JISC RSC YH Exchange News

BIS have asked Becta to initiate a discussion about the future funding of Informal Adult Learning via the Learning Revolution social networking site. This is your chance to influence future policy.

They are interested in your thoughts on the future funding of informal adult learning. Rather than give you a prescriptive list of questions, they want to open up the debate.

• What are the problems and issues currently facing IAL providers in terms of funding?
• How could they be resolved?
• How should we be funding IAL?
• What is the value to the Government and ‘UK PLC’ for funding IAL?

There is a discussion space on the Learning Revolution Ning site at: http://thelearningrevolution.ning.com/group/fundingIAL

If you have some ideas, why not pop over and contribute?

Join Graham Attwell, Martin Weller (The Open University) and Rob Howe (University of Northampton), session facilitator, John Traxler, and other delegates in this year’s JISC online conference, Innovating e-Learning 2009 to debate the future of education on the 24th November.

As part of the pre-conference buzz, Martin Weller has produced a short video interviewing his ‘future self’. You can view Martin’s video but, be warned, you may straight away want to make your own!

This year’s programme also includes keynotes by Charles Leadbeater (leading authority on innovation and strategy and former adviser to the government), Nigel Paine (freelance writer, organisational coach, broadcaster and former Head of People Development at the BBC), Helen Beetham and Rhona Sharpe (JISC Learner Experiences of e-Learning programme) and Peter Bradwell from the think tank, Demos.

To take part in these and other sessions at Innovating e-Learning 2009, register now at www.jisc.ac.uk/elpconference09. The conference has two themes and takes place online between 24-27 November. You decide when, where and how often you take part. The conference opens for reading and preparation on 17th November, and with a delegate fee of £50 and no need to travel, this is excellent value as well as great fun.

Follow the pre-conference buzz on Twitter using the tag, jiscel09. Keep in touch with what’s going on during the conference with James Clay (Gloucestershire College). There is an excellent Have-a-Go area as well this year, where you can try out new tools and technologies with the support of representatives from the RSCs and other JISC services and projects. Sounds good? Be quick to book your place and we’ll see you there!

With Armistice Day fast approaching a JISC project team has taken an unusual approach to ensuring that people continue to learn about the First World War.

The First World War Poetry Digital Archive and the Learning Technologies Group at Oxford University have collaborated on an exciting new venture in the 3D virtual world Second Life to simulate areas of the Western Front 1914-18. The team believes this is the first time anything of its kind has been done on Second Life.

Visitors to the virtual trenches can explore digitised archival materials like poetry manuscripts, letters and diaries from the major poets of the First World War as they walk around a training camp, a trench network and No Man’s Land dressed as a soldier or a nurse. The terrain is waterlogged and difficult to navigate, rife with rats and littered with poppies; moving
nearer to the front line the clamour of shell blasts and artillery fire becomes louder and louder.

The resources include works by Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg and Vera Brittain, along with contextual primary source materials. These materials have been supplemented with new interpretative content and a spectrum of interactive tools and tutorials, streaming video and audio effects.

The artefacts have been drawn from the highly successful First World War Poetry Digital Archive, launched in 2009 to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the war. By placing them in an online virtual model the collection is made even more useful and engaging to a range of different user groups across UK education sectors, research communities and the heritage industry.

Ben Showers, digitisation programme officer at JISC, said: “The First World War Digital Poetry Archive is constantly pushing the boundaries of what it means to be an academic archive, and now users are able to interact with the collections and materials. JISC funding for this additional virtual environment means students, researchers and everyone interested in this
material can collaborate and become immersed in the world of the Western Front to experience the immediate context of these manuscripts and poems like never before.”

As guests explore the simulation, they can listen to the voices of veterans recounting their experiences of the war, watch original film footage from the time, and learn about life on the Western Front. Within this context they can encounter some of the most powerful poetry in English literature by handling the original manuscripts, turning the pages of the poet’s war
diaries and letters, and listening to readings.

Dr Stuart Lee, lecturer in English at Oxford University, said: “Attempting to form the context of a particular piece of literature is a key critical approach in the discipline, which normally involves studying secondary material, or in rare case, site visits. By piloting the use of Second Life, the First World War Poetry Archive is approaching this in an innovative way.
More importantly it is showing how new technologies (virtual worlds) can be utilised to provide more interesting access to key research and teaching resources.”

At the end the visitor is teleported out of the trenches to a teaching area. Here they are asked to consider the memory of the war, and to confront their own prejudices and stereotypes – was the war really all about trenches, mud, and rats, or are their other aspects to it that we now need to consider? Should it only be remembered as mass slaughter, a gross act of futility, or more a collective act of unparalleled heroism that ended ultimately in a victory for Britain and its allies?

Kate Lindsay, project manager, said: “Virtual worlds create opportunities to do things that are impossible in real museums. By simulating parts of the Western Front, we can embed an entire exhibition’s worth of content within in the space. This can be further enhanced by placing digital versions of real archival materials and narratives along the paths that visitors take.
The result is an immersive and personal experience. It’s not ‘real’ but it does offer possibilities for understanding a part of history that is now beyond human memory.”

Explore the virtual Western Front in Second Life at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Frideswide/219/199/646/

Find out more about the project at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/enrichingdigi/ww1poetry

The LSC has made capital funding available during 2009/10 for both new and existing UK online centres.  The proposal focuses only on capital equipment needed, to support delivery of the entitlement to Digital Life Skills in UK online centres; supporting the most vulnerable people in society.

The funding will be targeted to support activity in two key areas namely:

• Where there is a clear need and digital exclusion in the most deprived areas of the country, with no existing UK online centres coverage.
• Where there is a need to update an existing centre (loss of function and/or access due to frequent technical failure) or to kit out a new centre in an area where there is some digital exclusion/limited access, in the most deprived areas of the country.

Grants of between £2,500 and £15,000 will be available, the amount of money awarded will be decided upon with reference to the submitted application.

All monies awarded to successful bids have to be spent before 31 March 2010.

Centres are required to submit the completed application by email to ukonlinecentres@ufi.com by 16:00 on the 20 November 2009.

More information at https://www.helpisathand.org.uk/index.php/lsc-capital-grant-09-10

A report published by the university think-tank million+ confirms the value of funding projects to advance the innovative application of digital technologies in UK universities.

The application of technology to enhance learning and wider university activities has been a source of interest not only to universities, their staff and the funding councils but also to Ministers and government departments. Technological innovation in universities is supported by project funding from JISC of the UK’s higher education funding councils.

The million+ report ‘From inputs to impact: a study of the impact of JISC funding on universities‘ examines the outcomes of 113 JISC-funded projects in 28 universities over a six year period. The report concludes that this funding had a far ranging impact which was often not limited to the university which had won the JISC award. Many projects benefitted a wide range of learners, providers, partner organisations and the wider community. The million+ research, undertaken by Leeds Metropolitan University in partnership with Middlesex and Bedfordshire Universities, also sought to identify barriers in both the bidding process and in those universities which had not benefitted from a JISC award in the six year period.

million+ is a leading university think-tank, working to solve the complex problems in higher education.

Pam Tatlow, Chief Executive of million+, said, ”Far-reaching improvements in teaching and learning resources were achieved but networking and collaboration were also key components of many projects. Sustainable partnerships were created which went far beyond the academic community of the university. Projects included support for work-based learning, problem-solving second life learning environments for paramedics and health and social care mangers, a digital archive of the East End’s contribution to theatre (now a national resource), the creation of quality-assured open level HE content, improving student assessment using audio feedback, projects with FE to develop technological habits and a more learner driven approach to education, the application of e-learning to support personalised learning within a regional life-long learning network and enhancing the use of remote digital libraries.

“Universities which were the most successful in bidding for JISC funds had invested in the expertise to draft thorough and detailed bids and built time for bid-writing into staff workloads. It is also clear that JISC can do more to support the bidding process by offering better feedback and fostering links between successful bidders and those universities which have not yet benefitted from JISC funding.”

Read the full report which includes case studies from the Universities of Coventry, Staffordshire, East London, Derby, Leeds Metropolitan, Bolton, Greenwich and Glasgow Caledonian at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/millionplusfundingimpact.aspx

For help with invitations to tender and bids for grant funding, read JISC’s advice at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/bidguide.aspx

JISC Collections would like to invite you to participate in a survey of everyone involved in the provision of learning materials and their use in Further Education colleges in the UK.

JISC Collections has commissioned a team of consultants to undertake work on how e-books might best be provided to the FE sector and this survey will greatly influence their recommendations. They are asking all FE institutions in the UK and would like to understand more about the current situation in textbook provision and the potential for providing textbooks online, including how these may be paid for and incorporated into existing systems.

They would like to encourage you to fill it out and to recommend that your librarian, VLE manager, instructors and students participate.

They have added an incentive of a prize draw for all participants completing the survey. The prize is Amazon vouchers worth £25 for each category of participant:

* Librarian/library staff
* VLE Manager
* Course Leader
* Instructor
* Student

To fill out the survey please go to: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=rh_2bXQdEVvbz5Uti1PZLLZQ_3d_3d

Figures showing everyday use of a university library are the unlikely stars of a JISC-funded competition showcasing innovative approaches to presenting library data.

The winning entrant, an undergraduate computer scientist, created an imaginative ‘book galaxy’ showing books as stars in the galaxy of library resources accessed by University of Huddersfield students and staff.

Explore the galaxy at http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ajp3g08/mosaicbookgalaxy/

Alex Parker’s space-age entry presents library data in three different ‘galaxy’ views where library books are represented as moving stars that change speed and location according to how popular they are within a given course. They also join together in constellations to show books on connected topic, while orbited by meteors representing the courses of the students using those books.

JISC’s MOSAIC (‘making our shared activity count’) project is investigating the possibilities for data showing user activity, such as book circulation, in UK university libraries.

Balviar Notay, JISC programme manager said: “JISC has funded this innovative research to really probe how we analyse and exploit library activity data. It’s exciting to see the potential of this data and how it could provide library users with a new personalized way of browsing the shelves.”

Starry-eyed Alex, a University of Southampton student, admits that he was “amazed” to hear the news of his winning entry. He explains: “The main reason I entered this competition is that I think that doing a keyword search and presenting lists of books to users is not always the best way to find what you want in a library, especially if you’re not sure what you’re looking for. I had an idea that if you linked similar books together in a ‘web’ and did that for every book in the library interesting patterns would emerge.

“I hope to see the ideas presented in my application applied to library search systems as an alternative to keyword searches, but not as a replacement,” he concluded.

Other entries include an application which suggests a course based on the books you’ve enjoyed reading, a facility for sharing your reading list with others, and way of finding out which books students on a given course have taken out, as well as how much they’ve saved by using the library rather than buying them.

The judges were looking for applications that demonstrated ease of use, usefulness, potential and coolness. Judge Ken Chad commented: “I had an enjoyable couple of hours with these applications; it warmed my heart to see them.” He explained that all of the entries exceeded expectations in terms in terms of quality and imagination.

To sign up for the final MOSAIC event at the University of Wolverhampton on Wednesday 18 November, which will feature all of the competition applications, email david.kay@sero.co.uk. Full details are at http://www.sero.co.uk/jisc-mosaic.html

Find out how the other competition entrants used the library data at http://www.sero.co.uk/jisc-mosaic-results.html

For more information about MOSAIC go to http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningcapital/reproduce/mosaic.aspx

Access Grid is a collaborative video conferencing tool where multiple sites from around the UK (or even around the world), can communicate and collaborate together in a single virtual location, called a virtual venue. This can be thought of as meeting in a video chat room on the internet.

Collaborative Tools for Teaching Workshop and Demonstration
12 November 2009
Devonshire House, University of Manchester
Hosted by the Access Grid Support Centre

This workshop will demonstrate Access Grid, which will include a hands-on session for participants to try out the technology. There will also be a session allocated for a discussion on how Access Grid may be useful for FE and HE colleges around the UK, and what requirements those colleges have. The workshop is free of charge, with lunch and refreshments provided.

The Access Grid Support Centre (AGSC) is funded by JANET and supports Access Grid for JANET enabled networks. Based in the University of Manchester they provide on-demand support, procurement advice, and a range of services such a presentation sharing, network bridges, connectivity to other video conferencing packages, and quality assurance testing Access Grid nodes.

Multiple participants can join in meetings, conferences, seminars or even performing arts events. Multiple cameras can be used with each feed having a unique video window. The Access Grid software is open source so is free to use. AGSC also support IOCOM, which is a commercial product using Access Grid.

Further information on AGSC can be found at www.ja.net/agsc

If you would like to attend the workshop, or would like further information, please email support@agsc.ja.net or phone  0161 275 5997.

JISC Legal has upgraded their website and want to highlight some of the changes and features which make accessing their guidance more straightforward, helping you to avoid legal barriers to the development and use of ICT in education.

They have produced a short homemade video to point out some of the new features which aim to make your life easier in getting quickly and intuitively to the information you need. It can be accessed on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFobiNAe7aM.

One of the important changes is from static pages to dynamic content generated from categorised items to create web pages which are specific to ‘Roles’, ‘Themes’ and ‘Legal Areas’. As well as practical, relevant text guidance, you’ll also find a range of audio-visual resources.

For example

• If you are a senior manager you are able to select content based on the Role that is appropriate to you. For example, the IT Law for FE and HE Senior Managers publication might serve as an introduction to relevant issues.

• If you are looking for guidance on Web 2.0, you can choose that Theme from the drop down menu. Useful resources might include the recent JISC Legal webcast on Web 2.0 and the Law for e-Tutors

• If you want information on a current JISC Legal project, such as Open Education Resources, then this content is collected and displayed.

For the user the content which is relevant to them is now on hand just by choosing their role or them they are interested in. For those needing a quick, relevant guide to an area of law, categorisation by Legal Area remains part of the site.

Legal and compliance issues have an effect on many areas within institutions and JISC Legal has guidance and support information designed to ensure that they do not become barriers to the effective use of ICT.

JISC Legal has a dedicated Feedback web page where you can contribute your thoughts on how they can best help you with compliance and legal issues.

The All New JISC Legal Website – www.jisclegal.ac.uk

The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) and JISC have signed a three year partnership agreement to bring together the knowledge of UK library professionals with JISC’s expertise in digital technologies.

The two organisations will work towards a vision of everyone having equal access to the widest range of resources supporting world class research, learning and teaching.

Themes to be explored by SCONUL and JISC will include:

• The changing library systems landscape – ‘a road map for strategic development of UK library systems’
• Policy and strategic development for digital content and related infrastructure for libraries
• Access and identity management
• The changing scholarly communications process and
• Supporting the user experience.

SCONUL represents higher education libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Professor Jane Core, Chair of SCONUL and Director of Library and Learning Resources at Northumbria University said: “Higher education has become globally competitive and universities need to demonstrate their worth. SCONUL’s expertise in strategy for library services, combined with JISC’s leadership in ICT for learning, teaching and research, will together provide innovative knowledge resources to maximise the offer of UK higher education.

“An informal relationship has been in place between SCONUL and JISC for many years, but formalising the arrangement will allow us to combine resources more effectively.”

Dr Malcolm Read OBE, JISC executive secretary said: “JISC has a strong history of working with the higher education library community and we are pleased to be able to strengthen it further with this partnership agreement. Library services have a crucial role in promoting online resources, supporting researchers and learners as well as putting previously unseen resources online – all of which JISC supports through its funding calls to maintain the UK’s position as a world leader in education and research.”

SCONUL and JISC have worked on a number of joint projects and initiatives, including JISC’s recent report on the ‘Impact of the economic downturn on University Library and IT services’. The report looked at librarians’ key concerns during the economic downturn. Such reports allow SCONUL to better understand the thoughts of members, a process that is integral to SCONUL’s effective representation of the profession.

Find out more about SCONUL at http://www.sconul.ac.uk
Read more about JISC’s partnerships at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/aboutus/partnerships.aspx