Happy summer to my fellow IDELers! #schoolsout #mscidel
And so the deed is done! IDEL final assignment finally uploaded...hurrah! :-) #mscidel
Learning providers, supported by Jisc Regional Support Centres across the UK, are being urged to take the opportunity to influence the future products and services to be offered.
Jisc regularly polls the further education and skills community to make sure that the products and services offered by the organisation meets the needs of the sector.
In 2011 the survey highlighted a number of different priorities, including:
Robert Haymon-Collins, Jisc executive director customer experience, said, “This year’s survey went out in April to many thousands of individuals and organisations and early response rates have been good, but there is still time to make your views known to us, and to help us improve our services.
“In the past few years the results of the surveys have helped us to shape what we do for our users and customers, in particular how to improve the student experience and how organisations can best take advantage of the fast moving world of digital technologies. We have developed toolkits, run webinars and offered staff development resources in direct response to the survey’s findings.
“2013 is a major year for Jisc in creating a more customer focused organisation. The survey is part of the process that will inform and drive our operational and strategic priorities – moving Jisc increasingly from a ‘product’ organisation to a ‘solution’ organisation,” added Robert.
If you are one of the 2000 learning providers supported by the UK network of Jisc Regional Support Centres you can complete the survey here.
Learning providers, supported by Jisc Regional Support Centres across the UK, are being urged to take the opportunity to influence the future products and services to be offered.
Jisc regularly polls the further education and skills community to make sure that the products and services offered by the organisation meets the needs of the sector.
In 2011 the survey highlighted a number of different priorities, including:
Robert Haymon-Collins, Jisc executive director customer experience, said, “This year’s survey went out in April to many thousands of individuals and organisations and early response rates have been good, but there is still time to make your views known to us, and to help us improve our services.
“In the past few years the results of the surveys have helped us to shape what we do for our users and customers, in particular how to improve the student experience and how organisations can best take advantage of the fast moving world of digital technologies. We have developed toolkits, run webinars and offered staff development resources in direct response to the survey’s findings.
“2013 is a major year for Jisc in creating a more customer focused organisation. The survey is part of the process that will inform and drive our operational and strategic priorities – moving Jisc increasingly from a ‘product’ organisation to a ‘solution’ organisation,” added Robert.
If you are one of the 2000 learning providers supported by the UK network of Jisc Regional Support Centres you can complete the survey here.
@JanetBenson77 Very tempted, but need to get over the long nights of idel first :-) #mscidel
Manufacturing Pasts, a project led by the University of Leicester and funded by Jisc, today releases over 1,700 historical sources for learning and teaching. The resources tell the story of what life was like and how quickly it changed in British industrial cities during the second half of the twentieth century.
Taking Leicester as a powerful example of these changes, the historical sources include photographs, maps, architectural drawings, oral history interviews, company publications and newspaper articles.
The related learning resources include videos, visual guides and selected historical sources.
All the resources have been released under a Creative Commons open licence (CC BY-NC). This means that they can be re-used and adapted by anyone, providing the creator of the work is acknowledged and the use is for non-commercial purposes.
Four major themes are used to illustrate the changing industrial city:
Simon Gunn, professor of urban history at the University of Leicester, comments: “Go into any major library and you will find lots of books on British industrial cities during the nineteenth century. But you will be hard pressed to find much on the 1930s onwards. Manufacturing Pasts fills that gap. Having these materials online has all sorts of other benefits as well, such as seeing connections between different kinds of historical sources that you might not otherwise notice – between maps and photographs, for example. Manufacturing Pasts is relevant to higher education students at all levels – supporting both dissertations and projects exploring one of the historical themes.”
Paola Marchionni, programme manager of digitisation at Jisc says: “Manufacturing Pasts is a great example of partnership work that has brought together knowledge and expertise from historians, librarians, archivists and learning technologists in the creation of versatile digital resources. The team has done an excellent job in providing easy access to both primary historical material as well as contextual background through imaginative resources such as virtual tours, timelines, videos, and cleverly used PowerPoint presentations. This project has opened up material to a variety of users, from undergraduate and postgraduate students to colleges, local groups and historians, and has already attracted a good degree of public interest.”
As well as being used in teaching, these resources are also intended to appeal to historians generally.
Manufacturing Pasts featured at a conference on Leicester’s industrial past, present and future on 27 April organised by the University of Leicester and the Leicestershire Industrial History Society. It will be presented at the Transformation of Urban Britain conference which takes place at the University of Leicester from 9 – 10 July.
Selected resources from Manufacturing Pasts can also be viewed on the University of Leicester’s new iTunes U site.
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
Manufacturing Pasts, a project led by the University of Leicester and funded by Jisc, today releases over 1,700 historical sources for learning and teaching. The resources tell the story of what life was like and how quickly it changed in British industrial cities during the second half of the twentieth century.
Taking Leicester as a powerful example of these changes, the historical sources include photographs, maps, architectural drawings, oral history interviews, company publications and newspaper articles.
The related learning resources include videos, visual guides and selected historical sources.
All the resources have been released under a Creative Commons open licence (CC BY-NC). This means that they can be re-used and adapted by anyone, providing the creator of the work is acknowledged and the use is for non-commercial purposes.
Four major themes are used to illustrate the changing industrial city:
Simon Gunn, professor of urban history at the University of Leicester, comments: “Go into any major library and you will find lots of books on British industrial cities during the nineteenth century. But you will be hard pressed to find much on the 1930s onwards. Manufacturing Pasts fills that gap. Having these materials online has all sorts of other benefits as well, such as seeing connections between different kinds of historical sources that you might not otherwise notice – between maps and photographs, for example. Manufacturing Pasts is relevant to higher education students at all levels – supporting both dissertations and projects exploring one of the historical themes.”
Paola Marchionni, programme manager of digitisation at Jisc says: “Manufacturing Pasts is a great example of partnership work that has brought together knowledge and expertise from historians, librarians, archivists and learning technologists in the creation of versatile digital resources. The team has done an excellent job in providing easy access to both primary historical material as well as contextual background through imaginative resources such as virtual tours, timelines, videos, and cleverly used PowerPoint presentations. This project has opened up material to a variety of users, from undergraduate and postgraduate students to colleges, local groups and historians, and has already attracted a good degree of public interest.”
As well as being used in teaching, these resources are also intended to appeal to historians generally.
Manufacturing Pasts featured at a conference on Leicester’s industrial past, present and future on 27 April organised by the University of Leicester and the Leicestershire Industrial History Society. It will be presented at the Transformation of Urban Britain conference which takes place at the University of Leicester from 9 – 10 July.
Selected resources from Manufacturing Pasts can also be viewed on the University of Leicester’s new iTunes U site.
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
Any of my fellow IDELers signing up for summer school? #mscidel
The art of procrastination. Got assignment to write but cat's on computer chair and mustn't be disturbed. #mscidel http://t.co/IyJQIiyANj
Deepwell, Maren and Hawksey, Martin (2013) Introducing the Maths Apps index. Part of the maths4us initiative. Presentations. In: Introducing the Maths Apps index. (Unpublished)
Deepwell, Maren and Hawksey, Martin (2013) Introducing the Maths Apps index. Part of the maths4us initiative. In: Introducing the Maths Apps index.
Deepwell, Maren (2013) ALT 2013 AGM Calling Notice and Trustee and Vice-Chair Nomination Form. ALT.
RT @HEAcademy Why universities should acquire – and teach – digital literacy http://t.co/Q1FmEE2Grd via @guardian #mscidel
For the many Pinterest fans on Idel - Bloom's Taxonomy and Pinterest http://t.co/o0FyIqHchj via @medkh9 #mscidel
RT @rdp_life: MOOCs provide most and least accessible teachers in history- Web U graded, via @nytimes #mscidel #mooc http://t.co/jPUNI7tUiY
@JanetBenson77 Oh, absolutely!! #mscidel
Just been to first screening of Encounter. Even got mention in credits. Surely that justifies break from essay? #mscidel
Very quiet on Twitter lately - IDELers must have their heads down :) #mscidel
Today researchers at UK universities will carry out 3D demonstrations on a ‘virtual patient’, showing how groundbreaking ultra high definition (UHD) technology is making a real difference to medical training and diagnosis.
Already used by trainee radiographers at Cardiff University, UHD technology, using the UK’s research and education high-speed data network Janet, has the potential to revolutionise the way medical training is conducted. It will not only free up treatment rooms for patients but also enable students to grow their competences in a virtual world before treating 'actual' patients. By sharing resources with other university sites significant savings could be made, as well as enabling shared expertise.
This showcase is the first of two run by the UK Ultra High Definition Consortium consisting of the universities of Cardiff, Bristol and Strathclyde, and Glasgow School of Art. Today’s demonstration shows radiographers at Cardiff’s Healthcare Studies undergoing training on a ‘virtual patient’ using 3D technology, bringing to life an area of the body in need of treatment. The streams, of 4-8K content (that’s 4 – 8 times the resolution of normal HD) will also be shared with other sites at Bristol and PSNC (The Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Centre in Poland). It will also show computational modelling on arterial cells - the results of collaboration with the Cardiovascular Sciences Research Group based at the Wales Heart Research Institute in Cardiff.
Nick Avis, professor of interactive visualization and virtual environments at Cardiff University’s School of Computer Science & Informatics explains: “The great thing about UHD video is that it enables us to use high fidelity visuals to replicate the human body, which are critical for modern diagnostics. However, delivering this data-intensive digital media to remote users, whilst retaining high visual quality, requires high-speed networking and infrastructure.
“We are fortunate to be able to use Janet’s high capacity data network to collaborate with research partners and push the boundaries of this technology, not only in the UK but internationally too.”
Dimitra Simeonidou, professor of high performance networks at the University of Bristol explains: “For remote applications, such as real time medical training to thrive, the network infrastructure must become dynamic and readily consumable. A fundamentally new approach is required in the way we design today's networks.
“The High Performance Networks group at Bristol develops ground-breaking technology which automates any network infrastructure, transforming it into a reflexive environment that instantaneously establishes network services at global scales. Today we demonstrate the benefits of such technologies using the medical training platform at Cardiff as exemplary application.”
The UK Ultra High Definition Consortium is the first of its kind in the country to build an integrated networked infrastructure for research into novel multimedia techniques and networking architectures. Through their work, the group aims to develop and deploy the next generation of networked UHD applications.
Emma Smith, video projects co-ordinator at Janet, member of the UK Ultra High Definition Consortium explains: “Ultra High Definition is the next generation of high fidelity digital media. Until now it has been most heavily associated with the entertainment industry and more recently large-screen coverage of the 2012 Olympics.
“This research will not only benefit research and education, but also has the potential to enable virtual museums/tourism, performing arts collaborations and many more. We are pleased to be able to support these types of collaborations through Janet.”
Already other research into UHD technology is taking shape as a direct result of this project. This includes a proposal for an EU/Brazil partnership to explore the infrastructure requirements to combine technical developments in cloud technology and the use of high definition content. It may yet be some years off, but as research in this area develops we may start to see its deployment across a wider range of disciplines and eventually across mainstream video.
A second showcase will take place later in the year at Glasgow School of Arts to further demonstrate the use of this technology.
To find out how your research and education organisation can use UHD technology, please contact emma.smith@ja.net or visit our website to find out more.
Enjoying London but assignment on hold til I return to the Emerald Isle - eek #mscidel
20 Must-use Education Technology Tools http://t.co/d6EM10s2DZ via @HuffPostTech #mscidel
This month sees the UK’s Research Councils’ (RCUK) revised policy on open access (OA) come into force for publicly-funded research to be disseminated through OA routes. A new metadata application profile called RIOXX has been developed by Jisc and UKOLN to ensure that university Institutional Repositories can start to comply with this policy.
Currently key information about research outputs are not systematically recorded and funders and universities face a challenge in tracking research across systems. The first release of RIOXX and the associated guidance focuses on applying consistency to the metadata fields used to record research funder and project/grant identifiers. This will allow research outputs to be consistently tracked between systems thus saving time and effort for activates such as research reporting, compliance checking and gathering business intelligence.
Neil Jacobs, Jisc’s digital infrastructure programme director says: “The UK research community punches well above its weight in terms of the quality and quantity of research outputs. However, these are not systematically recorded and attributed to research grants, so it can be hard to demonstrate that impact. Researchers, universities and funders have a common interest in ensuring that the outputs from UK research are visible and correctly attributed to units of funding.”
RIOXX also takes into account the need for interoperability between repositories, current research information systems (CRISs) and the Outcome Collection Systems (ROS), and Researchfish operated by research funders. It is has taken into consideration other metadata schemas such as ETHoS and OpenAIRE. Future releases of the profile and guidelines will also include the agreed language to track OA publications, and support compliance monitoring with the Research Councils’ policy on OA.
Neil adds: “It is important for UK universities to start to plan to engage and implement the RIOXX metadata application profile as soon as possible as it will support greater automation of collection of information on publications and other research outcomes. Associated software enhancements will also be available to support easy implementation.”
Dr Mari Williams, chair of the RCUK Research Outcomes Project comments: “The RIOXX guidelines offer clear and practical guidance to organisations wanting to attribute research outcome information to specific funders and research grants in their repositories. We look forward to agreed Open Access vocabularies being included in the RIOXX Profile within the near future.”
If you would like to find out more about future events on how to adopt and use RIOXX please contact Balviar Notay, Jisc programme manager. For technical queries please email admin@rioxx.net.
Insights into the social history and cultural change of those living in the 1980s give a fascinating overview of life in Thatcher’s Britain.
The Observing the 1980s project at the University of Sussex, funded by Jisc, collates first-hand accounts, written by volunteers, of their daily lives and views which were collected throughout the decade as part of the Mass Observation Archive. This material offers a unique and inspiring insight into the lives and opinions of British people from all social classes and regions during the 80s period.
The project brings together ‘voices’ from the Mass Observation Project and the British Library’s Oral history collections alongside 1980s documents and ephemera such as public information leaflets, pamphlets, posters and tickets from the University of Sussex Library’s archives. As well as Margaret Thatcher, the Falklands War and the miners’ strike, other topics covered include Charles and Diana’s wedding, terrorism, AIDS, unemployment and immigration.
Paola Marchionni, programme manager at Jisc, says: “Jisc has invested in this project in recognition of the value of how people’s stories can enrich the teaching and learning of recent history. Observing the 1980s is a truly collaborative effort that brings together different departments and expertise within the University of Sussex along with external partners, such as the British Library, in the delivery of innovative open educational resources.”
The material is also embedded into the University of Sussex Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) using open Moodle software. A variety of open education resources have been created including one titled, ‘Thatcher's Britain: Observing the 1980s’, this contains videos, images and slides and can be accessed by anyone through a guest login with no need sign up. There are also several infographics covering the Falklands Conflict, unemployment, the miners’ strike and sexuality in Thatcher’s Britain on the website.
Historian Dr Lucy Robinson, academic lead for the project who created the 1984: Thatcher's Britain course at the University of Sussex and developed the new open version, says: “The 1980s is attractive to historians because the decade is both close enough and far away enough to allow us to explore the limits of historical perspective and offers a diverse range of subjects in what was the last era before the internet revolution. A lot of the material comprises the personal memories of people who lived through the Thatcher era, making this resource seem all the more resonant now.”
Additionally, a key benefit for educators is in the raw nature of the information and its potential use across subject areas such as politics, sociology, oral history, cultural and media studies, linguistics, gender studies, narrative and memory studies, migration studies, folklore studies, anthropology and contemporary history. Currently no established historiography of the 1980s exists, which adds to the value of digitising these collections and disseminating them as open educational resources.
It will also be available through HumBox and JORUM as well as via other educational resource sites such as the British Library.
Hear Dr Robinson talk about the Observing the 80s project on YouTube.
@JanetBenson77 It's a useful skill, but I'd like speed-understanding to go with it :) #mscidel
I have developed a new talent since beginning this assignment: Speed-reading! #mscidel