Prof Paul Jeffreys
IT Director, University of Oxford
Prof Paul Layzell
Principal, Royal Holloway
Ms Heather McDonald
Chief Executive and Principal, Sheffield College, appointed by AoC
Mr Richard Boulderstone
Strategy and Information Systems Director, British Library
Prof Sir Tim O’Shea
Chair, Jisc and Principal and Vice Chancellor, University of Edinburgh
Andy Westwood
Chief Executive of GuildHE
Martin Doel
Chief Executive of AoC
Nicola Dandridge
Chief Executive of UUK
JISC is moving to put its customers at the very heart of its activities during the coming year. This focus comes as the organisation reacts to the recent Wilson review into the way it works with the UK’s education and research communities and meet the demands of universities and colleges.
“With financial pressures every investment must count, and that is why we are focussing our efforts and activities to put customer needs at the heart of everything we do. Not only that, our customers need certainty – so we must be open and transparent around the products and services we will be delivering today, and what innovative technology we are creating for tomorrow,” said Sarah Porter, head of JISC innovation.
“We have been consulting with our customers and funders around their priorities. We know that every organisation faces pressures to ensure every penny spent is done in the most cost effective and efficient way to deliver results.
“With this in mind, we will be running a pilot scheme to develop our thinking and confirm our innovation product lifecycle. We will do this by working with professional associations and membership bodies across higher education, further education and skills,” Sarah said.
“We’ll be making it clearer how an idea moves from concept to reality and work to bring together the best in UK innovation and research talent to prototype and create products that enhance education and research.”
As a start on the road to meeting high priority needs, new opportunities and closer cooperation with the UK's education and research community, JISC has been in discussions with SCONUL, RLUK and the Research Councils amongst others. This is to address a number of priorities for universities and colleges through the development of resources, tools and supported infrastructure.
2013 will see the launch of the following significant projects:
“We are confident that these services and resources, provided by the highly experienced and professional team in JISC will make a real difference to our customers. We aim to be the ‘go to’ organisation for the sector, building on our already excellent reputation for technical know-how by adding a new and concerted focus on customer service,” added Sarah.
The pilot, on the benefit of using educational online games and resources will run from January 2013 – December 2013 and will be made available via JISC Collections’ online catalogue.
Colleges will have the opportunity to review these games and resources from November 2012 until the end of 2013 and can sign up for online access or to license the software.
Ben Taplin, Licensing Manager, JISC Collections says:
“We are facilitating business models that enable further education colleges to subscribe to commercially-created interactive software and games. These will support teaching and be freely available to learners at the point of use. It seems like an obvious next step as many of the next generation of learners have been brought up in a very technological environment. We hope that they will find learning through computer games a challenging and engaging experience.”
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
(Duration 3:32)
The pilot follows work undertaken by JISC Collections early in 2012, when a number of interactive educational software and games suppliers, as well as representatives of 25 further education colleges, were interviewed to gauge the current extent and use of such software and online resources by the colleges. (A previous JISC survey (2006) had shown that only 10% of teachers in higher education/further education were using games or simulations, but that 70% would consider using them in the future.)
The interviews also sought the views of institutions and suppliers as to whether a licensing role by JISC Collections could potentially be beneficial. A significant percentage felt that such a role would be of value.
Ben continues: “At the end of the pilot we will seek feedback from the suppliers and those institutions that have signed up for any of the resources, to consider whether agreements should be further extended with the suppliers and whether additional interactive educational software products and resources could potentially be licensed for institutions.”
To trial the resources or sign up please visit the JISC Collections online catalogue.
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Accompanying image on homepage used courtesy of jared on flickr.
Primal Pictures is available through JISC Collections.
Listen to the podcast (Duration 5:45)
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
With competition for school leavers to secure employment intensifying, employers and students are looking to further education (FE) to get college leavers ready for the workplace.
JISC supports over 2,000 UK learning providers to utilise technology for an improved learner experience. During this week, the organisation will be showcasing the support they offer the FE and Skills sector, including:
How JISC's Regional Support Centres (RSCs) can aid teachers and learners
Guy Lambert, managing director of JISC Advance whose services support the UK FE and Skills sectors says:
“This year we are pleased to be funding a number of new projects which are specifically focused around improving employability skills for learners through technology. For example, Ashton Sixth Form College is producing an app to assist students with time management and self-organisation. Boston College of Further Education is helping to deliver cost effective IT apprenticeships in rural locations creating a number of new resources including online assessments, videos and interactive documents.
“These projects are in addition to our active network of RSCs and specialist services that provide a wealth of advice, guidance and training for college staff and learners on how to embed technology into the curriculum.”
Jolanta Peters, research and library services manager, from Somerset College says:
“JISC RSC South West has been pivotal in helping our college to harness new technologies by providing forums, workshops and continuous support with researching, implementing and using digital technologies in teaching and learning.
“They have helped us immensely with embedding digital literacy and providing greater accessibility and inclusion for all students thus enhancing their positive learning experience. There is this continuous need to identify, promote and support good practice in the use of digital technologies in the academic environment, - JISC RSC South West is an inseparable part in providing this continuity.”
Find out more about what our Regional Support Centres can do for you.
Visit JISC content portal for digital collections and archives for learning, teaching and research.
Follow @JISC on Twitter and follow National Colleges Week #collegesweek
Read our National Colleges Week blog posts
Listen to the podcast (Duration 6:36)
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
32 projects are to receive funding to develop new learning resources, practical approaches and open up opportunities for post-16 learning across the UK.
The successful projects are funded by JISC and managed by JISC Advance. These will run throughout 2012-13 and will focus on four key areas:
The 32 bids represent all countries of the UK and aspects of the UK further education (FE) and skills sector including work-based learning, adult and community learning, colleges and specialist providers. They also involve 90 partners drawn from across the sector and numerous local links and partnerships.
John Edmonstone, E-Learning Development Officer at Cardonald College, Glasgow said: "We’re delighted that the Moodle2Go project has been chosen to receive part of this funding to provide a range of mobile revision and reinforcement materials for learners. As a consortium of future partner colleges this is the ideal way for us to kickstart the partnership process."
Ian Southwell, Online Technologies and Accessibility Development Manager at the West of England College for Young People with Little or No Sight, said: “We are elated to receive the JISC funding which will help us to make online resources more readily available for our learners. This will help to improve their experience of working with technology. Our aim is to simplify access to technology as much as possible to assist this group of learners. We are also delighted that our work will be shared with other educational organisations to assist people across the UK.”
Susan Easton, Lead for Digital Learning at The National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education (NIACE), said: “This funding is fantastic news for NIACE. We have long advocated the ongoing development of digital capabilities for adult learners. With our partners, including the Workers Education Association, (WEA), Coleg Gwent and Bolton Metropolitan College, we see this funding as a real boost to our work, bringing real benefits to the FE and skills sector as a whole.”
The FE and Skills Development and Resources programme was launched earlier this year in response to the Government initiatives to improve learning across the UK – notably the Department for Business Innovation and Skills’ ‘New Challenges, New Chances’ report. There is a total of £1.4m to fund the projects.
Guy Lambert, Managing Director of JISC Advance commented: “We received an unprecedented number of bids which demonstrates how important technology is for the future of post-16 teaching and learning. JISC Advance is delighted to be leading this essential piece of work, making a significant impact to the FE and Skills sector.”
The FE and Skills Development and Resources programme is managed by JISC Advance. This programme is funded by JISC from its UK-wide FE funders as part of their core financial contributions - the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), Scottish Funding Council, Department for Education and Skills Wales and Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland.
Knowledge Base+ is a new shared service from JISC Collections that aims to help UK libraries manage their e-resources more efficiently.
KB+ is being established to start addressing the challenges facing libraries due to the inadequate data and metadata about publications, packages, subscriptions, entitlements and licences that is available throughout the e-resource supply chain.
The result is that libraries are spending too much time correcting and maintaining basic e-resource information and not enough time is left to undertake the sort of decision making that they would like to be conducting to improve services for users.
Sara Marsh, Director of Learner Support Services at the University of Bradford and Chair of SCONUL says: “The release of Phase 1 of KB+ is the realisation of many years' partnership working between SCONUL and JISC. It's a genuine example of a community-owned shared service which has been informed and developed from the start by practitioners who recognised a problem and set out to find a shared solution. I'm delighted to see the service now being launched, and SCONUL looks forward to building on this initial phase as the service is developed further over the course of 2012 and 2013.”
JISC Collections has been leading this work on behalf of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and JISC, drawing on its own knowledge and experience and the work of SCONUL and JISC to identify the shared e-resource management needs of UK academic institutions.
Richard Parsons, Director of the LLC and University Librarian at University of Dundee, says: “KB+ is planned to be used to manage the data across the consortium to permit substantial efficiency gains within the institutions. It will dramatically improve the accuracy, utility, maintenance and confidence of our subscription data. Correctly implemented we would expect to see some operations completed once for all 19 institutions in SHEDL.”
In addition to saving time and cost, KB+ will also provide benefits including:
Nicholas Lewis, Library Director at UEA, comments: “We anticipate that KB+ will have a marked impact on the way in which we manage our electronic collections, not just within the university, but also in our day-to-day liaison with publishers, vendors and agents. To this end, we are reviewing our workflows to take full advantage of KB+ from day one and look forward to seeing how it develops to more fully to meet the community’s needs in the months ahead.”
Find out more on the JISC Techdis website.
Listen to the podcast (Duration 6:33)
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
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