Strategy 10-12: Priority investment areas
JISC funds its activities through thematic areas of investment based around the strategic objectives. These objectives match the main relevant concerns of universities and colleges, the funding councils and central and devolved governments. Investment areas are also influenced by and seek to influence broader national and global issues and concerns.
JISC recognises that educational institutions are at different stages in their evolution and in their use of technology to support their strategic priorities. It also recognises that there is a complex picture of activity in the sector and varied levels of adoption: some institutions are making a mature and embedded use of technology in particular areas, such as administrative systems, whilst not yet engaging in a sophisticated way with using technology to support learning, teaching or research.
| JISC balances the investment of its funding across a ‘spectrum of maturity’ ranging from |
Here and now |
For immediate use by the majority of institutions |
Coming soon |
Work that will be of most interest to innovators and early adopters with more general take up in 2–5 years |
On the horizon |
Longer term investment that may have impact in 3–10 years |
The aim of this approach is to provide services, advice and targeted funding at the right time to meet the needs of each institution, and to move the sector forward as a whole system. JISC consults continuously with the sector in order to refresh its understanding of sectoral needs and re-focus funding as necessary.
JISC will make increased investment in work that will demonstrate benefits in the ‘here and now’, in activities that will achieve short-term impact for the sector, and in areas that will promote efficiency and effectiveness in institutions. This will include the development of more environmental approaches to ICT, which will also achieve financial savings for the sector. JISC will prioritise investment in areas that will offer significant benefits to the sector, in particular, helping institutions in the following four areas, based on the strategic objectives:
Four investment areas based on the strategic objectives
Cost-effective shared infrastructure and resources
JISC has a long history of developing shared national services, such as content procurement, the JANET network, and advisory services. JISC will continue to invest in the development and updating of its current service provision in order to increase its efficiency and effectiveness and further develop its processes to ensure that services remain relevant to JISC’s strategic aims, can maximise impact and value to its users, have an appropriate degree of innovation and deliver exceptional value for money at an affordable cost. Ongoing investment in JISC’s infrastructure (or Information Environment) will continue, and innovation programmes will help to establish the priorities for a large-scale, national infrastructure with multiple content and service providers.
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Efficient and effective institutions
JISC will work with the sector to develop approaches to more efficient business systems. This will include work to explore strategic approaches to technology planning, management and also implementation using approaches such as Service-Oriented Architectures. JISC recognises that changes in technology and evolving business models will allow institutions to collaborate more effectively through outsourcing and shared services, including the potential of cloud computing and Software as a Service. This requires making effective use of the range of offerings, including commercial offerings, as well as services offered by institutions in the sector. More flexibility in systems will allow institutions to respond more readily to future requirements and changes in institutional priorities, improve their service to staff and students, and to open up formerly internal services to accommodate new, remote users. JISC will help institutions to share good practice and to pool efforts, including engagement with suppliers and open-source solutions as appropriate.
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Effective, creative approaches to teaching and an enhanced learning experience
JISC will work with its services and others to provide expert guidance to teachers and to institutions on how to provide an effective technology-enhanced learning experience to students. This will be supported by evidence of current and predicted future needs of learners, looking at diverse groups with varied requirements, including discipline differences. JISC’s advice will include sharing effective practice in technology-enhanced learning and on the provision of technology-rich physical learning spaces. JISC will also advise on support for lifelong learners. It will create guidance on tools to support online learning and innovative approaches to the provision of these tools in order to provide a flexible, customised offering. JISC will advise on processes for the development of curriculum that includes technology-enhanced learning as a major component. It will put in place national programmes to provide quality online learning resources. It will continue to invest in the development of technical standards to support exchange of content between systems.
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Increased research quality, impact and productivity, and innovative approaches to supporting the research process
JISC will develop programmes and services that will support the improvement of the quality and impact of research in the UK and appropriate quality measurement. It will develop an approach to research data management that is integrated with those of the Research Councils and others. It will develop technical standards that support sharing of research data and facilitate collaborative research. It will invest in key collections that underpin the UK’s knowledge economy, and work with international partners in order to get best access to key resources for the UK research community. It will provide a high quality, reliable research network and key services such as access management and support new types of research through services facilitating novel methods that enable the exploitation of complex or newly available information resources.
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