| 1965 - 1993 |
Computer Board |
Computer Board set up by the Government in 1965. Disbanded in 1993 |
| 1973 |
Wells Report published |
Government report identifies the need for a national computer network linked through Post Offices which connects to universities and Research Councils |
| 1984 |
JANET launched |
Provides 60 universities and research councils with access to a national research network for the first time and runs at a data transfer rate of 9.6 kilobit per second |
| 1991 |
Informations Systems Committee formed |
It takes over the management and development of a fragmented computer network service |
| 1993 |
JISC created |
Aims to provide vision and leadership to universities, and bring about technology developments for the benefit of all universities and colleges. It also takes on responsibility for managing the UK's network infrastructure for universities through JANET. This year also sees JISC start to fund its first research and development project to stimulate innovation, to share knowledge and benefits across higher education while shouldering the risk for individual universities. |
| 1993 |
Follett Report published |
Recognises the need to support the library community into the digital age including technical requirements and study space for teaching and research in universities |
| 1990 |
Mailbase created |
Identifies the need for a national mailing list service to allow colleges and universities to communicate with each other |
| 1994 - 2001 |
JISC eLib programme |
Changes the culture of academic libraries, developing the librarian of the future and laying the cornerstones of JISC's work in content development and resource discovery. Transforms the use and storage of knowledge in higher education institutions |
| 1995 - 1999 |
JISC Technology Application Sub Committee (TASC) |
Starts to consider early learning technologies including systems to allow students and researchers to exploit the most recent technological advances and to help ensure that information systems within universities remained state of the art |
| 1995 |
JISC Netskills service established |
Provides high quality training and staff development in the effective use of technology for teaching and learning, research and administration including marketing. |
| 1996 - 2000 |
JISC Technologies Application (JTAP) programme |
Projects which explore how IT and technology can support differently abled people, such as through online learning environments. |
| 1997 |
JANET network expands to further education colleges in England and Wales |
JANET network expands to further education colleges in England and Wales |
| 1999 |
McCrindle Report published |
Government report considers the technology needs of further education colleges. JISC investigates the creation of a network of regional support centres. |
| 1999 - 2002 |
JISC CAMiLEON project |
Begins the process of creating the rich and deep digital resources for teaching and research that the UK currently enjoys |
| 1999 |
Work on learning and teaching takes off |
JISC takes forward earlier work in technologies to support teaching and learning |
| 1999 |
First version of Model NESLi2 Licence for Journals |
The JISC Model Licence sets a standard for universities negotiating with publishers. It contains more favourable provisions than any standard commercial licence for access and use of online resources |
| 2000 |
JISCmail launched |
Provides a way for academics across the world to communicate with each other using custom made mailing lists. In 2009 JISCMail is used by 805,710 subscribers in 7,475 online groups across the world. |
| 2000 |
Athens formally adopted by JISC |
Allows Individual students and researchers to access, through a single sign-on, all the resources that their organisation has subscribed to. |
| 2000 |
JISC regional support centres established across the UK |
Hands-on support for further education colleges in how to connect with each other through the JANET network and promote the use of technology in teaching and learning. |
| 2000 |
JISC funds the Electronic Plagiarism detection project |
JISC recognises and addresses the increase in plagiarism from electronic sources. |
| 1997 - 2002 |
JISC examines the support and advice needed by universities and colleges |
Issues surveyed include advice on legal concerns for technology, accessibility issues and dealing with multimedia. These projects grow into valuable advisory services for people in education which are still adding value today, including JISC Legal, JISC Digital Media and JISC TechDis. |
| 2000 |
Online content deals established as a key priority |
New JISC team identifies the benefits of and issues surrounding collective content deals for colleges and universities. |
| 2001 |
JISC advisory services start to emerge |
Provides expert support and advice to the academic community that wasn't freely available before |
| 2001 |
SuperJANET4 launched |
The SJ4 network is launched and extends its reach to the further education community. It handles higher volumes of traffic and incorporates state-of-the-art technologies. |
| 2001 |
Data centres and services open |
Datacentres (BIDS, EDINA and MIMAS) and data service (including the Data Archive and the Arts and Humanities Data Service) provide efficient access to data and information resources for researchers regardless of location |
| 2002 |
JANET runs at 10 gigabytes per second |
JANET runs at 10 gigabytes per second (gBit/s) |
| 2002 |
JISC Learning and Teaching Committee established |
Examines how online learning can be brought into the mainstream of institutional practice and strategy |
| 2002 |
Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) programme |
JISC provides leadership for university and colleges on how to store and share digital materials produced by their institutions and make them more accessible to the wider community. |
| 2002 |
National Plagiarism Advisory Service established |
Provides resources, training, advice and guidance to help tackle growing concerns about plagiarism |
| 2002 - 2006 |
JISC Exchange for Learning programme |
JISC focuses on sharing teaching materials and allowing re-use by lecturers and teachers nationally |
| 2002 - 2005 |
Project exploring research preservation and access (SHERPA) |
Builds repositories where individual universities can store their research outputs, to greatly expand the resources available to the research and education communities, and society more widely. |
| 2003 |
Exploring the potential of GRID technology |
JISC and EPSRC recognise the benefits that coherent access to greater computational power and data would bring to UK research |
| 2003 |
Schools in England start to connect through JANET |
Schools start to benefit from speedier connections and reliable access to the internet |
| 2003 |
JISC Collections set up as a mutual trading company |
JISC Collections negotiates licence agreements with publishers and owners of digital content to develop a national collection of online resources for education and research |
| 2004 |
Digitisation programmes started |
Preserves and makes available a wealth of visual and audio digital resources |
| 2004 |
First partnership agreement signed |
Makes closer links with the Dutch organisation for technology in education, the SURF Foundation |
| 2004 |
National Grid Service (NGS) enters full service |
Makes it possible to share large amounts of data between computers, and giving researchers access to unprecedented amounts of computational power |
| 2004 - 2007 |
JISC Core Middleware Development Programme |
Shibboleth technology lays the foundation for future generations to access digital resources in a simple and safe way |
| 2005 |
Freedom of Information (FOI) Act |
JISC takes important lead in raising the Act's profile in the academic community and publishes its own FOI Publication Scheme. |
| 2005 |
New formal partnerships put JISC in strong position |
Partnerships with the Knowledge Exchange, the Higher Education Academy, Becta and the British Library help JISC leverage influence on policy and standards agendas and develop shared strategic approaches. |
| 2005 |
Signing of Berlin Declaration |
JISC signs a commitment with the Netherlands to make publicly-funded resources openly available. |
| 2005 - 2006 |
EThOS research project |
Identifies ways to research more effectively |
| 2006 |
New licensing company, JISC Collections, established |
Currently saving the community around £43m a year on an expenditure of £1.25m through its deals. At commercial prices, that's £34 of content for every £1 spent. |
| 2006 |
UK Access Management Federation |
Provides institutions with an even more efficient route to single sign-on to resources for users through the implementation of federated authentication to minimise administrative burden. |
| 2006 |
SuperJANET5 launched |
Now running at speeds of 40 gigabytes per second, the network offers the sector even faster access. |
| 2007 |
Further investment in digitisation |
JISC invests a further £12m in preservation and digitisation of resources of national significance putting over 65 million items online which would have been lost forever |
| 2007 |
Green ICT programme starts |
Helps institutions achieve the Government's target of 80% carbon reduction by 2050 through advice, guidance and development of tools and applications |
| 2007 |
PlagiarismAdvice.org forms |
The use and demand for JISC National Plagiarism Advisory service is such that it becomes self sustaining |
| 2009 |
EThOS service launched |
Offers researchers free access to more than 52,000 dissertations, to greatly enhance the transfer of knowledge between researchers and students, promote UK research globally, and significantly contribute to the world's knowledge base |
| 2009 |
JISC Advance group of services established |
Provides UK colleges and universities with a one-stop-shop for the expertise, independent advice, guidance and resources required to make effective and innovative use of technology |
| 2009 - 2012 |
Researchers of Tomorrow study |
The UK's largest survey of the information seeking behaviour of so-called 'Generation Y' begins |
| 2009 |
JISC has eight national and international strategic partners |
Helps position UK education, innovation and research at the forefront globally |
| 2009 |
JISC wins international award for work in leading access management in the UK |
8 million people benefit from single sign-on technology |
| 2009 |
Further modifications to theNESLi2 Licence for Journals saves the community around £8m a year |
Further modifications to theNESLi2 Licence for Journals saves the community around £8million a year |
| 2009 |
JANET (UK) reaches new milestone |
JANET (UK) becomes the first national research and education network in the world to complete a 100Gbit/s network trial, nearly two hundred thousand times faster than the average broadband connection |
| 2009 |
JISC launches 2010-12 strategy |
JISC's strategy outlines four key areas of investment impacting on teaching and learning, increased research quality and approaches to support the research process, efficient and effective institutions, and shared infrastructure and resources. |
| 2009 |
Online learning taskforce launches with input from JISC |
online learning task force is set up to help the UK higher education sector maintain and extend its position as a world leader in e-learning |
| 2009 - 2011 |
Research data management programme |
The programme helps researchers, institutions, funders and policy makers meet the challenge of keeping research data for re-use in the future. |
| 2011 - 2012 |
Higher education cloud and research programme |
Launches higher education cloud and research programme |
| 2011 |
JANET (UK) reaches new milestone |
JANET (UK) sets a new standard by running its education and research network at an unprecedented 100Gbit/s, the equivalent of uploading 125 doctoral theses in just one second* - *based on an average thesis size of 100 Mb |