JISC

Preface

 'As I come to the end of my period as JISC Chair, I am particularly gratified that JISC’s contribution is increasingly acknowledged and valued across the research and education arena. The success and progress we have enjoyed over the last five years indicates to me that the impact of our work is likely to spread yet further as Information and Communications Technology (ICT) becomes firmly embedded in all aspects of learning and education. It will fall to my successor, Professor Sir Ron Cooke, to continue to deepen our contribution to our current communities. I am sure that JISC will continue to prove an invaluable national resource, a focus for expertise and a source of innovative solutions for the whole of the education and research sector.'

Professor Maxwell Irvine, JISC Chairman (1998–2003)

Introduction

'JISC is an international success story. In recent years it has established a world-class service for further and higher education and the research community in the UK. It has developed an advanced network, excellent services and a store of valuable content. Its last strategy included the successful introduction of SuperJANET 4, metropolitan area networks, managed learning environments, and the extension of the benefits of JISC into further education through our collaboration with the Learning and Skills Council.

Our new strategy seeks to build on these achievements. Its first aim is to meet the challenge of keeping JISC at the forefront of ICT provision in further and higher education. In doing so, we shall follow the five objectives for JISC outlined by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Charles Clarke, at our conference in 2003, to:

• support and extend JANET to all post-16 education
• help ensure ICT is used effectively to improve learning and teaching
• develop appropriate links to schools
• provide international research links and knowledge transfer
• support the development of international learning

We shall also take into account the strategies of the UK funding councils and their related eLearning plans. Such contexts give us one set of challenges. Another is to respond sensitively to the views of those who depend on us for ICT services. As an advisory body to the funding councils, JISC is in a unique position, as it looks to both the institutions and the funding councils for strategic advice. In addition to our established relationships, we shall continue to explore the potential for collaboration with other national and international agencies, including the research councils and the new Higher Education Academy, who recognise the benefits of the scale and UK coverage that JISC offers. In addition, there is the need to continue to innovate in ways that reflect our careful surveillance and evaluation of rapidly emerging technologies and practices.

In responding to these diverse challenges, we must be careful to ensure that our limited resources are focused, as previously, on the collective benefit of the communities we serve, and the specialist groups within them, in order to achieve maximum national advantage. Already some probable developments are clear: the research ‘Grid’, research library needs, eLearning and eScience, technical standard setting, managed and virtual learning environments and content provision (ranging from online journals to moving images).

For over a decade, JISC has unobtrusively but very effectively served its users. We have unequivocally sought to provide a world-class service. For the past four years, JISC was chaired by my predecessor, Professor Maxwell Irvine, and I am pleased to acknowledge his outstanding leadership. I am delighted to be joining JISC as it moves from one strategic plan to the next, and building on the foundations he helped to establish.'

Professor Sir Ron Cooke, JISC Chairman

 

Executive summary

JISC’s mission is to provide world-class leadership in the innovative use of Information and Communications Technology to support education and research.

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) requirements of colleges and universities are becoming more demanding as staff and students increasingly exploit technology to support modern ways of working. JISC’s vision is one of ubiquitous and reliable access to an integrated information and communication environment, so that every user – learner, researcher, teacher or administrator – is able to enjoy a world-class infrastructure provision in support of their work and study.

JISC provides ICT infrastructure and development programmes to support education and research. It is uniquely placed to promote the joining up of activities to help achieve its vision. JISC can help to bring cohesion across the education spectrum – colleges, universities and wider non-compulsory education – so that practitioners and students will be able to access materials from different sectors of education, thus promoting a broader understanding of subjects. By helping institutions integrate their research, learning and teaching and administration processes, technology can be used to improve efficiency and quality. JISC is working with the eScience, eLearning and digital library communities to develop generic online information management and an underlying infrastructure which will enable the effective sharing and use of information resources, regardless of data type. These form the key strategic aims for JISC.

JISC’s work is carried out through the funding of innovative development programmes, by leadership and the management of broadly based services. JISC serves a number of different communities and specialist groups. Generic solutions can be found in many areas, but JISC’s work programme can usefully be considered as a matrix model.

Audience: Type of work:	Research	Learning and Teaching	Management
Advice and guidance	eg Training for social scientists	eg Plagiarism advice or Regional Support Centres	eg JISCInfoNET or Legal Information Service
Content management and provision	eg Content Repositories	eg VLE development or materials repositories	eg MLE development
Information and communication environment	eg Middleware services or data archive	eg Interoperability standards	eg Security of information
JANET	eg The Grid or optical networking	eg Reliability	eg Accessibility

JISC’s five strategic aims reflect and support both government objectives and the needs of the education and research communities, to:

1. develop solutions that help enable the UK education and research communities to keep their activities world-class through the innovative use of ICT
2. provide advice to institutions to enable them to make economic, efficient and legally compliant use of ICT, respecting the individual’s and corporate rights and responsibilities
3. help the sector provide positive, personalised user learning experiences and aid student progression
4. develop mutually advantageous partnerships with organisations in the UK and abroad
5. advise, inform and help implement the strategies of government, funding councils and research councils

Aim one will be met through:

• Providing a first class sustainable infrastructure (network, middleware, widely available content and an information and communications environment)
• Supporting the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and the development of Managed Learning Environments (MLEs), identifying and defining technical standards and, with other organisations, helping to embed eLearning and supporting emerging eLearning pedagogies
• Supporting research and in particular eScience, and helping to embed eScience more widely across research

Aim two will be met through:

• Helping institutions plan and manage change to exploit ICT (eg risk analysis, cost of ownership, staff development and skills training, rights management)
• Providing an observatory role, coherent advisory services and forming a more robust evidence base for the effectiveness of ICT
• Improving the effectiveness of scholarly communication in support of research, learning and teaching
• Improving communication and feedback mechanisms with the JISC to help institutions with their investments in ICT, to discover and respond to changing needs, and to provide user-led advisory services

Aim three will be met through:

• Supporting the use of VLEs and MLEs to facilitate student progression and help embed eLearning
• Investigating the development of virtual communities and use of the Internet as a communications tool

Aim four will be met through:

• Developing strategic partnerships with other organisations particularly in the areas of the development of a common, integrated information and communications environment; VLE and MLE development; embedding eLearning and eResearch; and the management of online resources
• Engaging with suppliers

Aim five will be met through:

• Promoting wider participation in education
• Improving research outreach activities to benefit education and ensure eResearch is developed across the research environment
• Expanding JISC activities where relevant to meet the needs of the wider post-16 community

In achieving these aims, the priorities for JISC in 2004–2006 are to:

1. Maintain a first-class network infrastructure.
2. Create and maintain sustainable procurement and delivery services for online content.
3. Develop a common, integrated information and communications environment.
4. Create MLEs, linking VLEs with Management Information Systems (MIS).
5. Provide cost-effective and user-led advisory and support services.
6. Improve information and feedback mechanisms between JISC and its target audiences.
7. Ensure ICT is embedded within post-16 and higher education.
8. Develop eResearch infrastructure and use.
9. Help institutions manage investments in ICT.
10. Provide a technology observatory role and robust evidence base of the benefits of ICT.
11. Engage with appropriate national and international organisations. 
12. Improve the effectiveness of JISC to carry out its operations.
13. Enhance JISC’s role to support widening participation.

Review

In November 2000,  Professor Sir Brian Follett reported on issues concerning governance of JISC. His report concluded that 'The JISC is perceived as a UK success story, providing a network of world-class standard and a range of excellent services. Importantly, it evolves continuously and is an excellent example of collaboration between the community and the funding bodies.' The funding bodies accepted most of the report's recommendations, and a new JISC structure was put in place from December 2001.

Thus the previous  JISC strategy 2001–2005 covered a time of organisational change for JISC, and the establishment of the JISC Executive to support the work of the sub-committees has proved effective. JISC has achieved all that it set out to do within that plan, and more. The highlights from the last three years include:

• Collaboration agreement with Resource, British Library, e-science Grid, National Electronic Library for Health, British Education Communications Technology Agency (BECTa), National Archives and Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) to develop a ‘Common Information Environment’.
• JISC Regional Support Centres have worked effectively with other National Learning Network partners to promote activities to the Further Education (FE) sector, including the provision of common event diaries to improve targeting of training events within the regions.
• A programme of joint projects in the digital library area with the US National Science Foundation (NSF) was completed and a further major programme initiated with the aim of substantially improving the use of information services and resources in the teaching and learning process.
• JISC, Internet2 (from the USA) and the SURF Foundation from the Netherlands are now cooperating in areas such as optical networks, copyright, IPR, standards for information and learning technologies and are holding regular strategic meetings.
• The final report from the Managed Learning Environment (MLE) Steering Group, ‘Managing the future with MLEs’, has been published as a summary of JISC’s work in this area. JISC has amassed a lot of information in this area and has synthesised the outputs to produce the creating a MLE info kit which will provide managers and practitioners with the practical information they need to consider prior to and then when implementing MLEs.
• A new Plagiarism Advisory Service, supported by an electronic detection service, has been established, which will help maintain the quality and integrity of awards.
• The JISC-funded Centre for Educational Interoperability Standards (CETIS) ensures that UK Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) needs are highlighted at international standards and specifications setting meetings.
• A new Frameworks Group established to develop further the architecture to create a shared information environment to make it easier for end-users to find relevant online quality resources to support learning, teaching and research.
• Early English Books Online database has been made available free of charge to every UK FE and HE institution in perpetuity.
• Institutional membership of BioMed Central has been funded, which allows article-processing charges to be waived for all UK HE staff when publishing in any of BioMed Central's 90+ peer-reviewed journals, in which all research content is freely accessible.
• An eScience Grid infrastructure test bed (comprising of four computer clusters) has been established (with joint funding from CCLRC).
• JISC infoNet was launched to provide advice and expertise to colleges and universities in the implementation of information systems.
• TechDis has won the Best Information Knowledge Team in an Academic Environment award at the International Information Industry Awards.

Context

The use of ICT and the Internet to support the business operations of institutions is now pervasive within the UK education and research sectors. The challenge is no longer in persuading people that ICT needs to play a central role in an institution’s operations; policy attention has now turned to how to embed the use of ICT to enhance excellence in mainstream teaching and learning and research.

Technological change

Generally it is considered that the technology will become smaller, quicker, cheaper, more effective and easier to use over the next three years. Improvement of network bandwidth availability and reliability continues to outperform other technologies in its rate of development. SuperJANET 5 is expected to be a terabit network and will support eResearch computing. At the other end of the spectrum Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), cable and satellite are now making broadband access available in the home and in outreach learning centres.

The personal computer is no longer the unique device with which to access serious data, information or learning remotuely. Mobile devices (laptops, Personal Data Assistants, multi-function mobile phones) in conjunction with wireless networks are increasing the availability of data, information and learning on demand – virtually any time, any place, anywhere. Mobile computing devices and wireless networks are redefining the way physical learning spaces can be used.

In the home, set-top boxes together with digital television and games consoles are increasing the proportion of the population with access to online interactive services and may offer new opportunities for learning to reach more people. This is reinforced by the increased availability of broadband access to the home.

Increasing bandwidth and storage capacity at decreasing cost will facilitate the use of content that is increasingly media rich, intelligent, and attractive to the user. The emergence of standards and increasing interoperability could facilitate the emergence of a sustainable ‘virtual market’ in which content can be mixed and matched for a range of specific purposes, platforms and devices.

The web is now ubiquitous, with new services and standards developing rapidly; eg Web Services Technologies (WST) which offer the potential both to facilitate interoperability between service providers and applications, and to deal with internal Information Systems (IS) integration issues within organisations. These types of development will have an impact on the developments of the eScience Grid, the Common Information Environment and the MLEs.

Standards are developing in a number of areas. JISC is active with international partners in the development of some of these international standards and is tracking others as part of its technology and standards tracking operation.

The developing technologies are going to facilitate greater mobility of the learner, the teacher and the researcher, with access to media-rich data, information and services available in a variety of places at any time over a mix of platforms and devices.

Learning and Teaching

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in England, believes that ' the time has come to recognise the benefits that [these] technologies can bring to the way we teach and learn' and thus is working towards a unified eLearning strategy which will extend across the whole education spectrum. The potential benefits of eLearning cannot be achieved unless it is being used by a critical mass of teachers and learners. Similar visions have been adopted within Wales and Scotland, which have established eLearning strategies for their FE and HE sectors. In Wales, the national eLearning policy is ‘to demonstrate excellence in connectivity, content, confidence and competence in application of technology to learning’. The  Scottish strategy outlines that the strategic development of eLearning should be based on the needs and demands of learners and the quality of their educational experience. Northern Ireland is building common systems across colleges and institutions to provide integration and shared content.

The overarching vision is that eLearning can make a significant difference to the educational experience for all students at any level and of any ability; this provides a framework within which JISC’s strategy must sit. That having been said, JISC will need to recognise that each of the nations within the UK have different priorities with regard to the use of ICT in education and must reflect these differences in the planning of their programmes and services.

The use of ICT is affecting the way in which education is delivered and may result in radically new models of operation for some institutions. New approaches are already being tested and have given rise to, for example, the UK e-Universities Worldwide, the University for Industry, the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute and U21. Although such radical evolution is unlikely for most, the testing of different approaches will bring new opportunities for institutions, not only within the UK market but worldwide. The Higher Education Funding Council for England’s (HEFCE) eLearning strategy sets out the need to help those institutions wishing to take more innovative approaches in learning and teaching (eg use of eLearning) through capital funding and by providing support on change and risk management that will inevitably result from embracing such approaches. JISC will keep track of the developments and learn from the experiences, share best practice and thus be better able to support the future needs of institutions.

Elearning has the potential to overcome some of the barriers that some students face in accessing learning opportunities, in particular those of time, place and pace. The Success for All government White Paper features eLearning in all four of its themes and explicitly refers to the need to build on the ICT infrastructure in FE and sixth form colleges to extend this post-16 sector. The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) will work to extend and enhance the work of the National Learning Network (NLN) in England from the FE sector, thus enabling millions of learners to take full advantage of the benefits that eLearning can offer. The NLN action plan lays out a comprehensive list of objectives all focused on the vision of ‘e-learning [being] seen as an engaging … part of everyday life’ and JISC will be playing a key role in supporting this major initiative in conjunction with other NLN partners (ie the British Education and Communication Technologies agency (BECTa), the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) and the National Information & Learning Technologies Association (NILTA)).

It will also be important for JISC to work with the Academy for Advancement of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education which is being established to support quality enhancement in HE. Through its close working relationship with both the Learning and Teaching Support Network and the Institute for Learning and Teaching, JISC is well placed to continue to provide support to this new organisation and provide input to its strategic thinking and practical outputs.

Widening participation

The recent White Paper ‘The Future of Higher Education’makes clear the importance that the government attaches to the strong development of links between FE and HE, particularly in support of widening participation. The widening participation agenda will mean that universities and colleges will be dealing with different types of students, with different expectations and needs. ICT and the use of eLearning techniques will be able to support some of these needs better than more traditional forms of delivering education. ICT can give real meaning to ‘learning anytime, anywhere’, but this will bring changes to the way in which institutions operate and support their learners. New types of institution may also arise; more non-campus based institutions, and JISC will need to be cognisant of their ICT needs.

Disabled learners can benefit through the use of eLearning and the application of technology can help to unlock their potential. Disabled staff can be empowered to deliver teaching and undertake research by using ICT to overcome barriers to information management and resource delivery. JISC will continue to provide support to institutions for their disabled students and staff and will bring together the expertise of the specialist colleges in the UK, so that the whole FE and HE community can benefit from their knowledge and experience.

The extension of Joint Academic NETwork (JANET) coverage to the FE sector is already enhancing collaboration between the FE and HE sectors. However, developments within these sectors have not occurred in isolation and similar issues are faced by all sectors of education, in particular the schools sector. Schools, colleges and universities are obviously different educational environments; however, it is important to recognise the common issues that they face in deploying ICTs and the extent to which each can learn from the other. Direct connections of the regional broadband consortia to the SuperJANET backbone will provide an effective physical platform for wider collaboration between the schools and FE/HE sectors.

JISC will be able to play a role in helping to widen participation across education by working with others to show how ICT can be deployed to support retention and progression of students, as well as focusing on the needs of disabled students by providing information about assistive technologies. JISC will also be working with its funding bodies and UKERNA to widen access to students located in remote and rural areas by supporting initiatives such as  Digital Scotland and UK Online.

Research

The research community in the UK and across the world is beginning to develop the Grid. Grid technology will take the concept of the World Wide Web one stage further by allowing seamless access and use of computing resources as well as information. The Grid will have the power to fundamentally change the way in which researchers across the world undertake their work, in much the same way as the Internet has changed the way that the working world operates. There is a growing recognition of the need to create a broad-based eInfrastructure for research, similar to the need identified in the National Science Foundation’s cyber-infrastructure report, and JISC will work to support this vision.JISC will work with researchers and the teaching community to ensure that appropriate linkages are made between activities, to provide coherence in vision and implementation.

The recent acceptance by HEFCE of the recommendations by the Research Support Libraries Group will lead to the establishment of the Research Libraries Network (RLN), consisting of national libraries and those university libraries that support research, to manage the information resource needs of research. JISC will be working closely with the RLN to ensure that common issues of infrastructure and architecture design are dealt with in a collaborative way. This includes working with publishers and others to help address the scholarly communications’ needs of the research and academic communities.

Management and administration

Information is a corporate asset and efficient management of records and information is important to any organisation’s finances, planning and management of operations. The way in which information is held and used by educational institutions has become even more important with the introduction of the Freedom of Information and Data Protection Acts in recent years. Records management lies at the heart of the efficient management of both paper and digital assets and is essential for ensuring an institution’s legal compliance. Much of the knowledge base and intellectual assets of institutions and staff are now in digital form and significant effort needs to be invested in digital preservation and securing long-term access to digital resources. JISC has an important role to play in integrating technology with information-handling skills of all kinds among its users. This includes authentication, metadata, rights and records management as well as digital preservation issues.

JISC has been actively exploring the development of the concept of MLEs within FE and HE for the last four years. An MLE is the whole range of information systems of a college or University that contribute directly, or indirectly, to learning and the management of that learning. The increasing deployment of MLEs across education will enable: wider shared access to learning resources; improved management information especially about learners and student progress; the greater use of ICT to support the learning and teaching process (eg online assessment, flexible learning anytime, anyplace); and a framework for future action-based developments in eLearning. There are many issues aligned to these developments, such as interoperability, change of working practices, staff skills, data protection, security and authentication. Work is still needed to help institutions utilise this technology to its fullest potential and to test how it can support student progression and mobility across the UK and between institutions.

Links to industry

JISC has strong links with the sector of industry relevant to ICT use in education and research, eg telecommunication companies, publishers and suppliers of learning management systems. These links are vital especially in representing the interests of UK education and research to industry sectors and in developing innovative approaches to changing needs and technology advances. This will continue to be an important role of JISC.

There is a wider dimension to education and research links with industry in terms of developing the UK as an advance knowledge economy. This objective has recently been the focus of the Lambert review of Business-University Collaboration (December 2003). JISC will investigate how it can respond to this agenda by supporting existing funding council aims (ie Higher Education Innovation Fund work) and relevant activities of colleges and universities (eg work-based training provision, spun off to promote research output).

The internet and use of ICT in society

It must be recognised that the JISC strategy sits within a world where ICT has begun to play an important role in both business and home life. The Office of National Statistics announced in July 2003 that 54% of UK adults are regular users of the internet. The Government aims for everyone to have access to the Internet by 2005 and this agenda is being pushed forward by the UK Online initiative and the work of the Office of the e-Envoy in England.

The skills strategy White Paper ‘21st Century Skills; realising our potential’identifies ICT skills as the third basic skill alongside numeracy and literacy. It also highlights the benefit that eCommunication can bring to people with learning difficulties. JISC must work with government departments and agencies to ensure that the work it is undertaking in the education sector makes appropriate links to those in other areas, especially where concerned with the definition of technical standards to achieve interoperable systems. This is also true of JISC’s work in an international context. In its international activities, JISC will promote the development of standards and solutions to ensure the widest possible application of both, and will not restrict itself to serving the needs of UK education and research in isolation from the international developments.

JISC's vision

Ubiquitous and reliable access to an information and communication environment, so that users are able to enjoy world-class technologies in support of their work and study.

A user of electronic information is simultaneously a member of several communities: researcher, student, administrator, teacher and also employee, citizen, consumer. Users are increasingly mobile, demanding reliable access at home, at work and whilst travelling. Their information needs are immediate, and they exploit an increasing variety and quantity of resources.

Users in education and research will not be content with different information access and delivery interfaces for different applications. A member of staff will wish to access information in the same way when doing research, when assessing student performance and when producing and delivering learning materials. Students will wish to access learning materials and primary and secondary sources in the same way throughout their learning experience. Managers will need easy tools to collate student progression data with financial and other administrative data.

Such expectations demand a coherent underlying infrastructure operating in a genuinely pervasive way, accessible when and where required. Responsive mechanisms for storage and retrieval of information, and innovative management of the digital content lifecycle, will need to be underpinned by a next generation, high-performance network. Intelligent machine-to-machine dialogue will replace many routine processes, leaving the user free to use and benefit from information in the ways that they choose.

Colleges and universities will need to meet such demanding user needs. JISC must support institutions so that technology can support modern ways of working within education and research. JISC’s vision is thus one of ubiquitous and reliable access to an information and communications environment, so that every user – whether learner, researcher, teacher or administrator – is able to enjoy world-class technologies in support of their areas of work and study. 

JISC’s mission

'To provide world-class leadership in the innovative use of information and communications technology to support education and research.'

JISC’s role

JISC is expected by its funding partners to take a wider role than its original HE and research focus and its more recent FE role. It is expected to seek ways of benefiting the wider education and lifelong learning community where this supplements and does not compromise its responsibilities to its core funders. It is also expected to help support the implementation and adoption of ICT made possible by the underlying infrastructure it has always provided.

In meeting this role JISC will build on, and continue, its existing activities of providing a world-class infrastructure, promoting innovation through development programmes and providing advice and guidance on how best to use ICT. JISC is uniquely placed to promote the joining up of activities in a number of dimensions:

• Helping cohesion through the use of ICT across the education spectrum: schools, colleges, universities and wider non-compulsory education to improve student progression and promote best practice
• Helping institutions integrate their research, learning and teaching and administration processes to improve efficiency and quality
• Developing generic online information management techniques and underlying infrastructure to enable the effective sharing and use of information resources regardless of data type (eg learning resources, digital library materials, research datasets)
• Maximising the use of ICT and eLearning across the UK: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

JISC will do this in partnership with the institutions and other organisations. In particular: BECTa in relation to joining up activities across education; the Learning & Teaching Support Network in relation to eLearning in HE; and the Research Councils in relation to supporting research. 

The focus on joining up as the key element of our role offers a number of advantages, the:

• provision of common infrastructures (eg JANET, national data services, advice and guidance etc) to maximise value for money and effectiveness
• sharing of resources is facilitated across education and research. Practitioners and students will be able to access materials from different sectors of education promoting a broader understanding of a subject. Access to such resources will enrich flexible and distance learning and thus promote lifelong learning
• melding of eScience and eLearning through deploying new technologies for data and information management
• development of common accessible information finding and access tools to help all users (researchers, teachers, managers, learners) make effective use of the online resources
• generic staff training and development which can be focused on shared resources and infrastructure across the education spectrum

The following criteria are applied to define where JISC involvement is appropriate, the:

• activity is technology based
• activity provides a UK-wide benefit and adds value beyond that which could be achieved by institutions acting individually or collectively
• activity is not possible, or is unlikely, without central support

JISC supports the application areas of eLearning, eResearch and MIS by providing national generic infrastructures, innovative development programmes and comprehensive outreach and advice and guidance services.

 

Strategic aims

These five strategic aims are derived from JISC’s vision, its mission and role, to:

• develop solutions that help enable the UK education and research communities to keep their activities world class through the innovative use of ICT.
• provide advice to institutions to enable them to make economic, efficient and legally compliant use of ICT, respecting both the individual’s and corporate rights and responsibilities.
• help the sector provide positive, personalised user learning experiences and to aid student progression.
• develop mutually advantageous partnerships with organisations in the UK and abroad.
• advise, inform and help implement the strategies of government, funding councils and research councils.

These aims have been chosen to reflect and support both government objectives and the needs of the JISC community. It should be noted that most of these will require JISC to work in partnership with other organisations from the UK and international education and research communities. JISC has a partnership policy, which underpins the strategy and will ensure that appropriate collaborations are set up to achieve its aims. These aims will form the basis of the operating plan for JISC. 

Aim 1. Develop solutions that help enable the UKeducation and research communities to keep their activities world class through the innovative use of ICT

This aim will be achieved by:

1. Providing high-quality sustainable infrastructure to support the research community, post 16 and higher education and the wider education sector. In particular this will include:

1.1 a first-class network infrastructure;

1.2 sustainable and coherent procurement and delivery services for online content to provide access to content as widely as possible for all learners and researchers;

1.3 a common, integrated information and communications environment including interoperability standards, digital preservation and open-source methodology;

1.4 a middleware service;

1.5 a future proofed eResearch infrastructure and sustainable software outputs.

2.  Providing support for eLearning within institutions by helping to develop infrastructure and applications that will support emerging eLearning pedagogies. This will include:

2.1  the development of VLEs and the creation of MLEs, including joining up MLEs across education, in a functional manner, to support student progression and mobility;

2.2  the provision of relevant advisory services;

2.3  the definition of skills for staff, so they are equipped and skilled to use eLearning when it is appropriate (in partnership with others eg BECTa and the HE Academy);

2.4  the identification and continuous review of appropriate international standards especially in middleware and learning environments, to enable the sharing of resources across all education sectors.

3. Working towards the creation of tools to manage repositories of resources through the development of:

3.1 a common information and communications environment, including addressing intellectual property rights and appropriate technical standards;

3.2 VLEs and tools to help the creation of learning resources.

4. Helping to embed eResearch technologies more widely across research disciplines and where relevant to encourage the use of such technologies across education. In particular this will require:

4.1  a sustainable eResearch infrastructure;

4.2  a middleware service;

4.3  the use of ICT to encourage a greater interest in science;

4.4  the provision of relevant advisory services.

Aim 2: Provide advice to institutions to enable them to make economic, efficient and legally compliant use of ICT, respecting both the individual’s and corporate rights and responsibilities

This aim will be achieved by:

5.  Providing world-class network, content and advisory services managed in a coherent manner, so that users know how to get the support they require.

6. Offering models which promote innovation within institutions and support institutional planning for the use of ICT. This will include:

6.1   risk analysis and cost of ownership models;

6.2 provision of an observation role, with others, to provide guidelines, benchmarking and a forum for contributors on technology watch;

6.3   more robust evidence base on the effectiveness of ICT;

6.4   shaping rights management policy for information resources including support to institutions on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), licensing and records management issues;

6.5   improving the effectiveness of scholarly communication in support of research, learning and teaching, especially through sustainable content management;

6.6   provision of relevant advisory services.

7. Supporting institutions to promote staff development and skills training, so that staff  are equipped with the skills needed to use the ICT applications developed particularly within the context of:

7.1 embedding eLearning within the sector;

7.2 helping institutions manage interests in ICT.

Aim 3 : To help the sector provide positive, personalised user learning experiences and aid student progression

This aim will be achieved by:

8. Improving communication through better information and feedback mechanisms between JISC and its target audiences. In particular:

8.1   heads of institutions so that the full value of JISC activities flows through to teaching, research and administration;

8.2   users (staff and students) and the community to discover and respond to changing needs;

8.3   provision of cost-effective and user-led advisory services.

9. Supporting institutions to use VLEs and MLEs to facilitate student progression from schools, to colleges and universities.

10. Supporting institutions through the change management processes required to embed ICT within their operations.

11. Investigating the development and usefulness of virtual communities and the use of the Internet as a communication tool through infrastructure provision, VLEs and MLEs, embedding eLearning and eResearch.

Aim 4 : To develop mutually advantageous partnerships with organisations in the UK and abroad

This aim will be achieved by:

12. Developing strategic partnerships with other organisations engaged in developing and promoting the innovative use of ICT, in order to represent UK interests and help shape international solutions and instigating collaborative ventures between organisations to ensure that economies of scale are maximised across the UK. In particular in the areas of:

12.1  a common, integrated information and communications environment;

12.2  VLE development and creation of MLEs;

12.3  embedding eLearning and eResearch;

12.4  management of online resources.

13. Engaging with suppliers and other public-sector bodies involved with ICT development and procurement in the UK and beyond, particularly in the areas of:

13.1  network infrastructure;

13.2  content procurement and management;

13.3  VLEs and MLEs.

Aim 5: To advise, inform and help implement the strategies of government, funding councils and research councils

This aim will be achieved by:

14. Seeking to integrate online information management applications across eResearch, eLearning and the digital library communities through the development of a common, integrated information and communications environment.

15. Improving research outreach activities in particular to:

15.1  benefit the broader education agenda through a sustainable eResearch infrastructure and encourage a greater interest in science;

15.2  ensure that the eResearch agenda is developed in such a way as to serve the needs of the arts, humanities and social sciences communities as well as the physical sciences through a sustainable eResearch infrastructure and relevant advisory services.

16. Expanding JISC activities to support wider post-16 community or specialist colleges and adult and community learning in the first instance, with the longer term potential to help sixth-forms in schools and work-based training in particular through:

16.1  provision of a first-class network infrastructure;

16.2  sustainable and coherent procurement and delivery services for online content;

16.3  the development of VLEs and creation of MLEs;

16.4  helping institutions manage investments in ICT;

16.5  relevant advisory services;

16.6  expanding feedback mechanisms between JISC and the wider post-16 sector;

16.7  facilitating student progression;

16.8  embedding eLearning within the wider post-16 sector.

Priorities and key performance indicators 

To meet our five strategic aims a number of key generic priorities within the JISC remit have been identified. The main priorities for the JISC operating plan for 2004–2006 will be:

1. Maintain a first-class network infrastructure 

    Support of aims 1.1; 1.5; 4.1; 5; 13.1; 16.1 Key performance indicators are:

2. Create and maintain sustainable procurement and delivery services for online content 

    Support of aims 1.2; 6.4; 6.5; 12.4; 13.2; 14; 16.2 Key performance indicators are:

3. Develop a common, integrated information and communications environment 

    Support of aims 1.3; 1.4; 3.1; 4.2; 12.1 Key performance indicators are:

4. Create MLEs, linking VLEs with MIS

    Support of aims 2.1; 2.4; 3.2; 9; 12.2; 13.3; 16.3 Key performance indicators are:

5. Provide cost-effective and user-led advisory and support services 

    Support of aims 2.2; 6.6; 8.3; 16.5  Key performance indicators are:

6. Improve information and feedback mechanisms between JISC and its target audiences

    Support of aims 8.1; 8.2; 16.6; 16.7  Key performance indicators are:

7. Ensure ICT is embedded within post-16 and HE in partnership with others (National Learning Network and the Academy) 

    Support of aims 2.3; 7.1; 12.3; 16.8 Key performance indicators are:

8. Engage with appropriate national and international activities 

    Support of aims 2.4; 3.1; 12 Key performance indicators are:

9. Develop e-Research infrastructure and use 

    Support of aims 1.5; 4.1; 4.3; 4.4; 12.3; 14; 15.1; 15.2 Key performance indicators are:

10. Help institutions manage investments in ICT 

      Support of aims 6.1; 6.4; 7.2; 10; 11; 16.4 Key performance indicators are:

11. Provide a technology observatory role and robust evidence base of the benefits of ICT 

      Support of aims 6.2; 6.3 Key performance indicators are:

12. Improve the effectiveness of JISC to carry out its operations

      Key performance indicators are:

13. Enhance JISC’s role to support widening participation

      Support of aims 2.4; 9; 16.7 Key performance indicators are:

Approach

JISC is an advisory committee to the funding councils, made up of a number of sub-committees each with a different focus. The committees are populated with experts from the communities which JISC serves and as such ensure that JISC’s work is focused on the needs of those communities. One of JISC’s key strengths is the involvement of these experts; individuals and organisations with a real knowledge of how ICT is being used within institutions, what benefits its innovative use gives to staff and learners and the issues which need to be addressed in order to support the future use of ICT. Their presence allows the community to feel ownership of the JISC and ensures that their views are taken into account.

In recent years, the government and funding councils have become more directive in their policy approach to institutions, which has led to an increased need for guidance for institutions from JISC. JISC lies in a unique position between the funding councils and the communities it serves, providing a bridge between their sometimes disparate expectations and needs. This role involves a natural tension between JISC’s two stakeholder groups, which is utilised to best effect by the process of negotiation. It is important that JISC continues to play a leading role in both implementing funding council policy and in providing support to the community so that they are better able to respond to the demands of their funding councils. 

JISC’s work programme is directed by the sub-committees and restricts itself to what can be done within the constraints of the annual funding recommendations prepared for the funding councils. However, JISC’s ability to respond rapidly to new opportunities or important international drivers is beneficial to the UK education community. Opportunistic action will be taken only when opportunities are in line with JISC’s strategic framework and when funding can be made available or sourced from outside the core JISC budget.

 

  

 

Sub-committee structure

In order to support the new JISC strategy, sub-committees covering the areas of networking, information management infrastructure, content services, learning and teaching, research and human and organisational issues will continue to be operational. The membership of JISC and its sub-committees will continue to be drawn, through the Nominations Committee, from nominations by experts in the community, and from representatives of relevant organisations and stakeholders including professional associations.

The bulk of JISC’s work is directed towards providing infrastructure and advice and guidance. This is often generic across post-16 and HE and research (eg JANET, content delivery, middleware, legal advice) but in many cases needs to be tailored to the different communities (eg Regional Support Centres, VLE/MLE, eResearch). Where appropriate, sub-committees will establish working groups to ensure the activities they fund are relevant to the different needs of the different education and research sectors.

Services

JISC’s remit can be seen as facilitating and promoting the effective use of ICT across non-compulsory education and research. This requires services and guidance to be provided, primarily to education and research institutions, across the range of their activities – learning and teaching, research and administration – and at the strategic as well as technical level. This is seen as consisting of three separate strands:

Infrastructure the provision of common underpinning services to international standards where it is not efficient for institutions to have to deploy separate approaches. The JANET network is an obvious example but there is a growing need to provide security and access control services (eg authentication, authorisation and accounting tasks) at the national level.

Information management and provision the provision of services and advice to manage and use online content (how to find it, access it, deliver it, use it and procure it) in relation to: learning and teaching (including eLearning and the development of VLEs), research (including eScience and the Grid) and administration (including compliance and records management, integrating management information with other institutions’ information resources and processes, eg MLEs). This also includes content procurement, particularly of primary and secondary sources, and advisory services for content of all types (eg eLearning materials, research databases).

Advice and guidance the provision of advisory services and leadership at both the strategic management level and technical expert level. This includes information strategies, legal issues, technical standards, widening participation, effectiveness of technologies, technology watch, MIS applications, plagiarism etc, and many more areas where ICT presents new opportunities and challenges to institutions, their learners, teachers, researchers and administrators.

JISC funds three kinds of service to support its objectives:

• Advisory services to help institutions select the best approach or product where choice and independent advice tailored to the community is important (eg procurement and deployment of VLEs)
• National production services where a standard infrastructure is required (eg JANET) or clear economies of scale and value for money can be maximised (eg content procurement and delivery)
• Development services to test the validity of novel approaches and applications, especially where this avoids costly repetition

It is an important element of JISC’s approach to meeting its objectives to determine which kind of service is appropriate. This is particularly important in building a common information environment where some tools (eg related to security and authentication) should be centrally provided to ensure coherence to standards through a national production service, and others (eg portals) will differ to meet the different needs of disciplines or geography.

Through the timescale of the JISC strategy, JISC will be seeking greater strategic integration across services, in order to improve coherence and achieve better value for money. This may involve establishing a separate operational arm for the management of the services; however, this needs to be considered in more depth before final decisions are made. The JISC Services Delivery strategy covers this area of work in more detail.

Innovation and development

JISC supports the development of innovative uses of ICT within the community. In this way, JISC helps the community to push the boundaries and to concentrate on future developments and testing of technologies. Often these are activities which institutions would not otherwise be able to get involved in, due to lack of funding or staff time. By funding development projects within institutions, the JISC enables those taking part to engage in ‘action research’ and then share their experiences with the rest of the community. Without such JISC intervention, developments to support a community-wide strategic objective would not necessarily be undertaken (eg building the information environment or developing digital preservation techniques) and results would be disseminated more slowly. JISC’s Development Plan will detail JISC’s work in this area. The key principles informing the implementation of the JISC development plan will include value for money and sustainability.

At present, the balance of funding between JISC’s services and development work is more heavily weighted towards services, with only approximately 20% of the budget being used to fund development work. JISC will continue to review this split to ensure that it reflects community needs in both the short and long term.

Partnerships

JISC will not be able to achieve its vision as articulated without partnerships with others. This is particularly so when the wider post-16 education sector is considered. JISC will continue to work with the many organisations both in the UK and internationally which enable it to meet its strategic aims. In order to be a world leader in the field of ICT in education, JISC will collaborate with and share its own knowledge with organisations supporting education throughout the world. In the UK, the expertise of the sub-committee members, the JISC Executive and the JISC services will be shared with the rest of the community in order to help everyone achieve their own aims. By sharing experiences of FE and HE with other providers, such as schools, public libraries and adult and community learning, JISC will help to provide coherence to UK-wide ICT initiatives and facilitate knowledge transfer which is beneficial to the UK.

1. Policy collaboration; obtaining or providing expert advice in the development or application of policy.
2. Development programmes: carrying forward development through joint funding, contribution of resources, pooling expertise or by sharing outputs and experience of their own activities.
3. Delivery of production services: this can be achieved through purchase of the service through JISC or by paying directly for services as required.
4. Advisory and guidance services: to jointly fund existing services or to fund dissemination activities related to the outputs of services.

Value for money

Through its decision-making processes and operations, JISC strives for value for money for the community and its funding bodies. It is accepted that the principles of sustainability and value for money are not always easy to measure quickly in research and development activities; however, JISC will continue to evaluate the inputs, outputs and impacts of its work to ensure that it is achieving maximum benefit from within the resources available. To achieve value for money also requires an attitude and culture that seeks continuous improvement and sustainability.

Sustainability of high-quality strategic outputs is essential, and will be aided by well-planned, thorough and clear approaches to activities. Demonstration that outputs are fit for purpose, wanted, future-proofed and underpinned by a sound business plan will be essential. JISC will examine the mechanisms that address sustainability (and implement changes as necessary), particularly with regard to the committee operations and the support of JISC services and content. It is important that JISC’s work is embedded within the community, in order to ensure its long-term sustainability.

JISC cannot continue to fund all its services over the long term. The budget is fixed and requirements change over time. Some services will move to a financial model that is more independent of JISC funding. In the case of advisory services there is scope for more coordinated management to improve flexibility and longer term viability.

Planning and review

The JISC strategy will give an overall direction to the work of the JISC sub-committees, although it will be under continuous review throughout its life. Review of the strategy will be instigated by the main JISC Board earlier than its end date if members feel it appropriate. The JISC operating plan, however, will be reviewed on an annual basis. The operating plan will be coordinated with the risk assessment, financial planning and strategic analysis work already undertaken within the JISC and its committees.