Our value and impact
JISC is at the heart of UK further and higher education, driving the innovative use of technology to support the sector’s activity and its competitiveness globally. The sustained, managed and strategic nature of our activities means the resulting impacts far outweigh the initial investment. All our successes and achievements are realised as a direct result of our ability to drive innovation within the sector through research and development. Put simply, UK academia would not enjoy its worldwide recognition for excellence without JISC.
In under 20 years JISC has developed a world-leading network and technical backbone for UK education. It has transformed the way that technology is used and understood. Based within universities and colleges, an unparalleled network of specialist services provide the support, advice and guidance needed to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to benefit from these new technologies. JISC only achieves so much because of its unique position; being part of, and working for, the sector. JISC works as a driver for the use of technology in universities and colleges and provides leadership for change across research, online learning and collaboration. JISC saves money by innovating and taking risks on behalf of all institutions, to build skills and capacity and promote excellence across the full range of institutional work.
Such transformational activity can only be carried out through genuine collaboration, by the widespread building of skills and knowledge of individuals and organisations and by allowing all to leverage the unique success of JISC.
Universities and colleges are made more effective through JISC as it builds technological capability across education, and saves the sector many millions of pounds every year
- JISC Advance delivered savings of £41.5m on an investment of £3.4m in 2008/09. £12 saved for every £1 spent
- JISC Collections in 2007/08, delivered £34 worth of content for every £1 spent
JISC Collections and JISC Advance Value for Money reports (2009)
Since 2000, JISC has funded over 1,000 Innovation projects across over 200 universities and colleges. In addition, more will have been involved through case studies. A very conservative estimate puts the total number of academic staff involved on these projects at 3,200. Further to this, around 300 staff are employed by JISC Services and Service Providers. These new capabilities continue to be used within organisations to exploit other business and funding opportunities well beyond the original JISC projects. In this way JISC is able to promote efficiency and effectiveness through both direct services and a widespread strengthening of the sector’s capacities.
| 'The projects we have been involved with enabled people to take a simple step forward in trying something new with technology. The shared funding meant that the benefits of the project were felt by a wider number of people than would have been possible if a single institution was funded.' Sarah Sherman, Bloomsbury Colleges Learning Environment Service Manager |
JISC has succeeded in establishing the UK’s reputation for excellence and innovation in key technology areas
Such as data networks, digitisation, data repositories, promotion of open standards and the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies. Although many countries have centrally provided research and education networks, and some have provided supplementary services, no other country has a comparable single body providing an integrated range of network services, content services, advice, support and innovation programmes. JISC is the envy of many countries around the world and evidence shows that countries lacking a centrally coordinated body such as the JISC are at a significant disadvantage in this respect.
Investing more than £22m in preservation and digitisation, means researchers now have online access to more than 6.5 million items which previously risked being lost forever.
JISC has moved JANET from a network serving 60 universities and research councils to SuperJANET5 a 40Gbit/s high speed connecting all universities and colleges across the UK. In 2009 it became the first national research and education network in the world to complete a 100Gbit/s network trial.
JISC is transforming the academic library by encouraging librarians to embrace digital technology. The work began during the 1990s with the JISC e-Lib programme, which created a pool of experts with the skills needed to embrace these new technologies and lead the next generation. Many of the things that are taken for granted in academic libraries today such as clear metadata, easy access to resource discovery and putting resources online, are the direct result of JISC’s early work in this area.
JISC is able to take risks on behalf of the sector
By investing strategically in research and development within the sector, JISC is able to take risks on behalf of the sector, especially important at times when individual institutions are likely to be taking a more cautious approach. In a real sense, JISC is itself a shared service for the sector, shouldering risk by working to ensure that individual institutions do not have to dedicate their own resource and expertise when this might best be done on their behalf, centrally and nationally. JISC’s approach means that successes can be replicated widely across the sector, and any failures are not duplicated by many institutions, wasting time, money and effort.
Our ability to drive innovation within the sector through research and development
All of our successes and achievements (many of which are illustrated throughout the Transformation Through Technology report) have been realised as a direct result of our ability to drive innovation within the sector through research and development. This activity is based entirely upon JISC’s ability to identify and respond to the current or future needs of the sector.
The JANET network is an obvious example of success that has been and is continuing to be developed through continued and iterative research and development to exceed the ever-changing needs of its 18 million users and in particular the specific demands of cutting edge research.
Building knowledge across the sector
Head and senior librarian staff from the overwhelming majority of UK HE and FE institutions (87%) state they get added benefit from JISC and the services it offers in helping them with their roles. For example, 96% feel that JISC keeps them up to date with innovations or developments in ICT. Based on a survey in 2008 of 296 individuals from 284 institutions across the UK
Heads, directors and managers of ICT/networks from 70% of UK HE/FE institutions say that JISC is keeping them up to date with legal and compliance issues linked to ICT. Based on a survey in 2008 of 265 individuals from 265 institutions across the UK
JISC's work around technical standards and structures underpinning technology systems is a pre-requisite and foundation for our ability to address higher order questions
Fundamental to the success of technology systems and processes are the technical standards and structures that underpin them. JISC's work around these deeper issues is a pre-requisite and foundation for our ability to address higher order questions (such as resolving the very detailed technical and standards-based issues behind access management to provide easy, secure and reliable access to information and facilities across the academic community) about maximising research excellence, improving learning and teaching, widening participation.
JISC has pioneered easy, safe and reliable access to multiple resources through the development of a new technology, Shibboleth. This provides students, teachers and researchers with a single ID and password, saving time and effort. With over 8 million users, more than 90% of UK universities and half of colleges as members – making the UK the first country to have such a comprehensive and sophisticated single sign-on system.
XCRi (eXchanging Course-Related information) is a community-based standards organisation that has developed an European technical standard, which makes transferring and advertising information about courses between UK education institutions and organisations that advertise them, such as UCAS, much more efficient. XCRi was originally developed as part of a project funded by JISC in April 2005. In January 2009 XCRi was approved by the Information Standards Board (ISB) for education, skills and children’s services. ISB are currently developing an adoption plan so that course brokers and learning providers can start to realise the benefits of the standard, including estimated financial benefits of £6m per annum.
JISC maximises its investment by working through partnership and collaboration
This includes working with partners and key organisations in the UK, in Europe and globally to leverage influence on policy and standards agendas and develop shared strategic approaches and mutually beneficial investment strategies. JISC also works through less formal partnership and collaboration with key community organisations and with subject communities as appropriate.
The UK is ranked second in the world for the quality of its research and first among the G8. JISC is a founding member of the International Confederation of Open Access Repositories looking at ways to save the UK economy over £170 m a year through wider access to research papers.
| ‘Over the past 10 years the JISC has played a vital role in shaping the debate surrounding scholarly communications. From invaluable evidence-gathering studies through practical projects and support for all flavours of open access, the work of the JISC has placed the UK in a leading position internationally in the wide dissemination and use of research outputs’ David Prosser, SPARC Europe |
JISC’s influence reaches beyond education. It funds activities which support and benefit the arts, health, libraries, and the public sector in the UK and abroad
MIMAS, one of JISC’s National Data Centres, helped Morecambe Bay Search and Rescue Team deal with potential accidents among cockle picklers working on the mudflats. Landmap experts used European Space Agency satellite data to create maps to forecast how the area’s mudflats change monthly to help prevent future fatalities.
Information technology accounts for around 2% of global carbon emissions and JISC estimates that it costs the UK academic community around £116m a year in ICT-related electricity bills. JISC is addressing this, for example developing practical tools and identifying areas for energy savings.