JISC

The growth of the UK’s knowledge-based economy depends upon support for the further and higher education and research sector’s engagement with the wider community and its attempts to apply its world-leading innovations to commercial and social use.

The last year saw the launch of JISC’s Business and Community Engagement (BCE) programme, which comprises a range of activities designed to support and enhance institutions' engagement with business and the wider community, and improve external access to institutional knowledge and expertise. The programme, cutting across JISC activities, was developed from a range of recommendations from studies, consultation and needs analysis undertaken in 2007.

In July, JISC funded several projects in three of the key BCE areas: institution-wide process-mapping for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), strategic employer engagement processes and systems and extending access and identity management to external BCE partners.

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) project to develop process mapping and self-analysis tools. This followed a study on CRM issues in institutions which concluded that the use of CRM is under-developed and non-strategic in the sector. The report (PDF) highlighted the importance of cross-institutional business process review before procurement of a system.

To support employer engagement, five small-scale pilots plus a supporting study and synthesis to explore the processes, systems integration and infrastructure requirements of strategic and integrated employer engagement and workforce development services within institutions;

A scoping study on Extending access management which is investigating the processes, risks, benefits and practicalities for all parties involved, of extending access and identity management approaches to a range of external BCE partners, with initial focus on strategic partners.

In parallel, four new BCE Advisory Services-led projects were commissioned to undertake work in: trialling online collaborative tools; embedding BCE through business process improvement and internal engagement; producing a training support package for BCE practitioners; and organising a series of awareness and education events for the wider JISC community.

Over the last year, JISCinfoNet, Netskills, TechDis and Tasi have been focusing on their support for institutional business and community engagement (BCE) to enhance knowledge, innovation and skills within institutions. Support has taken the form of advice and guidance on accessibility and legal issues and training in website development, e-learning tools for CPD, the use of social networking tools for collaboration and the creation of digital images for learning and teaching.

Netskills produced a series of fact sheets on collaborative tools, blogs and wikis, professional social networking, instant messaging and virtual meetings, email and calendaring. The fact sheets are supported by a JISCinfoNet guide on social software to support communication and collaboration.

A JISC Legal webcast raised awareness of the potential legal issues such as IPR (including copyright), data protection, freedom of information, licensing, e-commerce and disability discrimination affecting institutional business and community engagement and how JISC Legal can support institutions in overcoming some of the legal barriers. The webcast included presentations from Netskills, TechDis, JISCinfonet and Tasi. A series of publications on these topics is also available from the JISC Legal website, which include a study that investigated and produced guidelines on the use of publicly-funded infrastructure, services and intellectual property for BCE activities.

A successful workshop, jointly presented with the British Library, explored the appetite for and potential feasibility of developing hubs in institutions for the provision of business information resources (eg. market research and company data), in partnership with other local public service providers. JISC is building on the strong consensus from the workshop that it should develop the idea further, particularly as institutions are increasingly key players in the innovation lifecycle.

A session at the JISC Conference 2008 underlined the importance of improved understanding and engagement between institutional BCE functions (such as knowledge transfer and exchange offices, employer engagement units) and central functions such as information management, libraries, administration, finance, marketing and HR. Delegates recognised that this was a key part of the change institutions are undergoing in process, systems and organisation to better support and embed these relatively new, high profile strategic objectives.