JISC

There has been a significant change in the education environment in the last 15 years or so, and indeed since JISC’s 2007 strategy. There have also, unsurprisingly, been considerable developments in technology; particularly in relation to the internet. Suggesting that in the future you would be able to access just about any piece of information wherever, and whenever, you wanted by using a device smaller than a cigarette box, would have seen you branded as a crank in the past. But that is where we are, riding the wave of the continuing technological revolution that is creating previously unimagined opportunities and allowing us to visualise a whole new world of digital resources available to all.

Technology has transformed the way today’s education and research professionals are able to work, and now we take for granted a computer network that links the world, and which is safe and reliable. Being able to access information 24 hours a day from wherever you are in the world is now the norm, as is having access to rich online content from research papers to journals to multimedia content and students’ work.

More recently the credit crisis and serious downturn in the UK and world economy has had significant consequences for how JISC can add value to its communities. This section considers the new contextual environments to which JISC must respond in its new strategy. It does this under the three headings of changes in the:

1. funding and economic environment
2. education, skills and research environments
3. technology and infrastructure
   

Terms used and reports cited are detailed in the glossary.

Changes in the funding and economic environment

Further and higher education are entering a period of financial difficulty. Both UK funding and the global economic environment mean that the period of growth over the past 10 to 12 years has almost certainly ended for the foreseeable future. It is therefore essential to continue to improve efficiency and cut costs in universities and colleges. In further education in England the split funding models for compulsory and post-compulsory education will add complexity and uncertainty. The review of the role of higher education – Higher Ambitions – and the review of student fees in England could lead to a significant change in the funding model; perhaps to a more private sector, for profit, higher education market. Similarly, a two-part review of higher education in Wales and the New Horizons agenda in Scotland have both proposed changes that will present real challenges to institutions over the next few years. In Northern Ireland, the Programme for Government has prioritised growing a dynamic, innovative economy as well as delivering modern high quality and efficient public services. Global competition will increase. Fortunately there are a number of ways that ICT can support UK institutions in meeting these challenges. Economic recovery in the UK will depend heavily on developing a more effective knowledge economy, and the education and research sectors are the key drivers to achieve this.

Economic recovery in the UK will depend heavily on developing a more effective knowledge economy, and the education and research sectors are the key drivers to achieve this. Building Britain’s Future – New Industry New Jobs provides the context for the current government’s plans to revitalise the UK economy through approaches such as Industrial Activism. Again ICT can play a crucial role as highlighted further in the current government’s Digital Britain report. ICT and in particular the internet is an enabler and driver of innovation and of lifelong learning; both formal and informal education.

Some ICT opportunities enjoy very considerable returns on investment in the short term (eg online resources, green computing, shared services). Other approaches such as developing new business processes and improving business and knowledge transfer will take longer to deliver maximum benefit.

There is a widespread sense of concern about management information systems, especially in higher education. Few institutions feel they have optimum systems, the general perception being that they are complicated and require very considerable resources to tailor them to meet the institutions’ requirements. They are also often expensive to acquire and maintain. There is a real need for institutions to consider and identify new and more efficient business processes and to articulate their requirements more clearly to suppliers. Shared services, and buying these applications as a managed service, have the potential to reduce costs and maximise the effect of scarce expertise.

Some relatively simple measures can be used to reduce the carbon footprint (and hence electricity costs) of ICT but there is considerable potential to do more. Aggregating and sharing resources in large central servers is currently being considered by many universities but a broader more ambitious programme across the higher (and potentially further) education sector is needed.

Achieving cost savings and improving value for money and efficiency through exploiting ICT needs leadership and culture change. There are many opportunities to consider; the technical risks are modest but the risks to an organisation through adopting new business and pedagogic processes can be considerable. None the less, funding and economic pressures require such change.

Changes in the education, skills and research environments

Another significant driver for change is the changing expectations of students. The student population is diverse, often working and studying part time and there can be significant variations in their digital literacies as discussed in JISC’s Learning Literacies in a Digital Age report (although digital competence can gradually be expected to increase following the Rose Review of the curriculum, new GCSEs and the new diplomas for 14–19 year olds).

This will result in the need for digital skills development for teachers, trainers, tutors, librarians, researchers, leaders and managers, with continuing pedagogic guidance on the effective use of technology. In further education, learners will expect a seamless transition between schools and colleges, particularly around the 14–19 agenda.

The changing requirements of students places demands on universities and colleges to provide more flexible and personalised learning making full use of the internet, Virtual Learning Environments and e-portfolios. Students demand access to a very good ICT infrastructure (which is currently largely met) and more flexible learning environments (both virtual and physical), as well as a traditional learning experience and contact time with teachers. They also want a high level of online learning support, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Management information systems also need to support the more demanding student population with a professional and efficient service. On the other hand there are significant markets such as continuing professional development and work-based learning, and online overseas students, that are not currently being fully exploited. The potential for using online learning to reach non-traditional students is starting to be explored more widely in the UK and the quality of such provision is high; the financial models and how best to provide good support to such students needs further consideration if the current government’s vision of the UK being world leading in online learning is to be realised.

There are some signs of increasing mobility of students internationally, and the Bologna process and the international nature of higher education competitiveness pose new opportunities and challenges. Meeting the needs of students and staff to study and work at home, and while on the move, poses interesting technical, policy and organisational challenges that are not being adequately addressed in most institutions.

There is a huge demand, from both students and researchers, for high quality online academic and scholarly content. This demand is far from being satisfied (perhaps it can never be fully met?). Online content is also expensive to acquire and maintain.

In educational resources, there are now a number of initiatives worldwide (including a national UK pilot) working to release resources online for use and repurposing by students, educators and the general public. Though it is not yet simple to share resources online – in part due to a lack of institutional clarity around ownership issues – it is much easier now than it was even a few years ago. The growing body of available materials allows us to start thinking about intelligent aggregation and discovery. The real challenge for institutions is to exploit ICT more effectively than their competitors (both national and international) and for students, researchers and teachers to thrive and excel in a digitally-enabled world.

In the research environment, online content is proving extremely valuable in improving the efficiency of the research process, particularly literature reviews, and in opening up new fields of study and new research processes (eg in terms of international collaborative research). The preservation of research data is a growing issue and the sheer volume of research and new discoveries in many fields is making it increasingly difficult for researchers to keep on top of their subject.

ICT can help with most of these changes in the education and research environment. A good ICT infrastructure is essential but the real challenge for institutions is to exploit ICT more effectively than their competitors (both national and international) and for students, researchers and teachers to thrive and excel in a digitally-enabled world. In particular this means more high quality technology-enhanced learning, improved skills of teachers and learners in using technology in appropriate and effective ways, better management information systems, improved tools to support collaborative research, more online content and more effective tools to find and use this content.

Changes in technology and infrastructure

There have been a number of developments in ICT over the past few years that are of relevance to further and higher education and that can help to reduce some of the boundaries between schools, further education, higher education and employers. In many cases, the developments offer promising opportunities to improve progression opportunities, productivity and quality, and cut costs. The developments highlight the importance of providing sufficient broadband throughout the UK. There have been a number of developments in ICT that offer promising opportunities to improve progression opportunities, productivity and quality, and cut costs.

Social media through Web 2.0 technologies and tools such as wikis, YouTube, MySpace, blogs, Second Life etc, are already proving of great value when used effectively and appropriately, in enriching the student and the research experience. The full potential of social networking has yet to be realised but the benefits are becoming clear. Related to this is the growing amount of open educational resources available worldwide. These resources remain hard to find however, and are not always easy to deploy.

Cloud computing offers IT resources over the internet. These resources include compute and data management facilities, as well as applications, of which the hosting of email services is the most widely used. More complex application software is also available through the internet via a concept known as Software as a Service. Cloud computing offers flexibility and, where the business case is done carefully and accurately, can offer considerable savings by avoiding the cost of owning and running large computer facilities and the associated support costs. This is most likely to be the case where considerable computer resources are needed for relatively short periods of time. Software as a Service can also offer cost savings where the cost of owning and maintaining application software is very high. There is a real potential to exploit cloud computing in research and administrative applications although the possible loss of privacy and security of information can be cause for concern. The dependability of provision may also be an issue.

The availability of more powerful and affordable mobile technologies and devices such as the iPhone, Blackberry etc offers considerable potential to improve the educational offering to students. Depending on the situation, such devices are often preferred by students over laptops, which are relatively bulky and fragile.

Recent developments in access management, although difficult to implement, provide significant advances in authentication and authorisation of the individual student and researcher, and are essential to underpin access to online resources and applications such as e-assessment and e-portfolios. In this context, identity management is key to underpinning the implementation of effective access management, including consideration of how personal identity and corporate identities can co-exist and complement each other.

What this means for JISC

Education and research is entering a period of great change. The research environment may change significantly due to the global environment, the Research Excellence Framework, more online content and tools and the different approach of the ’Google generation‘ who will soon become research students. Post-compulsory education will change due to increased competition, more demanding students, the need to support progression for non-traditional students and lifelong learners, the outcomes of the student fees reviews and other national policy developments, quality issues, and increased engagement with business and the wider community, among other things. ICT will offer new approaches through, for example, Web 3.0, cloud computing and more sophisticated mobile devices. The environment in five years time will be very different from today’s.

Putting digital technologies at the heart of UK education remains at the centre of JISC’s values. The technological boundaries are being pushed back still further, and more quickly. And moving just as fast are the expectations of learners, administrators, academics and researchers. JISC’s role is to champion the use of technology where it adds value and builds efficiencies, provides expertise, skills, knowledge and a competitive edge.

Change for change’s sake is no use to anyone. JISC’s role is to champion the use of technology where it adds value and builds efficiencies, provides expertise, skills, knowledge and a competitive edge. The long and successful track record of JISC and its ability to facilitate and support change, and seed capacity growth in the sector, will be invaluable in helping and supporting the community benefit from and exploit these changes.

JISC will continue to provide leadership to the sector in this way, working with key partners as appropriate. For example, JISC is working with the Leadership Foundation to ensure senior management and future leaders have a good understanding of the strategic use of ICT. JISC is also working in partnership with key sector bodies to encourage take-up of institutional shared services to enhance student progression and support requirements for learner mobility.

JISC will seek to maintain an excellent infrastructure that is fit for purpose, and will provide more advice and guidance to the sector in the governance, strategic deployment and use of ICT and the exploitation of existing infrastructure. Much of JISC innovation work will be more focused on short-term impact and benefits, especially where this will help institutions cut costs and improve efficiency. JISC will support financial and environmental best practice using digital technologies in order to improve the effectiveness of all institutions.

JISC will, however, maintain strategic commitments in important longer term activities such as the open agenda and preservation of research data and will continue to take risks on behalf of the sector at a time when individual institutions are likely to be taking a more cautious approach. Continued innovation is essential to ensure that the sector remains fit for purpose, can meet new requirements from year to year, and is sustainable in the longer term. By so doing, JISC will ensure that the UK will stay at the forefront of technological change and maintain its place as a world leader in education.