Annual review 2008
Foreword
Malcolm Read, JISC Executive Secretary
Last year was both a successful and a busy year. The success of the transition to the UK Access Management Federation is shown by the fact that virtually all higher education and over half of the FE sector have now become members. That means a total of 8 million users in that federation, making it by far and away the largest access management federation in the world.
In the content area, JISC Collections is now a well-established and successful organisation that‘s going from strength to strength. A new digitisation programme involving joint work with the National Endowment for the Humanities in the States also promises to be very successful.
In the research area, we’ve also had a very busy year. Work with virtual research environments have proved very popular. In e-Learning, a range of publications have been extremely well received. And during the past year, we’ve now got a large number of research universities deploying institutional repositories.
Financial informationOn the networking side there’s SuperJANET 5, now fully operational and providing the kind of network infrastructure that the community needs. The Aurora network, a test bed specifically for doing research, is also providing a very valuable service for the research community, providing additional capacity.
All in all, a highly successful year and a solid foundation for the coming year which will see an updated strategy, a new Chairman and a range of activities undertaken in close collaboration with partners, both national and international.
A year of progress and achievement: JISC annual review 2008
(Duration: 15:16)
Introduction
Professor Sir Ron Cooke, JISC Chair
JISC is evolving constantly, responding sensitively, we hope, to the demands of the institutions it serves and this last year has been one in which JISC has continued to listen to the sector and to work hard to meet its needs.
Our objective is to provide the infrastructure and a basis for development within institutions, so part of our job is to ensure that everyone in the organisation can benefit from what we provide.
But the challenge for us all is to ensure that UK education and research stays at the forefront globally and what is crucial is that we make sure that ICT strategies are fully integrated into institutional strategies so that we are able to meet the challenges of rapid technology change, student expectations and the new Web 2.0 technologies, the challenges of the research agenda, including data curation and changes within teaching and learning.
The last year has been an important year for helping to meet these challenges and the activities highlighted in our annual review demonstrate our commitment to helping ensure that the UK has the best infrastructure and ICT support possible.
Maintaining the UK's global standing: JISC annual review 2008
(Duration: 12:19)