Leading organisations from across the further and higher education sectors have joined forces to create the a single hub for sharing best practice in green ICT.
Combining resources and experience from 23 of the country’s top sustainable development and education bodies, the Sustainability Exchange will pioneer the UK’s first centralised information portal and online community for the sector, sharing a wealth of information that is available to everyone.
It will provide a place for colleagues in different institutions to interact and share their sustainability experiences via community forums, news feeds, an events diary, best practice guides, toolkits, reports, research, webinars and videos.
Rob Bristow, JISC programme manager, said: “As founder partners of the Sustainability Exchange JISC has always been clear that a one stop place for sustainability information for our customers will be of real value.
“Sustainable development in a diverse sector such as higher and further education is a complex business, with not as many simple solutions as might be desired. The Sustainability Exchange will bring together sustainable development resources from across the higher and further education sectors and will allow senior managers in IT, estates and organisational planning, as well as those in sustainability roles, to have access to guidance and resources that will allow them to conceive of and deliver a sustainable future for their organisations.”
Universities, colleges and schools face enormous pressure from stakeholders and students alike to be as sustainably-minded as possible. This pressure, along with the need to comply with ever-changing legislation, means the demand for knowledge, discussion and debate on sustainable development is greater than ever.
“The dynamic sustainability sector, with constant updates to compliancy and new legislation means that the Sustainability Exchange adds value from day one,” explains Iain Patton, chief executive of the EAUC. “Accessible via a website portal, the Sustainability Exchange will provide colleges, universities and other education providers with information and resources that were previously unavailable to many and, most importantly, all in one place.”
Adam Van Winsum, environmental manager at Staffordshire University, adds: "It is such a fantastic resource, which will really benefit every department - estates, finance and academia alike. This is essential as we've seen the sustainability agenda widening out from what used to be typically managed by estates/facilities. I also believe that a wide range of sector colleagues will find it a very useful tool in helping drive the sustainable agenda."
The Sustainability Exchange has been created with the support of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) via its Leadership, Governance and Management (LGM) Fund. The EAUC and Staffordshire University have led a partnership of 20 other organisations in planning, managing and implementing the project, which promises to deliver greater efficiencies through the collaboration of educational institutions.
Search the Sustainability Exchange and join the community by registering now at www.sustainabilityexchange.ac.uk.
Now, new tutorials have been launched through the national JISC-funded data centre Mimas to encourage more use of this technology to inspire learners in the primary, secondary and further education classrooms.
The tutorials will help students apply their digital skills to a range of educational scenarios, from drawing conclusions about the Haiti earthquake crisis to understanding map coordinates.
Gail Millin-Chalabi, GeoKnowledge Project Manager at Mimas said: “The tutorials in Spatial Science for Schools provide an integrated approach for embedding images of the Earth for topics such as tsunamis, earthquakes, species extinction, floods, atmospheric circulation and contrast enhancement of images. Part of the Landmap vision is to educate the new generation regarding the use of remote sensing so that they are better informed of the application opportunities available to them.”
The tutorials are aimed at 9 – 18 year old pupils to encourage the use of remote sensing by teachers in geography, biology, mathematics, geomatics and physics lessons.
Kamie Kitmitto Landmap Manager said: “Landmap is hosting this website to contribute to the UK government agenda to promote science and technology in schools. The tutorials offer a range of possibilities for teachers to encourage pupils’ interest in natural sciences, mathematics or engineering through the user of fascinating satellite images.”
The tutorials were authored as part of the Fernerkundung in Schulen (FIS) Project, University of Bonn, and are funded by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, Germany.
The videos, each with an interactive quiz, are predominantly aimed at further education colleges, but are available for anyone who needs guidance and inspiration on many different hairdressing procedures for their professional development.
Laura Skilton, hairdressing training service manager for Hairdressing Training, explains: “The new videos have been created by Hairdressing Training Tutors, meaning that they should meet the needs of both students and teachers, all in a format that is really popular. We are so proud that we can bring these resources together, free of charge through funding by JISC, and can now offer resources to cover the complete NVQ”.
Students have responded well to the online resource, which has had over 670,000 video views since its launch in September 2010. A site familiar to students, YouTube offers the ideal platform to reach this community. Feedback for the videos has been positive, with one YouTube viewer commenting: "Your videos are ... so easy to follow and understand. You make it so simple. Please keep up the good work!"
Hairdressing Training also encourages feedback from those who teach in hair and beauty courses across the UK. Jean Sullivan, campus librarian at Carmarthen College said: “I promote this resource during skills sessions to our Hairdressing staff and learners - the learners love it, especially the video aspect as they can play them on their phones when practicing on friends and family. I have actually had a few learners come back in to the library and ask me to remind them how to get back to this resource!”
The new videos have been produced by Manchester based company Lizardfish, in conjunction with The Manchester College.
This week a UCISA survey, funded by JISC, shows that UK higher education has made notable progress in helping students and staff access library services, email and course announcements from their mobiles.
The sixth survey of technology enhanced learning for higher education focuses on the current provision of technology for learning within universities and colleges, and the emerging and planned patterns across the higher education community.
Encouragingly, the report reveals that academic staff knowledge is considered far less of a barrier to technology enhanced learning development than in other years, indicating greater progress with staff training and awareness of technology enhanced learning.
However, the top two barriers to technology enhanced learning development remain the same as those identified in the previous survey: lack of time and insufficient financial resources.
Heather Price, programme manager at JISC, said: "We are very pleased to have again funded this important biennial survey run by UCISA which explores the trends in technology enhanced learning. The findings of this survey always provide lots of very useful baseline information for the HE sector and this latest 2012 survey is no exception."
The survey results are available here for universities and colleges to use to benchmark their own work against national trends.
Sam Brenton, acting director of The Learning Institute, Queen Mary, University of London, commented: “The publication of this report is very timely for us and will be immensely useful. It's rare to see something of this scale that is done so well, and keys so directly into our in house conversations.”
Richard Walker, e-learning development team manager at the University of York and co-author of the report, said: “For this year’s survey report we included an additional layer of data on university mission groups, offering a different perspective on technology enhanced learning trends across the sector.
“The Survey sheds light on long standing areas of interest such as strategies and motivations for technology enhanced learning provision whilst touching on new concerns such as the economic climate that UK institutions are working in (post-Browne review) and how funding issues may impact on central and local support, on staffing provision, and training and development opportunities.”
UK researchers’ and educators’ demands for high performance computing are now secured until at least 2022, thanks to an initial £30m e-infrastructure investment from the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the higher and further education funding councils.
Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, says: "E-infrastructure, including high performance computing, is absolutely essential to our research base, whether it's enabling scientists to carry out complex experiments or helping academics manage large amounts of data. This significant Government funding will be a real boost to our universities, colleges and schools and is part of a wider package of investment to ensure Britain's e-infrastructure is truly world-class."
The investment will build Janet6 the next generation of the UK’s national research and education network, adding value across the sector from high-end research to universities, colleges and schools. It will also enable research to stay competitive on both a national and international level, and support the £60bn contribution that higher education brings to the UK economy.
Tim Marshall, CEO of Janet, says: “We are delighted to be able to continue to deliver this fundamental platform for research and education. The move to a long-term fibre contract ensures that for the next decade we can provide maximum agility and scalability to meet customer demands, that will inevitably be unpredictable, as research and innovation takes place. The new operating model that we are embracing for Janet6 will allow us to do so very cost-effectively in these challenging times.”
Research shows that as institutions use innovative methods to deliver digital resources to their students, so their use of different devices over the network grows. The pattern of data across Janet shows that data usage doubles every 18 months and this is unlikely to change.
However, in addition to this normal usage increase, there will also be a ‘data deluge’ from data intensive research, which means that future network demands are set to increase. The high capacity network means that research in biomedical sciences, climate science and genomics can continue at current rates, even with the need for the transfer of large data sets, as well as high performance computing, that are needed for research and analysis in these subject areas.
Martyn Harrow, JISC Executive Secretary, explains, “JISC first started funding the Janet network in 1984 with 60 universities and the UK Research Councils. It now has over 18 million users across the UK and underpins the digital resources and activities across education and research. As an ex-director of information services and libraries I know how much colleges and universities depend on a robust and reliable network. Janet6 will provide network capacity from a starting point of two terabits per second and increasing over the next five years up to a staggering eight terabits per second or even more – placing the UK in an unrivalled position.”
A seamless transition to the new network, and a proactive approach to network provision where it’s needed, means that most customers should not see any disruption in service. The new network will continue to provide unseen yet essential support to the work of researchers and educators, enabling them to communicate easily and share large data sets across international boundaries.
The provider SSE Telecoms has been awarded the contract to provide the fibre for the Janet infrastructure in the largest UK deployment of its kind, this year. The Janet6 infrastructure will be based on Ciena’s platform, which will enable the network to easily scale from 100G to 400G and beyond as requirements change over time. Janet6 will be fully operational by October 2013.
Sir Alan Langlands, HEFCE chief executive, added: “Janet is a national asset of which the UK can be proud. As a vital part of our research infrastructure, the next version of the network will further improve links and collaboration between universities, strategic research organisations and others. It will not only add value to UK education and research organisations, but will underpin the contribution they make to the UK economy.”
Brian Gilmore, director of IT Infrastructure at The University of Edinburgh and a member of the Janet board, commented: “From experiences in my own university, and from colleagues across all parts of the education and research sector, I know that the provision of a network infrastructure which provides continuous reliability and has the capacity to cope with an ever increasing range of uses and amounts of data transfer is essential. Without it we cannot deliver all that the economy and our students require of us. It is vital that Janet continues to make sure that the most capable suppliers are providing the quality of service that research and education need.”
Janet6 has been developed in the context of the Government’s Public Services Network (PSN) programme, and as Janet6 unfolds, the Janet team will continue to work closely with the PSN programme to ensure maximum efficiency in public-sector ICT spend.
The Janet6 programme is aligned with, and co-funded by, the BIS e-infrastructure initiative. BIS investment in both the core Janet network and in extending Janet means that it can better serve additional data intensive research disciplines.
The new survey report by the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance, Digital Content for the First World War, based on a study undertaken by King’s College London, addresses these questions for the benefit of people managing digital resources in universities, libraries and museums.
The report argues that the Centenary of the War in 2014 offers digital content creators the opportunity to reappraise received notions of the experience and legacy of the conflict across disciplines.
For example, they might choose to create digital resources for aspects of the War that have been little explored - such as the global nature of the War, medical and nursing history and the study of wider economic and social issues.
William Philpott, professor of the history of warfare at King’s College London, said: “The findings of this report will prove of exceptional interest to scholars of the First World War. It identifies the diverse range of approaches to teaching about the Great War and demonstrates the enduring interests in the subject as the centenaries approach."
To draw attention to the breadth of underused content in often small and medium sized collections as well as to encourage collaboration between people working on them, JISC have also funded King’s College London to develop a new online resource UK World War One Collections. The database allows researchers and content managers to search for UK university, archive, library and museum holdings relating to the conflict, saving them time and potentially reducing duplication of effort.
Sarah Fahmy, Strategic Content Alliance manager, said: “By understanding the needs of academics and researchers studying the First World War, we are better placed to create and enhance content that will suit their educational requirements. This report and the database are valuable as they encourage content creators to ask the right questions before starting work on their digital collections.”
JISC is responding to the report recommendations by working strategically with other organisations and academics to create and enhance content – for example creating cross-disciplinary open educational resources that will offer the opportunity to reappaise the War and its social, historical and cultural ramifications through the University of Oxford’s ‘World War One Centenary: Continuations and Beginnings’ project and the Serving Soldier online collection at King’s.
JISC’s recent work with Wikimedia UK brought together academic experts and editors of Wikipedia (Wikipedians) to create and improve Wikipedia articles on World War One topics. It means that students, researchers and the public can now access accurate, consistent, wide-ranging Wikipedia articles that are as up-to-date as possible and there are now new links between Wikipedian and academic communities.
The report also highlights that to create unique and compelling digital content for the benefit of education and research, funders, content providers and other agencies need to work together. By building mechanisms for collaboration, any potential investment goes further and delivers better services for less.
Catherine Grout, JISC eContent programme director, said: “The forthcoming centenary of World War One provides us with a remarkable opportunity to utilise information and communications technology to provide researchers and students with unique insights into the ‘war to end all wars’. JISC shares a unity of purpose with other organisations across the UK to ensure that current and future generations of learners, teachers and researcher have access to the best that digital content and resources can offer, including providing access to many new and important resources.”
Are you making the most of social media to support your students?
To celebrate our ten thousandth Twitter follower, we showcase some resources that can help you blog, tweet and interact your way to better student retention, marketing and teaching online.
While you’re staying up to date online, don’t forget to follow us @JISC on Twitter.
Responding to the recommendation, new work funded by JISC and the Wellcome Trust on behalf of the Open Access Implementation Group (OAIG) will look at how we can help universities manage the charges efficiently and also what role an intermediary might play in making the process work smoothly.
The new study will build on the OAIG’s earlier findings:
The request for proposals and full project specification are available. Please contact David Carr at the Wellcome Trust with any queries.
Neil Jacobs, programme director at JISC, said: “This work will be an important step forward in helping universities and other research organisations prepare for open access publishing. We envisage that an intermediary role might help publishers, funders and research organisations by reducing transaction costs, speeding up payment of APCs and ensuring an efficient and competitive market in Gold OA.”
The deadline for proposals - which should be sent to David Carr - is 5pm on 31 July 2012 and we will be able to share more after the work has been completed in the Autumn.
As it’s our job to not only deliver for you today but to future gaze on your behalf so that you are in a better place to make decisions, we’ve structured the latest edition of JISC Inform around that topic. We welcome your comments both on individual articles and by email to informeditor@jisc.ac.uk
Along with the events, features and advice that you’ve come to expect, in this issue we’ve pulled together our predictions for the future, including wise forecasts from key people you’ll recognise as strategic thinkers.
Here are our recommendations of what to read.
Research students need more face-to-face and informal support tailored to their own subject area to help them embrace open web technologies and social media fully, according to the UK’s largest study of doctoral students commissioned by the technology consortium JISC and the British Library.
The Researchers of Tomorrow project surveyed 17,000 doctoral students over the course of its three year longitudinal study to set a benchmark for the research behaviour of so-called Generation Y students born between 1983-1992. Read the study online or download itThe final year of the study looked in detail at researchers’ use of social media applications within the research setting, and it found that, over the three-year period, there has been only a gradual increase in use of the social web and social media, which may seem surprising considering our increasingly digitalised culture.
For example, 23% of all the students have made passive use of online forums, but only 13% have taken an active part in any discussions: 23% followed blogs, but only 9% maintained a blog themselves. Active take-up of institutionally-provided open web resources is also low, with students requesting more information about technologies and applications such as Google Scholar, cloud computing, EndNote and Mendeley.
Louisa Dale, senior relations and support manager, has been overseeing the final phase of the study for JISC. She says: “We want to make sure that everyone within a university - from the blogging vice chancellor to the researcher connecting on Twitter - can and does utilise the latest technologies, to inspire and transform higher education and research.
“Research students and their institutions can benefit from our toolkits and resources to guide them through the process of sharing their work online.”
Maja Maricevic, head of higher education from the British Library, said: “This study is important for the British Library. We want our services and help for researchers to reflect on-going changes in the research environment. The findings present us with a challenge of working collaboratively across research support landscape to provide digital resources that are relevant and linked to high quality tailored support that is informed by researchers’ needs.”
Other findings from the report include a continuing lack of understanding about the nature of open access. Generation Y students felt that putting their own work out openly will bring them no positive benefits, and may even have a negative impact. Equally, doctoral students’ understanding of the intellectual property and copyright environment appears to be a source of confusion, rather than an enabler of innovation. The debate about open access continues to be prominent in the media, and JISC and the British Library will continue to engage with researchers to ascertain how attitudes might be changing.
The study also highlighted a marked dependency on published secondary sources rather than primary sources, such as archival materials and data sets, as the basis of students’ own original research, regardless of discipline.
The full data will shortly be open for others to delve into to see what they can extract from the research.
Read the report online or download it
Listen to a podcast with Julie Carpenter, the report author (Duration 8:16)
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
Today JISC launches three resources to help universities and colleges to implement e-portfolios effectively at scale created from successful practice from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The materials explore the ways in which you can help to boost learner achievement, enhance employability and even support the development of new courses.
Key messages from from these resources have been synthesised in to a short guide, ‘Crossing the Threshold’ , which summarises the issues and benefits experienced by pioneer institutions and provides signposts to key aspects of the resources.
JISC programme manager Lisa Gray says that a review of both the toolkit and supporting videos gives a thorough, accessible introduction to implementing e-portfolio tools.
She said: “What shines out from the case studies is the enormous potential that e-portfolios offer, and the benefits that they deliver to students over and above what they might achieve on their own, via Facebook or some other platform.
“Many universities, colleges and professional bodies, are now exploring the potential of e-portfolios on a wider scale, but there have been few attempts to share good practice and celebrate successes.
At Southampton Solent University, the e-portfolio system called Mahara, has been integrated with the virtual learning environment to enable students on media courses to give full rein to their creative abilities and sell themselves to future employers.
Fiona Burton, careers advisor at Southampton Solent University, said: “Employers say they can’t find graduates with the appropriate skills. Using an e-portfolio they’ll be able to evidence those skills.”
The University of Wolverhampton is another example of an institution that has been exploring more innovative approaches to e-portfolios, and has found that learners studying remotely can evidence their achievements and experiences more clearly, and achieve qualifications via an e-portfolio system such as PebblePad.
In addition to developing short courses for employees of local businesses, the university has launched a new undergraduate law degree that is being delivered entirely through an e-portfolio tool.
Explore the toolkit and video case studies
Read Crossing the Threshold in a format that suits you
JISC have also recently released an effective practice guide for institutions that explores ways how they can respond flexibly to the need of a broader range of learners and meet the opportunities and challenges presented by lifelong learning called Effective Learning in a Digital Age.
JISC welcomes the ‘Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications’ also known as the Finch report, published today. The Report examines how to expand and improve access for everyone to international peer-reviewed research.
Martyn Harrow JISC executive secretary says, "JISC believes that publicly-funded research should be made available as widely as possible. We work with universities, funders, researchers and publishers to make this happen.
"This report provides a clear direction of travel towards open access, and we look forward to working through the UK Open Access Implementation Group to support and pursue these recommendations. The report also stresses the potential of extended licensing and JISC’s existing expertise in this area will be invaluable,” he said.
Martyn continued, “Finally, the report notes an important and continuing role for repositories, and the work needed to improve that infrastructure. Again, JISC will work with partners to continue to address this. In combination, these recommendations will mean that more people and organisations will have greater access to UK and worldwide university research than ever before.
“JISC particularly welcomes the suggestion that JISC will play a key role in gathering and analysing data that indicates progress in the transition to open access. We have a strong role to play on behalf of the research community and the university sector in ensuring the best possible advice, information, guidance and tools are available to share their knowledge in this area.”
JISC Collections negotiates national license and content agreements for UK colleges, universities and schools to ensure access and value for money for journal content providing economies of scale and quality resources. JISC also provides guidance on how to set-up your own research repository and to support your journey to adopting the right open access route for your research and your organisation.
Kuali OLE, one of the largest academic library software collaborations in the United States, and JISC, the UK’s expert on digital technologies for education and research, announce a collaboration that will make data about e-resources—such as publication and licensing information—more easily available.
Together, Kuali OLE and JISC will develop an international open data repository that will give academic libraries a broader view of subscribed resources.The effort, known as the Global Open Knowledgebase (GOKb) project, is funded in part by a $499,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. North Carolina State University will serve as lead institution for the project.
GOKb will be an open, community-based, international data repository that will provide libraries with publication information about electronic resources. This information will support libraries in providing efficient and effective services to their users and ensure that critical electronic collections are available to their students and researchers."This Kuali OLE – JISC partnership adds momentum to our efforts to create an open library system and offers benefits to all participants. We are pleased at the way our projects have come together toward a common goal, and look forward to sharing the results widely,” said Deborah Jakubs, university librarian and vice provost for library affairs at Duke University and co-chair of the Kuali OLE board.
Robert H. McDonald, Executive Director of Kuali OLE, says, "With the start-up of the GOKb Project, Kuali OLE as an organization is showcasing the strengths and opportunities that come from deep collaborative engagements with our peer academic libraries both in the US and in the UK. The role for libraries in collaboration around electronic content can't be dismissed. Libraries need better supply-chain options for our electronic content management workflows and the GOKb Project will provide solutions.""Nowhere are the advantages and possibilities of data better understood and more keenly felt than in academic libraries,” says Rachel Bruce, JISC Innovation Director. “Data underpins the services and systems that libraries provide to their students and researchers.”
The GOKb cloud service will provide data for “subscribed resources” from a higher education perspective. It will include data such as publication information, related organizations, and model licences, and will be accessible across all US and UK academic libraries.Many of the concerns libraries have in the management of electronic resources are the same across the world. Indeed, there are a number of projects, such as the Kuali OLE (Open library Environment) in the U.S. and the Knowledge Base+ service in the UK, that are exploring community-based solutions.
Kuali OLE is a community of nine research libraries working together to build the first open-source system designed by and for academic and research libraries for managing and delivering intellectual information.Among JISC's objectives are to provide cost-effective shared national services and resources and to help institutions improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their business systems.
A JISC study (PDF) has found that learners develop a variety of digital literacies often through a social trial-and-error process, without the direct support or advice of their educational institutions.
Ben Showers JISC programme manager said: “By understanding and recognising students’ hidden behaviours and motivations, JISC is in a position to help universities and colleges develop better digital services and resources, with the student experience significantly improved.”
Watch a video interview with the two project leads David White (University of Oxford) and Lynn Silipigni Connaway (OCLC Research)
To understand learners’ engagement with digital technologies, JISC is now funding the next phase of the project which uses the concept of visitors and residents to describe their online journey.
The visitor sees the internet as a toolbox that they use for a specific task and then leave the web without leaving a footprint. The resident partially lives out their life online; they see the web as somewhere they can express themselves.
It’s the next phase in a longitudinal study into US and UK learners at different stages of their education in a partnership between the University of Oxford and OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., in collaboration with the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
The study says that there is now a learning ‘black market’ where learners use non-traditional sources of information online, which may lack academic credibility. While these practices can be effective for their studies, students are often wary of citing such resources.
Gaining an understanding of these emerging practices will help ensure that projects and institutions provide effective advice and guidance in the ongoing development of digital skills.
Ben Showers said: “It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Visitors and Residents work. It is not only challenging assumptions about how students use technology, but it is shedding light on those practices, attitudes and techniques students employ online.”
There are more intriguing findings from the study, including that LinkedIn becomes more important to people in the later stages of their education; that there is more skepticism in the US than the UK education system over students’ use of Wikipedia; and that students prefer email over instant messenger and other tools for ‘administrative’ tasks such as contacting a researcher.
“We are very excited to continue this work,” said co-principal investigator Lynn Silipigni Connaway. “We believe our preliminary findings will have a great impact on the development of services and systems for teaching and learning.”
“The project is discovering the extent to which the embedding of the web in both personal and institutional contexts is changing the way we learn, teach and research,” said co-principal investigator David White. “We are delighted to be able to explore this further and to have the opportunity to create resources that can be used to reflect on, and experiment with, new forms of professional practice.”
The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) today issued the first public appraisal of the Digging into Data Challenge, an international grant programme first funded by JISC, the US National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the US National Science Foundation and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Their findings are presented in One Culture, along with a series of recommendations for researchers, administrators, scholarly societies, academic publishers, research libraries, and funding agencies. The recommendations are “urgent, pointed, and even disruptive,” write the authors. “To address them, we must recognize the impediments of tradition that hinder the contemporary university’s ability to adapt to, support, or sustain this emerging research over time.”
The Digging into Data Challenge was launched in 2009 to better understand how “big data” changes the research landscape for the humanities and social sciences. Scholars in these disciplines now use massive databases of materials that range from digitized books, newspapers, and music to transactional data such as web searches, sensor data, or cell phone records. The Challenge seeks to discover what new, computationally based research methods might be applied to these sources.
In its first year, the Digging into Data Challenge made awards to eight teams of scholars, librarians, and computer and information scientists. Over the following two years, report authors Christa Williford and Charles Henry conducted site visits, interviews, and focus groups to understand how these complex international projects were being managed, what challenges they faced, and what project teams were learning from the experience.
Brett Bobley, chief information officer and director of the NEH Office of Digital Humanities, heads the Digging into Data Challenge. "Do we have big data in the humanities and social sciences? Yes—buckets of it,” he says. “But our ability to produce huge quantities of digital data has outstripped our ability to analyze and understand it. One Culture helps us to see not only why we would want a computer to assist us with our work, but how big data is changing the very nature of traditional humanistic research."
Co-author and CLIR president Charles Henry said, "This report discloses the complexity and sophistication of humanities and social sciences research in a digital era. It underscores the excitement and potential of new discovery through deep collaboration across disciplines and affirms the continuity of traditional values and perspectives of scholarly communication in a data-dependent milieu. The report also seeks to animate a collective responsibility to more concertedly appreciate, extend, fund, and provide adequate services to sustain this remarkable research."
In 2011, four additional funding bodies joined the four original cooperating agencies in support of fourteen new international collaborative research projects. These funders include the Institute of Museum and Library Services (US); the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK); the Economic and Social Research Council (UK); and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.
Stuart Dempster, director at JISC, said, “We are proud to be a partner in this trans-Atlantic endeavor which aims to assist individual researchers, academic departments, and research institutions to succeed with the ‘data deluge’ in the humanities. For the UK to continue to punch above its weight in terms of digital scholarship and research it is vital for it to collaborate in ‘smart partnerships,’ which foster innovation in the development of tools, skills, and new research findings. This report shows that success in action.”
“The CLIR report is an excellent assessment of this unique and exciting international partnership,” said Gisèle Yasmeen, Vice-President, Research, at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. “The Digging into Data Challenge project is generating innovative computation and data analysis techniques to better advance research and we look forward to its continued success.”
"NSF has found the Digging into Data Challenge to be an excellent mechanism for enabling collaborative, data-intensive research in the social sciences and humanities," said Elizabeth Tran, programme officer in NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering. "It has significantly reduced some the key barriers to conducting research across borders and has resulted in a number of truly international outstanding research projects."
The report is available online in pdf format; an extended version with case studies is also available in html format. Print copies are available for ordering through the website.
The report, One Culture. Computationally Intensive Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, was made public today at the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries JCDL 2012 conference in Washington, DC.
CLIR is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning.
Listen to the podcast (Duration 8:33)
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
John Hayes MP, Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning launched two new JISC TechDis tools this week as part of our work to improve access to education for all abilities.
The tools TechDis Voices and TechDis Toolbox will improve text to speech and provide a one-stop toolbox of resources, aimed primarily at helping people with disabilities or other difficulties to improve their work and learning.
TechDis voices will improve the computerised voice people hear when they choose to listen to a voice read out text from a device.
The new TechDis voices are two high quality, youthful and modern voices Jack and Jess that can be used with text-to-speech tools.
JISC TechDis have worked with hundreds of learners and the specialist synthetic voice company Cereproc to ensure that Jess and Jack meet high standards.
“Jack’s pronunciation is the best I have heard for a long time. Jess is even better than Jack – brilliant!” says Sid Cameron, assistant manager of Soundwell learning resource centre, City of Bristol College.
Sal Cooke, Director of JISC TechDis says, “We are hoping that Jess and Jack will help bring text-to-speech out of the shadows and into the light of mainstream education provision. There are so many benefits for so many different types of people.”
For instance, this software could help you multitask and listen to texts whilst travelling or exercising. TTS is especially useful for people with print impairments, such as dyslexia, and can also be very helpful to those who are more confident with spoken rather than written English.
The second tool is TechDis Toolbox, a collection of resources which give useful hints and tips on technologies that can help individuals work smarter, quicker and more efficiently.
While written primarily for those with disabilities or difficulties, it is useful for anyone who wants to gain or improve on the skills most valued by employers.
The toolbox explores many common workplace technologies such as Microsoft Office and Google and explains how to get the most out of them. It also suggests different tools for different needs. For example, people with a visual impairment may find screen magnifiers or text-to-speech tools useful; individuals with dyslexia or memory problems might like to use task lists, calendars and reminders.
JISC Techdis decided on the contents of the Toolbox by asking groups of former students “what should your tutor have told you but never did?” Their answers shaped the final resource, so the toolbox now contains bite-size videos, short guides, animations and brief audio files.
The two new tools were announced in Hayes’ plenary speech at the 7th National Digital Conference.
Historical events such as the Aberfan disaster in 1966, the Miners’ Strike in 1984 and the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 are some of the important events to have been documented and placed on the website, created by Aberystwyth University as part of Jisc's investment in opening up valuable content online.
Paola Marchionni, programme manager at Jisc, said: “The TV audiences that our popular programmes enjoy today is nothing like the peak figures reached by the nation’s favourite programmes in the eighties and nineties. The television was a really key part of our culture. Jisc’s suite of work to support the digitisation of collections like this one and the gathering of people’s memories of these events, shows our commitment to preserving our national treasures and opening them up for the benefit of education and research.”
As well as interviews with contributors and film footage the website, which is called Media and Memory in Wales, also includes maps, documents and photographs.
Working in four areas of Wales – Caernarfon, Carmarthen, the Rhondda and Wrexham – researchers interviewed people about how television affected their lives and the way they saw the world around them at that time.
Professor Iwan Rhys Morus, from the Department of History and Welsh History and leading the project, explains: “The website will be a vital resource for academic researchers, professionals in the media and policy makers. You could easily spend hours searching through the stories that are collected here.If you are inspired to share your own memory of watching these events and of the impact of television on your life, you can contribute to People’s Collection Wales.
“The archive resulting from this project will provide a significant resource for understanding the politics of television. For much of the fifty years in question, television formed a key battleground in struggles for linguistic and national identity.
“The new website includes an extremely important archive which explains the role of television in the lives of Welsh people over fifty years. I am sure there is something of interest to everyone here."
The project was carried out by Aberystwyth University’s History and Welsh History Department with support from project partners Culturenet Cymru.
Other partners are BBC Wales whose footage of the events provided an important spur for peoples’ memories, and the National Screen and Sound Archive at the National Library of Wales where the content will be archived.
Listen to the podcast (Duration 6:21)
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
The UK public sector already saves £28.6 million by using open access. The reports make it clear that both the public sector and the voluntary sector would see further direct and indirect benefits from increased access to UK higher education research publications.
Already, more Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations use open access than pay for subscriptions, despite the fact that subscription journals make up the vast majority of journals on offer.
image by mollyali on flickr
The UK public sector spends £135 million a year, made up of subscriptions and time spent trying to find articles, accessing the journal papers it needs to perform effectively. Each extra 5% of journal papers accessed via open
access on the web would save the public purse £1.7 million, even if no subscription fees were to be saved.
The UK's valuable voluntary and charitable sector would also benefit from open access to academic research. For survey respondents, the two most frequently mentioned barriers to accessing research were cost (80%) and lack of time (46%).
Professor Martin Hall, vice-chancellor at the University of Salford and chair of the OAIG, says, “These findings mark a turning point in the quiet revolution of open access. There are many good reasons for making research available on an open access basis, and the reports are clear that one reason is because open access makes economic sense. The UK Open Access Implementation Group is committed to helping the public, private and academic sectors benefit from UK research and I am proud that these reports further that cause."
Making more research free at the point of access, and easier to search across could produce significant savings, but could also lead to better decisions based on all the available evidence. As one senior scientific officer in a specialist scientific unit of large department of state observes “Open access would allow a lot more speculative reading and reading around the subject which is really useful for a holistic and high quality view to be developed."
This, in turn, offers benefits back to researchers, boosting the impact of their research by increasing its reach outside the academy.
These findings are borne out across all three reports in this series, and this body of new, quantitative work provides compelling evidence that increasing open access to research articles will have direct financial and practical benefits for the UK as a whole, benefits that are especially valuable in a time of austerity.
Professor Martyn Harrow, executive secretary of Jisc, which is a member of the OAIG, said: “Jisc is pleased to contribute expertise and assistance to the important work of the OAIG and we welcome this report.”
The reports make a number of recommendations around increasing awareness of open access in these two important sectors. These include promoting the value of the information produced as a result of public research funding and exploring ways of improving relationships between academic researchers and workers I other sectors who rely on their research to do their jobs well.
The UK OAIG is working to add value to the work of the member organisations to increase the rate at which the outputs from UK research are available on open access terms, and these reports show how important that work is to the UK.
Read the report Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to the Public Sector
Read the report Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for Voluntary and Charitable Sector Organisations
See the references for this press release on the OAIG website
The audio-visual archives of the BBC contain a wealth of material gathered since it was founded in the 1920s, but they remain largely inaccessible, held on film or videotape and managed to serve the needs of programme-makers within the BBC.
Chronicle makes part of that archive available to UK higher and further education by digitising news and current affairs programmes from the BBC Northern Ireland’s vaults.
This gives teachers, students and researchers the chance to explore and immerse themselves in the events over an important period (1963-1976) of Northern Ireland’s history, delivering a rich and contextual experience from a political, historical and cultural perspective.
After several years of informal collaboration between the BBC and JISC, today also marks the start of a new partnership as the two organisations sign a Memorandum of Understanding, to support the promotion of their common purposes, especially with regard to education, learning and culture.
Signed by Caroline Thomson, BBC Chief Operating Officer, and Executive Secretary, Professor Martyn Harrow at the New Broadcasting House and managed by a joint steering committee, the MOU will enable the two organisations to develop their joint interest in encouraging the creation and use of a wide range of audio visual and cultural assets to support education, research and public use.
Chronicle will provide authenticated users with access to digitised copies of news and current affairs material covering Northern Ireland and ‘The Troubles’, along with web-based tools allowing them to be searched, viewed and annotated.
Other advantages of this project are considerable, not least as there exists very little audiovisual content, covering Northern Ireland historically, politically or culturally during the sixties and seventies in any depth, even though a number of organisations and academics have indicated a ‘significant need’ for such materials.
Additionally, there was a strong archival need to digitise the material from the period: between 1963 and 1981 news material was recorded on 16mm film and a significant proportion of this footage is now in need of preservation while coverage from 1981 onward was recorded on Beta or Digibeta tape and at much less risk of deterioration.
The project has also been shaped by an academic steering group made up of scholars from participating institutions (University of Westminster, Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Ulster, St Mary’s University College and Royal Holloway University of London) who are reviewing the academic value of the project as it runs.
Martin Doherty, Department of Social and Historical Studies, University of Westminster says: “The value of the BBC Northern Ireland News footage cannot be overstated. Access to this corpus of materials means that at the same time as fostering understanding and appreciation of ‘The Troubles’ within education, the academy is also given the opportunity to build on this through new avenues of research using innovative techniques.”
Caroline Thomson, chief operating officer of the BBC, says: “The BBC is committed to making the best possible use of its enormous archive, and this project is an important step forward in finding ways to use archive material to serve both the academic community and the BBC's broader public purposes. We are very excited to be able to share this significant collection, not only because of the light it will shed on recent history but because we will be able to apply the expertise gained to other archive-related activities across the BBC.”
Martyn Harrow, executive secretary of JISC, says: “Partnerships like this one with the BBC are extremely important to us. We are able to share our respective knowledge, skills and resources for the ‘common good’ of British creativity, ingenuity and economic growth. Working together shows how archive content can be ‘opened up’ for the benefit of higher and further education which in the case of this project means it provides the opportunity for rich content to be embedded into teaching, learning and research.”
Luís Carrasqueiro, chief executive of the British Universities Film & Video Council (BUFVC), says: “I am delighted that this unique collection – which has not been seen since broadcast – will be available for learning and research. Television news is arguably the most dominant medium informing and reflecting public opinion. This news coverage is essential in understanding the history of Northern Ireland: including the Troubles but also fashion, architecture, journalism, religion, sports, and daily life. The BUFVC has worked for more than 60 years in placing the moving image alongside text as a scholarly asset, this new resource is yet another step in that direction.”
I don't have a .ac.uk email address but I'd like to preview the Northern Irish footage
The research shows that in the seven institutions surveyed, a FOI request takes a university an average of 5 hours 2 minutes to respond, at a cost of £99 rising to £121 when employment overheads are taken into consideration.
However, the report suggests that there are factors influencing these costs including the size of the institution, the nature of the request and possibly the maturity of the institution’s records management system.
As Steve Bailey, the senior adviser at JISC infoNet who managed the research, explains: “From the data we have there appear to be certain elements responsible for influencing the costs involved in processing requests over which the institution has no control; its size, for example, where the bigger the institution the more complex and therefore more costly the process is likely to be. There will also always be an element of luck involved with a question which one institution might find relatively easy to answer proving difficult and vice versa, simply due to the exact wording of the request and the way in which each institution functions. However, a good records management system seems to have the potential to streamline the identification, location and access of required information; whilst ensuring staff at the most appropriate grade are engaged in each stage of the process may also help universities deal with requests more efficiently.”
The research tracked 36 different FOI requests in seven institutions during January 2012.
Now that the methodology underpinning this research has proved successful JISC infoNet plans to collect similar data for a further 140 requests over five months later this year. The work was inspired by discussions with UUK.
Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of UUK, said: “Universities are committed to openness and transparency and JISC research has shown that universities respond efficiently to the majority of FOI requests. But this latest research shows that the costs are considerable. We want the Government to look closely at how FOI affects universities and particularly at aspects such as the charging rules, and how FOI relates to unpublished research. Meanwhile, this research will help universities develop their capacity to deal with these requests.”
The JISC figures appear to be broadly in line with data released earlier this week from the Ministry of Justice study (PDF) into the costs associated with FOI. That study suggested an average response time of 5 hours 21 minutes at a cost of £164 for non-central government departments, rising to 6 hours 10 minutes and £184 for central government departments.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives anyone the right to access information held by public authorities, which includes most UK colleges and universities.
For advice on how to deal with FOI requests, and the legal issues surrounding them, read JISC Legal’s guidance.
Through The Faculties website, universities are already working to reach A-level students more effectively to improve recruitment and better retain students who understand what to expect from university.
The new site, funded by JISC and supported by the major exam boards, is providing free educational video podcasts by university lecturers on subjects taken directly from the A-level/IB curricula.
Professor Michael Arthur, vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds, said: “The Faculties provides an excellent platform for academics at UK universities to bring their expertise into the A-level classroom. Podcasts of short university lectures on topics from the A-level/IB curriculum should help prepare 16-18 year olds for university. There is great potential in the project.”
Professor Martyn Harrow, chief executive of JISC which is funding the website, said: “At JISC we are very conscious of the demands being placed on universities at the moment – what The Faculties shows is how smart use of technology can help universities minimise the expense of outreach and reach a range of prospective students at very low cost.”
The project was supported by the JISC Content and BCE programmes which helps universities to use digital content and technologies to engage with other institutions both inside and outside academia.
Students and teachers have already embraced the site. In less than three months, The Faculties has attracted over 134,000 pageviews from 32,000 unique users.
“We’re only just beginning,” says Faculties director and history lecturer Dr James Harris. “University departments have a strong interest in contributing lectures not only because they better prepare students for university but also because they make a powerful tool for outreach and recruitment. We also encourage companies that recruiter UK graduates to sponsor podcasts. Companies help defray the cost of production and we show 16-18 year olds what job opportunities will open to them if they continue their studies. Given that they’re looking at paying up to £27,000 for their degrees, it something they want to know.”
The podcasts are so-called ‘stretch and challenge’ resources that explore the richness and complexity of the topics and help students prepare for post-secondary education.
Colin McCausland, ICT development manager at Ashfield Girls’ High School in Belfast, said: “Thanks for such a brilliant resource. It is going to be of real benefit now when pupils need that little bit of extra revision, which the Faculties have done in a very engaging way.”
The Faculties is already being used in around 20% of classrooms across the UK and the site has received hundreds of requests for new titles and for similar resources in other fields.
Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters, said: “I think the concept of theFaculties is brilliant. For years I have been pleading for better sources of information to help students choose the right universities and degree courses. This new website goes a long way towards helping students make informed decisions. With the increasing financial commitment that students make, the site’s appearance is timely as well as welcome.”
All the resources are licensed under creative commons so other universities and colleges can set up similar sites or reuse the podcasts as they wish.
Find out more about the JISC project
Universities and researchers will be able to improve the efficiencies of their research and remove obstacles in their collaborations, thanks to a new strategic partnership between the UK and Canada.
The Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI), a community-driven membership organisation founded in Canada, has invited JISC to be its first UK member. The two organisations will work together to advance a standard data dictionary for research and to advance a common global approach to research interoperability.
CASRAI’s vision is for all research teams around the world to have a single authoritative and reusable 'file' on themselves and their projects and be able to quickly produce and exchange any information needed, without retyping.
David Baker, CASRAI Executive Director, explains, “The research community in every country captures largely the same types of data. But three obstacles divide us: meaning, structure and format. These include the classic 'lift vs. elevator' problem - same concept with different labels - and the persistent problems of clashing data elements and software systems that can't speak to each other. A standard dictionary implemented in our systems and exchanges removes these obstacles while keeping freedom of choice in implementation.
"Thanks to this leadership from JISC, we look forward to bringing UK subject-matter expertise and perspective to this evolving international dictionary. In Canada, leading organisations (funders, universities, vendors) have come together to collaboratively advance this mandate. We hope to mirror this broad representation within the UK community.”
In both Canada and the UK research has shown much time is spent administrating rather than conducting research. This was confirmed by an American survey in 2009 that found an average of 42% of research time was spent on administration.
Josh Brown, JISC programme manager, adds, “JISC has a strong history of working with UK universities to deliver time and cost savings within the research administration process and contribute towards making research accessible, discoverable and easier to share.
“We know that one way to increase the visibility of research internationally and increase efficiencies in the research process is to establish a common language for research. This is so researchers, funders and universities have the opportunity to reduce their research administration and concentrate on the job of delivering their work. In just one example, imagine a universal 'auto-correct' that resolves terminologies between countries and disciplines and frees the researchers to focus on the concepts. We are delighted to be invited to be part of CASRAI to see how we can help to make this happen.”
The first areas of focus for this partnership will be research impact and research datasets. CASRAI is already an active participant in the JISC-funded DESCRIBE project on research impacts and the partnership will build on that collaboration.
For datasets, JISC and CASRAI will work together to form a joint UK/Canada committee (with associated review circle) to explore how we can incorporate the discovery and accessibility of scientific datasets into the standard dictionary.
View the CASRAI dictionary.
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