There is growing demand for appropriate film and sound resources within education. Where the typical education consumer would previously have been content with text-based learning, they are now seeking to learn from the gamut of rich multi-media all around them.

For all those involved in education either as funders, producers, or practitioners, the challenge is how to harness this new media literacy, and in particular to help ensure that rich media resources can be systematically embedded in teaching and learning, as well as providing new avenues for research. Teachers are increasingly aware of the need to offer compelling and interesting resources that engage students to facilitate the high quality experience that our universities need to be able to deliver in order to remain competitive. Likewise, researchers want to engage more fully with film, television and radio to exploit the potential of resources that have been hitherto inaccessible.

We are therefore excited about the possibilities that the development of a Research Education Space (RES) will offer to address these needs. During 2013, we will be working on the first phase of creating RES which aims to deliver a sustainable digital content collection for post August 1989 BBC broadcast media assets using the ERA licences and the BUFVC’s Box of Broadcasts (BoB) service. More specifically we aim to:

Provide unique, rich and valuable assets to research and educational users.

The audio-visual archives of the BBC contain a wealth of material gathered since it was founded in 1922 but much remains largely inaccessible, held on film or videotape. RES will start to ‘open up’ one of the most influential archives in the world for use within UK education and research.

Establish Principles for making assets and catalogues available to research and educational users

We are only at the beginning of the process of unlocking archives for academic use, but we see our collaboration with the BBC and the BUFVC as crucial to bringing together expertise in this area and enhancing joint understanding. The project will pay dividends for education and research in the longer term by providing more cost effective ways to provide access to high quality and highly demanded archival content.

Develop a Platform for digitised assets which allows easy access and reliable delivery

For us and our customers, RES will contribute to a balanced Jisc portfolio of investment as not only will it greatly enhance the availability of video/ audio resources (being the only dedicated source of BBC broadcasts for education potentially dating back to August 1989), but also begin to create a sustainable infrastructure through the existing BUFVC’s ‘Box of Broadcasts – BoB’ (an off-air recording and media archive service).

Create Propositions to demonstrate the use of these assets within a range of contexts

BoB’s popularity and user-baser is already impressive – in 2012 alone, it streamed some 320 programmes per hour from 50+ channels, with 35k-40k unique users per month at 45 institutions (8 colleges, 37 universities). However, RES will also help us to learn more about current and potential content usage in education and research through academic engagement and case study development. This will help us present the content better in order to gain maximum exposure and use.

RES has the potential to both enhance and energise the academy’s relationship with one of the dominant media of the 20^th century- film, television and radio- by creating new opportunities for research and teaching and encouraging use across many different disciplines. We have some way to go until the first results of our work to develop RES become available in the autumn of 2013 but we’re looking forward to the journey and keeping you posted.

As we put the team together to create RES and our plans develop, I and colleagues look forward to keeping you up-to-date on our progress. If in the meantime you’d like to know more, please do email me at s.fahmy@jisc.ac.uk

An overview of the BBC’s Digital Public Space vision can be read in the Guardian here.

Find out more about BUFVC’s BoB National: http://bobnational.net

For me I see the greatest improvements in learners when they develop their own digital abilities and they are able to control their own use of technology.

As part of National Colleges Week I thought it might be useful to share with you a little about how we have not only improved our learners’ digital literacy, but how us as teachers have also benefited too.

As teachers we were keen to break down barriers and increase access to IT and digital devices.  We wanted to open up IT and not only help our students develop skills to benefit them in the future, but also to help us as educators develop new digital skills and understanding.

Having looked at some options the ‘In-folio’ project at JISC TechDis appeared to be the ideal vehicle for channeling a digital literacy project.  ‘In-folio’ is an e-portfolio developed specifically for students with learning needs; it was clear, adaptable and allowed significant flexibility in how it could be used.

For us it was important ‘in-folio’ fulfilled the needs of both our curriculum team and the students.  When we were looking at this we were also introducing online Personal Learning Plans (PLP) across the college.  In-folio allowed each learner to have their own PLP which could be a shared by the tutors, so ‘student goals’ could be identified and progress monitored during termly meetings.

The ‘in-folio’ system is now in use and over 150 student profiles are loaded onto tutor pages ready for rollout across a whole group of colleges in Wales who we have been working with.   The students each create a personal profile with photographs and update information about their hobbies and interests.  They create other tabs as their course requires and build up image collections, a ‘scrap book’ of images and photographs which they can then add to.

Another development is that our students now also work together with other colleges on a joint newsletter and create file which are uploaded to their ‘in-folio’ as evidence of their participation.

I’ve found it incredibly rewarding working together, contributing and using technology independently and creatively.  Feedback in these early stages is very positive with ease of use highlighted again and again.  This system removes barriers and allows students to own their development and develop their skills through this ownership – ultimately with some excellent results!

I hope you’ve found this helpful and if you are interested in running a similar project in your college I would suggest contacting your local JISC’s Regional Support Centre for more information.

I work at Somerset College as research & library services manager and many of my colleagues may ask – ‘Is it worth creating various interactive tutorials or embedding other media with the use of digital tools for the sake of a one hour session?’

Let’s be honest here, learners rarely master research or referencing skills in a one hour library instruction session. The sheer amount of information all around them in different types and formats may even leave them more overwhelmed. Alongside this, the numerous methods of referencing information sources can turn learners to the web, (sites like Neil’s Toolbox, for example), and without the proper understanding of how citation works in real terms or what it consists of this is not always a good thing.

This has been helped at some colleges by the induction of an integrated study skills module into the curriculum; this means that librarians are delivering library instruction sessions throughout the academic year. Although, this is not the case everywhere and library staff are often heard saying that getting numerous library instruction sessions booked in for learners would ‘eat away’ at precious tutorial time with their lecturers.

I believe that there are two areas where we can teach learners how to use library materials and reference usage correctly:

• Create effective communication to enhance participation
• Support a learner-centred/interactive approach to activities enhanced by the use of technologies.

Here are some thoughts on how we can help make this happen:

• Communication is fundamental and it does create transformation, awareness about libraries and their services gets cascaded to learners via academic staff almost instantaneously.  In my experience most colleges have staff development departments or units, as they are sometimes called, that can help with organising training sessions for academics. How about thinking of a cunning title that will encourage curiosity and ultimately better attendance (we called one of ours ‘Library at Your Fingertips’)
• Another idea…… librarians ‘roving’ around with tablets (iPad, Samsung Galaxy or their equivalents) and mingling amongst learners and staff demonstrating library resources in less traditional learning environments (see University of Huddersfield’s Project 2012: The Roving Librarian)
• As for teaching materials, rather than venturing into the vastness of cyberspace in search of ready-made tutorials, it can be rather satisfying to create your own that can turn a traditional library instruction into an interactive learning experience. Such tutorials, if uploaded onto a virtual learning environment (VLE), can be particularly helpful in reaching a large number of learners 24/7. What’s more – they are also tailored to individual learning needs and their study levels. Creating an envisioned tutorial through the use of freely available Web 2.0 digital technologies can be a huge accomplishment for librarians and learners alike.  Read our full case study for more information
• At Somerset College our latest development with harnessing technologies involves the use of e-clickers. A vital feature of the TV games’ shows such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Jeopardy! are now mimicked during the referencing and research teaching sessions. The use of e-clickers helps to engage learners during their library instruction and results in an increased participation and competitiveness with their peers. Instant feedback provided on screen helps librarians assess learners’ understanding of the subject matter during the session.
• Involving learners in creating tutorials could improve their digital literacy development and employability skills. In doing this you could also be enhancing your own technical skills.

College libraries are always on the lookout for new emerging technologies to see how they can be utilised in improving library instruction and the learning experience. JISC RSC South West has been pivotal in helping us with researching and implementing new technologies as well as showcasing best practice in their use across the academic region. The JISC RSC South West has been key in providing that all-round continuity!

The key findings from the AoC report highlight:

‘The ability of Colleges to implement the education policy agenda, and deliver the required policy outcomes, relies… on the ability to manage the deployment of that technology in ways that best meets the specific requirements of the individual College. In particular this requires:

• Relevant and structured staff training in the use of technology across the curriculum
• A whole College approach to strategic planning in the use of technology;
• Representation on senior management team (SMT) for the development of technology strategy
• Efficient purchasing that takes into account collaborative initiatives such as shared services and migration of some services to ‘cloud’ technologies
• Technology resourcing as a core function of College business processes
• Specific funding for the development of e-learning.

Some of these findings will be of no surprise to us working within JISC’s Regional Support Centres (RSCs), who support colleges with advice and guidance on how to best use technology, as we too are finding similar issues.  We work to both advocate and support UK learning providers with how they can adopt ‘A whole College approach to strategic planning in the use of technology’. We do this through eProgress Reviews and other consultations that put technology in the context of a college’s overall business.

We recognise that if we are to fully exploit the potential of technology to help Colleges meet their strategic objectives ‘technology strategy’ must be considered at the highest level in the organisation along with Business Strategy.  We regularly support senior management to review their ‘technology strategy, offering advice and guidance based on our experience of the very best practice the sector has to offer’.  An example of such an approach can be found with Liverpool Community College.

Our network of 12 RSCs will continue to advocate and support College’s ‘Relevant and structured staff training in the use of technology across the curriculum’ by providing inspiration, support and training to those charged with providing Continuous Professional Development and supporting others to use technology effectively in delivering the curriculum.  We are supporting those developing the next generation of teachers to ensure that technology is not an afterthought but an integral part of their development.

By creating and sustaining forums and networks of collaborative practice, often using collaborative social networking tools as well as the tried and tested JISCMail supporting Colleges and other learning providers to consider and enter into collaborative initiatives, exploiting technology to share services and to get the best deal from technology and what the Cloud has to offer.  JISC and Janet themselves are, of course, trailblazing as services shared by the sector.

Our recent investment in 32 projects in the FE and Skills sector is testament to its commitment to support ‘Specific funding for the development of e-learning’ and RSCs will be helping to disseminate the findings of these projects so the whole sector can improve and make the most of what technology, wisely deployed, has to offer.

The report also identified that the areas in which the use of technology is perceived to be the least effective are:

• Widening participation
• Reducing digital exclusion
• Engaging students with disabilities and/or learning difficulties
• Improving retention and achievement.

These findings show that although we work hard to support Colleges and other learning providers to make sure technology is more effective in these areas, we still have a lot of work to do to ensure that colleges make the most of our guidance and advice.  JISC RSCs are regularly demonstrating how a variety of technologies can be used to reach out to different communities and widen participation, and how digital exclusion can be reduced by effective procurement and the use of Open Source Software and Open content. Along with JISC TechDis, RSCs are supporting Colleges and others in ‘Engaging students with disabilities and/or learning difficulties’.

If you’d like to know more about how we can support your college or learning provider visit http://www.jiscrsc.ac.uk/

I intend to give a view across the sector, pulling together changes in research and in teaching from our colleagues in the field, and showing how the ‘“Wikipedia” way’ supports those emerging trends in practice.  For example, JISC has already been involved in improving Wikipedia entries by getting academics and Wikipedians together – as you can see from this blog post by my colleague Sarah Fahmy.

easel.ly

Martin Poulter, who is organising the conference, told me: “This is the first Eduwiki conference and hopefully the first of many.  We see immense mutual benefits in working with educators and academics and really welcome the involvement of the Jisc community.”
I’m keen to widen the circle, too.  Some key questions that we’re looking at to help lead institutions through the changing scholarly process include:

How can students and researchers make best use of Wikipedia?  And importantly, how do they verify and cite their reading?
What’s different about the way people approach the scholarship on Wikipedia?
How can universities and colleges use that platform to raise the profile of their work?
How does the Wikipedia approach to openness impact on the way people are doing their research and reading online?

I’d welcome your thoughts.

And that brings me to our recent decision in the University of Edinburgh to join our colleagues in North America and offer our own MOOCs – or massive open online courses – through the Coursera consortium.

It has been a very busy few weeks. After taking the in principle decision, there has been a tsunami of sorting the legals (you might be surprised at how much of this there is when you place your courses with another organisation, even if those courses are free!); choosing the MOOCs to develop; making sure we have enough capacity for shooting a lot of short videos in a tight timeframe; informing senior colleagues and University Court; organising publicity and responses to queries – at times it has felt over-whelming.

I must acknowledge here my academic colleagues for their enthusiastic response to our search for suitable MOOCs, and my real indebtedness to two of my staff, Sarah Gormley and Amy Woodgate, who have worked tirelessly on the big stuff and on the details.

So, why did we decide to ‘go MOOC’? My colleagues and I have been watching MOOC developments since their earliest days, aware that they offer interesting opportunities to explore new ‘educational spaces’ in which the scale goes way beyond large on-campus classes, and where assessment has to be thought about differently.

Of course, much of what we are designing is based upon experience with technology for on-campus courses and for our expanding range of fully online taught Masters programmes, and technology in our open LLL/CPD courses, but nevertheless it does have different dimensions. Over the years JISC has helped enormously, with our participation and learning from others through programmes in pedagogy, learner experience, open content etc – its easy to forget that, because so much knowledge just becomes internalised.

For me, MOOCs sit as part of current thinking in open educational practices (OER, OCW, OERu, connectivism etc) – ways to flex and bend the constraints that much of our traditional HE formats impose on us, and on our learners. Currently, we are exploring some of this in an EC project OERtest, especially routes to offer credit for OER/OCW/MOOC-based learning. Out of the MOOCs we expect to learn about different course designs, to reach learners from a much wider base than normal, and of course, there is reputational value for us too.

So, the preparedness was there – the big decisions were How?, With partners or solo?, and When (early adoptor or mainstream)? An invitation to join Coursera, extended by Daphne Koller to our Vice Chancellor Tim O’Shea (Chair of JISC Board) whilst he was on study leave in California, gave us the opportunity to answer all those questions, and we decided after some brief but intense reflection that now was the time and with peers in the US was the route.

This meant that we didn’t need to build our own infrastructure but could concentrate on the pedagogy and course construction.

We shall offer our courses *as a university* rather than from individual academic staff working without our support or formal involvement. We will quality assure all our courses to ensure appropriate quality. They will be short (5 weeks in the first instance) as we feel these learners may find sustained study at a distance hard going (as do those on taught online courses), and we will also stick to first year undergraduate level.

What did it cost, and is it sustainable? As with all online courses, the costs are front-loaded but even more so for MOOCs of this type, where the delivery cost (especially teaching) is low. We will spend effort and money on all our courses to get them to the right quality. We didn’t find that we had most of what we needed to hand to ‘re-arrange the pieces’ to form MOOCs, so we are going back to the design stage and creating new where necessary. One example is video lectures; we do have lots of 50 min video lectures but they really are not what we want to offer – we want shorter, focused segments with associated study and assessment. Ditto for assessment. So, it isn’t cheap for the typical university course to ‘go MOOC’. On the other hand, no knowledge is free and as we wish to explore this space, we feel the return will be worthwhile to us, and to those who take our MOOCs.

How will we sustain it? The model is to share with Coursera of the modest charge for the ‘certificates of completion’, and we will use that income to pay for our support for learners, offered in the light-touch form that these types of MOOC use. It should break even!

And for the future? I am cautious as to where the ‘MOOC movement’ will go. Some of the wilder speculation about ‘free online degrees’ and the ‘end of HE as we know it’ doesn’t help serious debate. Currently we know little about MOOC learners, about how to design and deliver successfully in a range of subjects, and most importantly at a range of levels (eg final year undergrad). Is the experience helpful to learners, and do they get value from their certificates of completion? Much more research is needed, and perhaps JISC might find this a useful area in which to support the UK HE community.

I can see openings where MOOCs might find a useful place in HE – enabling those in less privileged HE settings to access courses in subjects that they cannot take, individuals with weak formal qualifications who might demonstrate competences at advanced levels as part of portfolios for recognition of prior learning, as a more formal way to learn for those ‘just interested in that subject’, and for teachers in universities to pick up new ideas as to how to teach and learn online.

MOOCs won’t suit everyone, any more than on-campus courses or distance education suits everyone but extending the menu of choices is valuable. They may not be suitable for all subjects.

I am sure the next few months up to launch of our courses and then through first delivery will be fun, and also hard work. I am really looking forward to it, and I must continue to resist the temptation to keep checking how many thousands of people have registered interest

This is the compelling pitch offered to millions of prospective students from a bewildering array of start-ups and initiatives. Building on the open educational resource movement to create immersive online learning courses scalable to a global audience, and then giving them away. It seems like hardly a week goes by without another powerful announcement concerning another Massively Open Online Course (MOOC).

Examples include EdX (MIT/Harvard), MITx, Udacity (Stanford/Independent), Coursera (Princeton, Standford, Michgan, Pennsylvania), OERu (Abathasca), Khan Academy (Independent).

All share a similar business model: free content, free learning experiences, paid accreditation and additional support.  A business model that ALT-C 2010 attendees may find hauntingly familiar.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(video taken from a presentation given by Heather Price and David Kernohan from JISC,  Li Yuan and Sheila MacNeill at JISC CETIS, at the Association of Learning Technologists [ALT] conference in 2010)

Like any buzzword the term MOOC has shifted in meaning as use has expanded, from a specific set of pedagogic assumptions around networks and learning, to a term for any large online course with no initial fee.  These initial framings of the idea drew heavily on concepts around connectivism, and saw the learner as an active participant both in the design and the delivery of the course, alongside a network of peers.

My own experience with ds106 has brought home to me the power and possibilities of this “classic MOOC” model.  As a MOOC on Digital Storytelling, the course is actually taught in a number of locations to paying students, and uses the huge numbers of open participants to support, direct and encourage creativity. For me, the power has been in the community not in the course.

In the UK, the experiments of Jonathan Worth and Coventry University with open online courses around photography (for example PHONAR and PICBOD) have seen similar results.  Students on the PICBOD course spontaneously organised and ran their own well received end-of-course exhibition.

Clearly the power of this form of MOOC works, in ways related to more traditional university outreach activity, to engage and inspire people outsides of the confines of an institution.  And bringing the interested amateur into contact with the ideas and processes of academia can only be a good thing for student recruitment.

A parallel movement, which could be exemplified by Anya Kamenetz’s “DIYu” and “Edupunk’s Guide”, sees the MOOC as a replacement  rather than an enhancement for institutional study. Courses within this tradition, despite the revolutionary trappings and “Education is broken” sloganeering, tend to be far more traditional in structure. Indeed it could be argued that only the zero cost of entry separates them from millennial initiatives like Fathom and UKeU.

The learning itself tends to be more pragmatic, with a skills/mastery rather than an understanding/practice focus, and there is a clear demarcation between tutor as source of knowledge and student as consumer.

To me,  it is this revolutionary strand of MOOCs that is reinforcing the traditional model of education,  and the institutionally-based pedagogic experiments of people like Jim Groom, Jonathan Worth and Stephen Downes that are challenging it.

For those of us who saw Blackboard’s aggressive acquisition of commercial competitors WebCT and Angel, and have seen the patent litigation they unleashed against Desire 2 Learn, the idea of Blackboard pledging to be a good open source citizen may seem a bit … unsettling, if not 1984ish.

But it has been clear for a while that Blackboard’s old strategy of ‘owning the market’ just wasn’t going to work. Whatever the unique features are that Blackboard has over Moodle and Sakai, they aren’t enough to convince every institution to pay for the license. Choosing between VLEs is largely about price and service, not functionality. Even for those Blackboard institutions where price and service are not an issue, many departments persist with some other VLE, for all sorts of not entirely functional reasons .

In other words, the VLE had become a commodity. Everyone needs one, they are fairly predictable in their functionality, and there is not that much between them, much as I’ve outlined in the past.

So it seems Blackboard have wisely decided to switch focus from charging for IP to becoming a provider of learning tool services. As Blackboard’s George Kroner noted, “It does kinda feel like @Blackboard is becoming a services company a la IBM under Gerstner.”

And just as IBM has become quite a champion of Open Source Software, there is no reason to believe that Blackboard will be any different. If only because the projects will not go away, whatever Blackboard does with the support companies they have just taken over. Besides, ‘open’ matters to the education sector.

Interoperability

Blackboard had already abandoned extreme lock-in by investing quite a bit in open interoperability standards, mostly through the IMS specifications. That is, users of the latest versions of Blackboard can get their data, content and external tool connections out more easily than in the past- it’s no longer as much of a reason to stick with them.

Providing services across the vast majority of VLEs (outside of continental Europe at least) means that Blackboard has even more of an incentive to make interoperability work across them all. Dr Chuck Severance’s appointment also strongly hints at that.

This might need a bit of watching. Even though the very different codebases, and a vested interest in openness, means that Blackboard sponsored interoperability solutions – whether arrived at through IMS or not – are likely to be applicable to other tools, this is not guaranteed. There might be a temptation to cut corners to make things work quickly between just Blackboard Learn, Angel, Moodle 1.9/2.x and Sakai 2.x.

On the other hand, the more pressing interoperability problems are not so much between the commodified VLEs anymore, they are between VLEs and external learning tools and administrative systems. And making that work may just have become much easier.

This post originally appeared on the JISC CETIS website

The second thing I notice is how open education goes across the boundaries of formal and informal, children and adults, across academic disciplines, into professional development and into making and crafting. Universities don’t own the “open education” space any more than any organisation could be said to own “learning”.

This question is explored by Lou McGill and also by Laura Czerniewicz.

The third thing that strikes me is that we really have reached a tipping point in the availability of learning opportunities online. David Kernohan asked on Monday “is open education becoming mainstream?” . The reality of the networked world is webcasts, podcasts, courseware, etextbooks, a huge range of content created by anyone and shared with the world. This is the reality now, but for those of us working in education, we need to make the most of this opportunity. We need to be digitally literate, but more than that, we need to find ways of doing our work online, to become open practitioners and digital scholars.

For a compelling description of this opportunity, see David Wiley talking about “Why Be Open?”

Click here to view the embedded video.

For educational institutions to thrive, we need to explore models for how we can work in this space, with all its opportunities and risks, all its noise and vibrancy. It is here that we see possibilities for new models of collaboration, peer learning and accreditation. To see how some UK Universities are responding to this opportunity, see four case studies on institutional approaches to open education, released this week.

And check out the huge range of activities that are taking place across the UK.

These are not always easy or obvious decisions for institutions to make: the ideas of open education can be a threat to the status quo. Good decisions navigate this space carefully. As Martin Weller wrote in The Digital Scholar, “in education, technology is often talked of in utopian or dystopian terms”, but the reality is often more complex. My colleagues and I have been trying to move beyond this polarisation by sharing our pictures of the open education space. At the core of the discussion are some crucial questions about the economics of openness, which were eloquently described, entirely independently, by Paul Stacey. This storify shows the discussion develop: click the links to see each blog post. Hopefully this is the start of an ongoing conversation.

“Open education” matters because it’s already happening all around us. The fact that the US Dept of Education is teaming up with Creative Commons and the Open Society to launch a video competition on Why Open Education Matters suggests that although it may not be mainstream yet, it is very real. The models continue to grow and combine with the ethos of open access and the methods of open source.The choice for us, as individuals and educational organisations, is in how we respond.

Amber Thomas and David Kernohan

by mhawskey from Flickr

“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”

Writing in Simulacra and Simulation in 1981, Jean Baudrillard could scarcely have predicted the way in which the growth of a global network of computer systems would accelerate and manage the growth of information and meaning. The “information revolution” has led to the co-creation of a massive library of human knowledge made accessible to everyone, and the tools needed to share, discuss, analyse and add to this corpus in order to create meaning from information.

Formal education has slowly begun to embrace this newly created reality, opening up their own stores of information and drawing on the vast stores of resources available to them. But new models are constantly being devised and refined, with a much greater range of actors – bringing in charities and the private sector alongside, or instead of, traditional providers.

JISC has been at the cutting edge of openness in education for nearly two decades. We have pioneered the growth of Open Access to research, we have supported academics and managers as they have embraced new ways of communicating with a wider audience via the internet, and we have supported the use and development of Open Source software.

However, even with strong central support, open education in the UK has always been characterised by diversity. Both from specialist institutions like the Open University, and through work with non-traditional learners in colleges, community centres and their own homes, our Higher Education sector has been committed to sharing the love of learning as it is to educational excellence.

Starting in 2009, JISC and the Higher Education Academy have been working together to deliver a suite of UK Open Educational Resources programmes in order to build the expectation of open release of materials used in learning into the mainstream of academic practice.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This UKOER programme has, to date, encompassed activity in the majority of UK institutions, based around the release and reuse of Open Education Resources. With the thoughtful and strategic use of OER practice, institutions have reported benefits to student recruitment, to their own international reputation, and to the quality of materials used to teach.

An indication of the range and quality of OER activity can be seen from the activities, releases and events planned across the country. We’ve presented a sample of these for you to engage with below.

Open Education Week highlights

Open Education Week provides a perfect opportunity to learn more about the many parts of the UK and global open education community. Here are a few highlights from the UK:

• The UKOER Evaluation and Synthesis project will be publishing a blog post every day this week, offering an overview of findings from three years of funded work. The week starts with a Grand Challenge!
• De Montfort University introduces you to a range of their resources and projects via a video. You can view Vivien Rolfe’s presentation on the biologycourses.co.uk site – as a preview of what Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will see on Tuesday 6th!
• The OER IPR support project is releasing a range of resources to further your understanding of openness, licensing and copyright. These include a range of short films (on lecture capture, reuse in medical education, ethical issues in healthcare and the ACTOR project, an amazing introductory  animation, and updates to their popular “How open are you?” and risk management calculator tools.
• The University of Leicester are running an a series of online seminars examining the global OERu initiative on Tuesday 6^th and Wednesday 7^th March. These are open seminars, available to all.
• The University of Nottingham are also running an open online seminar, covering a range of their OER work. You can read more, and join the session at 3pm on Wednesday 7^th March, on their blog.
• And on Tuesday 6^th March, the “Sustainable Texts” project at UCL are offering an open online seminar introducing you to their work.
• The University of Oxford are publishing a further collection of Great Writers podcasts , building on an already substantial body of material covering the giants of world literature.
• The University of the Arts in London are running a series of internal workshops, starting on Thursday 8^th March in Central St Martins College. Contact John Casey for further information.
• The SCORE team at the Open University are running a seminar on “Sustainable OER” in Milton Keynes on Thursday 8^th March, places are available so please register your interest. This seminar includes presentations from the MEDEV team and from Simon Thompson from Leeds Met.
• SCORE are also using Open Education Week to launch an Open Education Group.  You can read more about this, and sign up to a pledge of openness, at the SCORE website.

This is just a small sample of the UKOER innovation that is happening not just this week but every week in the UK. To keep up to date, you should follow the @UKOER account and the #ukoer hashtag on twitter. This will link you to interesting resources and blog posts, and – more importantly – an active and inclusive community of practice around OER. You can read more about the UKOER programme more generally at the JISC OER pages, which also include links to project blogs.

Three JISC programme managers, and hopefully a host of others, will be  attempting to describe the Open Education space via twitter and personal blogs. Follow the #openedspace hashtag on twitter to join them

Of course, both Open Education Week and Open Education more generally are worldwide. For more info on a wider range of events, please see their website.

Of particular interest may be a live broadcast of a seminar around OER in Europe, led by TU Delft, OUNL and SURF on the 7^th March.

Posted by David Kernohan and Amber Thomas.

If we imagine the history of Wales as a long timeline stretching back to St David in the sixth century AD and beyond, we’re confident that JISC has digitised many, many resources that can help us better appreciate that rich culture.  We’ve picked out four highlights below and hope that students and researchers of Welsh culture and history might discover a nugget here to inspire them.

We begin in the 21^st century, where if you’re in the mood to be inspired by contemporary Welsh art you’ll find students’ work online at Galeri Cymru – unusually you can even vote on their work and leave comments, enriching the learning experience for the Coleg Harlech students.   It’s an interesting example of how an interactive website can bring together community groups who might not yet be fully engaged with one another.

Then – a step back to the 20^th century.  When Cardiff University asked people from across Wales to delve into their attics for family memorabilia from the World War One, they uncovered a host of treasures.  Those precious items have now been photographed, recorded and digitised for posterity so that what started out as individual family heirlooms have now become a shared archive describing the Welsh experience of World War One.  Browsing the resulting Welsh Voices collections is incredibly evocative – I can only imagine the mixed emotions of Albert William’s family after the twenty two year old soldier’s discharge certificate sent him home to Swansea after injuring his knee at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.  It’s soon to be part of the ambitious Theatre of Memory project (PDF) run by the National Library of Wales.  Following on from this, we’re now working to digitise a more complete picture of the Welsh experience of World War One (Rhyfel Byd 1914-1918 a’r profiad Cymreig) including 190,000 pages of printed text, archival pages, manuscript pages and photographs; 50 hours of audio; and 20 hours of audio visual materials.

If you’d like to delve back even further, Welsh Ballads online can help you access 4,000 digitised ballads, mainly dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, from the collections of the National Library of Wales and Cardiff University Library. Ballads were like newspapers for the poor at this time, sung on street corners for all to hear.  The impressive documents will be of particular interest to anyone interested in folk music, the Welsh language or the history of popular art, but these pamphlets also narrate a more widely appealing social history– for example “Y Negroes”, a ballad supporting the abolition of slavery, dating from approximately 1830.

Linking these periods together is some of the very best in Welsh scholarship on Welsh Journals Online which gives people working in institutions free access to scholarship from Wales on topics ranging across the humanities, social sciences, science and technology.

I hope you find something here to interest you – and if you have a useful digital resource for other Welsh scholars, perhaps you would share it below.  Thank you.

The Welsh experience is part of a wider international drive to share our cultural history.  For a whole world of JISC Content on Wales and other cultural history, why not search the JISC content portal

For St David’s Day this post is also available in Welsh:

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi: Ymchwilio i Gymru neu hanes Cymru?

Yn ôl Amgueddfa Cymru, un o’r gwyrthiau mwyaf bythol a briodolwyd i Dewi Sant oedd iddo godi’r ddaear dan ei draed wrth bregethu, er mwyn i’w gynulleidfa allu ei weld a’i glywed.  Mae gan Gymru draddodiad llafar cryf, llinynnau artistig a llenyddol cyfoethog, cerddoriaeth werin hanesyddol a chyfoes ac rydym yn parhau i ddathlu’r wisg draddodiadol (fel sydd i’w gweld yma ar Casgliad y Werin Cymru). Mae Casgliad y Werin Cymru yn dod â chasgliadau digidol y prif sefydliadau treftadaeth yng Nghymru at ei gilydd, ynghyd â chynnwys o amgueddfeydd, archifdai a llyfrgelloedd llai, ac mae’n le gallwch rannu’ch stori am Gymru.  Un o’r heriau rydym ni yma yn JISC yn ei hwynebu yw: sut gallwn ddefnyddio technoleg orau i helpu pobl i weld a chlywed am drysorau hanes diwylliannol pan fo llawer ohonynt yn bodoli ar ffurf hanesion, caneuon, gwrthrychau neu ddogfennau gwerthfawr, yn hytrach na thestunau unffurf?

Os ydym yn dychmygu hanes Cymru fel llinell amser faith sy’n ymestyn yn ôl i Dewi Sant yn y chweched ganrif OC a’r tu hwnt, rwy’n hyderus bod JISC wedi digido llawer iawn o adnoddau sy’n gallu ein helpu i werthfawrogi’r diwylliant cyfoethog hwnnw’n well.  Rwyf wedi dewis pedwar uchafbwynt isod ac rwy’n gobeithio y bydd y rhai sy’n astudio ac yn ymchwilio i hanes a diwylliant Cymru yn darganfod telpyn gwerthfawr yma i’w hysbrydoli.

Rydym yn dechrau yn yr 21^ain ganrif lle, os oes arnoch awydd cael eich ysbrydoli gan gelfyddyd Gymreig gyfoes, gallwch ddod o hyd i waith myfyrwyr ar-lein yn Galeri Cymru – yn anarferol iawn, gallwch bleidleisio ar eu gwaith a gadael sylwadau hyd yn oed, gan gyfoethogi’r profiad dysgu ar gyfer y myfyrwyr yng Ngholeg Harlech.  Mae’n enghraifft ddiddorol o sut gall gwefan ryngweithiol ddod â grwpiau cymunedol, nad ydynt yn ymgysylltu â’i gilydd yn llawn efallai, at ei gilydd.

Yna – cam yn ôl i’r 20^fed ganrif.  Pan ofynnodd Prifysgol Caerdydd i bobl ledled Cymru chwilota yn eu croglofftydd am bethau cofiadwy eu teuluoedd o’r Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf, gwnaethant ddadorchuddio trysorau lu.  Erbyn hyn, mae’r eitemau gwerthfawr hynny wedi’u ffotograffio, eu cofnodi a’u digido ar gyfer y dyfodol, felly mae’r hyn a ddechreuodd yn drysorau teuluol wedi dod yn archif ranedig sy’n disgrifio profiad Cymru o’r Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf.  Mae pori drwy gasgliadau Welsh Voices yn arbennig o atgofus – gallaf ond dychmygu teimladau cymysg teulu Albert Williams wedi i dystysgrif ymadael y milwr dau ddeg dau oed ei anfon adref i Abertawe ar ôl iddo anafu ei ben-glin ym Mrwydr y Somme ym 1916.

Os hoffech ymchwilio ymhellach yn ôl, gall Baledi Cymru ar-lein eich helpu i ddod o hyd i 4,000 o faledi wedi’u digido, yn dyddio o’r 18^fed a’r 19^eg ganrif yn bennaf, o gasgliadau Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru a Llyfrgell Prifysgol Caerdydd.  Roedd baledi fel papurau newydd ar gyfer y tlodion yn yr oes hon, a oedd yn cael eu canu ar gornel y stryd i bawb eu clywed.  Bydd y dogfennau nodedig hyn o ddiddordeb arbennig i unrhyw un sydd â diddordeb mewn cerddoriaeth werin, yr iaith Gymraeg neu hanes celfyddyd gyfoes, ond mae’r pamffledi hyn hefyd yn adrodd hanes cymdeithasol ag apêl ehangach – er enghraifft “Y Negroes”, sef baled sydd o blaid dileu caethwasiaeth, sy’n dyddio o oddeutu 1830.

Yn cysylltu’r cyfnodau hyn at ei gilydd, mae peth o’r ysgolheictod Cymreig gorau erioed ar Cylchgronau Cymru Ar-lein, sy’n rhoi mynediad rhad ac am ddim at ysgolheictod o Gymru ar bynciau sy’n cynnwys y dyniaethau, gwyddorau cymdeithasol, gwyddoniaeth a thechnoleg i bobl sy’n gweithio mewn athrofeydd.

Rwy’n gobeithio y dewch o hyd i rywbeth yma sydd o ddiddordeb i chi – ac os oes gennych adnodd digidol defnyddiol ar gyfer ysgolheigion eraill yng Nghymru, efallai yr hoffech ei rannu isod.  Diolch.

by Paola Marchionni and Nicola Yeeles

If you have any questions about what JISC is doing to digitise Welsh resources, or to find out more about JISC’s investment in econtent, please email Paola at p.marchionni@jisc.ac.uk

Just weeks into the New Year and already there is a new ebooks revelation that colleges and universities need to digest. January saw the launch of Apple’s new iBooks2 software which grabbed headlines (see the BBC article here) and sparked heated debate across the academic community.

Quietly underpinning the technology of the iBooks software is ePub.  ePub is the ‘defacto’ ebook standard, with the latest version of ePub3 supporting complex layouts and rich media and interactivity for eTextbooks and professional and scientific publications.

Supporting institutions and academics in taking advantage of these new technologies saw JISC fund the creation of a thinktank to explore the potential of ePub for the academic community.  JISC, the members of the thinktank and Edina at the University of Edinburgh, undertook a study on ePub and the current ebook landscape.

Digital Monographs: Technical landscape exemplars and Recommendations peers beneath the eye-catching headlines and provides an important message for institutions and how they increasingly adapt their teaching and support services to an online, interactive and digital future.

Importantly, the report identifies areas where ePub3 can help institutions, students and researchers confront some of the problems they currently face. For example, students face a continued rise in the costs associated with buying print text books.  Researchers too find that they have to adjust to an increasingly open mandate from funders and institutions.

Listen to a podcast about this with JISC programme manager Ben Showers:

Podcast

EPub provides opportunities for institutions to answer critical problems such as those above and others:

• Academics and researchers can publish their work cheaply and easily, benefitting students as well as researchers who may be outside an academic institution;
• It is easily readable on multiple devices (from phones to tablets and desktop) and can be accessed from popular platforms;
• It provides a clean copy of text or data for quoting – essential for the scholarly process;
• ePub3 realises the potential for highly interactive and rich academic content,
• It has no legal restrictions or patents preventing its open use,

The report also provides a picture of the current ebook landscape and the impact that ebooks and mobile access are having on the support institutions provide to their students and academics. In particular there is a lot of talk about student expectations; but scholars’ expectations are changing rapidly.

As the report makes clear: The next generation of scholars will be educated in a context of increasingly-digital learning materials. Their expectations for ease of discovery, format-shifting, mobile access and multimedia exemplars will extend beyond e-textbooks used at the undergraduate level (P. 15).

Increasingly these expectations are focussing around mobile access and consumption: “…mobile devices are ubiquitous, personal and always at hand; even if they are not the locus of sustained content consumption, they are a critical adjunct” (p. 38).

JISC has been interested in the transformations taking place in scholarly publishing and communications for a number of years, most recently with its work on scholarly communications and the idea of campus-based publishing. Indeed, the availability of cheap and easy e-book publishing platforms combined with open licensing is the basis for a growth in open textbooks , often with significant public investment (for example in California).

While processes such as peer-review ensure the quality and value of scholarly outputs, ePub3 could see academia exploit a trend that’s already witnessing blockbuster authors such as JK Rowling withholding digital rights and publishing ebooks directly.

The once high barriers to such a future are being rapidly lowered with ePub and similar standards. Criticlaly, ePub reuses existing technologies wherever possible, for example, XML, XHTML, and has led to ePub being described as “a website in a box”:

Its technology stack is heavily borrowed from web technologies. This allowed a number of ebook readers to be developed quickly using web browsers as base platforms

It also means that the technologies and tools are ones familiar to many in the academic community; this is based on existing technologies, ensuring it is quickly adopted within the academy.

With open standards like ePub3 and the JISC Digital Monographs: Technical landscape exemplars and Recommendations report institutions are in a great position to start taking advantage of these technologies and providing students and their researchers with the tools enhance their learning and research and give UK institutions a cutting-edge in the competitive world of education.

Find out more about the report and its 10 recommendations for the future of ebooks in education.

Amber Thomas, programme manager at JISC, knows the issues well because she works on our open educational resources programme and gave a presentation earlier in the month (see her slides here) which outlined the benefits of content sharing and reuse.  Amber says, “Personally I welcome the provision of easy content creation tools, and the ability to create attractive usable content.”

However, she also raises concerns about the proprietary nature of Apple’s resources, adding, “What concerns me is that Apple control a ‘technology stack’ through devices, software apps, content collections and delivery platforms. I am not sure that the drivers on them to ensure interoperability will be strong enough to avoid their business model being a form of vendor lock-in.”

There are complex issues around intellectual property when it comes to sharing resources.  Amber says, “We all need to be savvy about the ownership of our content and data these days, so that we are at least aware of the trade-offs we are making, and the effect it has on our ability to share content with each other.”

If you’re concerned about these issues you might be interested to consult the advice in our infokit around the legal aspects of OER.

Doug Belshaw, of JISC Infonet, echoes Ambers concerns.  Doug is a practising teacher and  former Director of e-Learning and he welcomes Apple’s new software.

He says, “Yes, it involves significant vendor lock-in, but so long as you go into it with your eyes open there’s potential for really engaging, contextualised content to be produced by both teachers and learners.”

Doug points out as others have done, that “where Apple leads others tend to follow.”  His hope for the future?  “We’ll end up with equally shiny, but more open, versions of iBooks Author.”  That remains to be seen – but it wouldn’t be the first time that Apple’s announcements act as a catalyst.

Which leaves the final say to JISC programme manager and OER expert David Kernohan, who is a staunch supporter of the move.  He agrees with David Riley who blogs about it here that “the announcement is an outright win for advocates of affordability and open textbooks.”

David explains, “iBooks looks like an attempt to prove that the idea of a text book (the single, codified, unmodifiable, static source of information) is still pedagogically and technologically valid.”

However he does have concerns about using the web effectively for learning and is concerned whether we are simply replicating analogue artefacts.

He concludes, “The question should not be how cheap textbooks should be, or how shiny, but whether we need them at all.”

If you’re new to ebooks, you can learn more by joining in the JISC Advance webinar on ‘getting started with ebooks’ http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/surgery

What do you think about the Apple iBooks?  Have you used any in your classes?  We’d be interested to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Image from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit © The Imperial War Museum

The legacy of World War One in terms of social, economic and political global change cannot be overstated; it changed the individual’s view of society and their place within it with far-reaching effects into their future and our past. In the words of H.G. Wells: ‘This is the end and the beginning of an age’.

To mark this event in international history is therefore a key priority for custodians of heritage and educators alike.

We’ve already made considerable efforts to preserve online the memories and writings of those active during the First World War.  The popular Great War Poetry Archive was funded by JISC to digitise precious documents relating to the poetry of the Great War – including Wilfred Owen’s original notes for the well known poem Dulce et Decorum Est.

It also includes podcasts with eminent historians and veterans including the writer and broadcaster Ian Hislop talking about his grandfather’s experience in action and why he is so ‘obsessed’ with the First World War.  The Serving Soldier collection might also interest you as a way of finding out about the lives of soldiers from 1899 to 1918, a period which spans the Second Boer War, Younghusband Expedition and World War One.

But now it’s time to commemorate the 2014 anniversary.  Higher and further education has a  unique part to play in the WW1 commemoration because it can offer an academic appraisal and reappraisal of themes, events and perceptions.  To help people in education who are studying the period, we are promoting a joined-up approach across many different organisations that currently hold audiovisual, images, text based works and film relating to the First World War. JISC wants to explore how providing this in a more seamless way could help those working in education and research to access the resources. So as a result we’re planning two activities:

• JISC WW1 Discovery programme- to aggregate digital content such as films from a range of digital collections and find new and innovative ways of presenting this content for the benefit of education and research on WW1.

• JISC WW1 OER project- to create innovative Open Educational Resources around WW1 relevant across disciplines for embedding in teaching and learning using a range of content pertaining to WW1 in the UK and internationally, ready for release in March 2012

JISC’s overriding goal for both activities is to work for researchers, teachers and students to produce digital content and resources that are comprehensive, open and sustainable, but that answer differing, specific needs within higher and further education.  The plans are underpinned by a common strategic ‘direction of travel’ which is outlined most clearly in the JISC Statement of Intent.

I look forward to updating you further as these projects progress.

To find out more about what’s planned visit the blog.

With the uncertainties of a new funding model to deal with, it is becoming harder than ever to convince institutional managers to support nice-to-have projects. Everything needs to be justified, both on a balance sheet and within a wider battle for hearts and minds. But the way in which open educational resources (OER) allow institutions to meet their strategic goals alongside making the world a better place means that it is moving from being nice-to-have to becoming an essential component of academic practice.

More than 10 years on from the formal establishment of the OpenCourseWare project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the casual observer could be forgiven for assuming that the case for OER (materials suitable for learning and teaching, made available for reuse under an open licence) had been made and accepted. MIT, alongside many other institutions, both great and small, and including Nottingham, Oxford, University College Falmouth and the Open University in the UK, is currently supporting the ongoing release of resources with their own funds. The likes of YouTube and iTunes are establishing themselves as platforms for the discovery of learning material, and institutions are beginning to see open resources as a major component of their student recruitment strategies. But it can often feel, as Javiera Atenas described last week, as if we are going round the same discussions without building on what already has been discovered.

To try and condense some of the vast amount that has been learnt about the benefits of OER releases in the past 10 years, the Higher Education Academy and JISC have developed an InfoKit. This now includes materials specifically aimed at advocacy to senior institutional staff, talking about business models for openness and making arguments around institutional ethos, alongside sound evidence-based advice about every aspect of getting to a stage where releasing materials openly online is as natural as creating them. We also have an interactive tool – how open are you – which uses your responses to make a recommendation concerning how much openness your institution is ready for.

Jorum, the UK’s national learning repository, is refocusing itself around OER, introducing new features and tools to aid the deposit and discovery of resources. It is now as easy, – and increasingly, as expected – to deposit in Jorum as it is to upload to Youtube, WordPress or Twitter.

There are parallels between OER releases and the ways in which universities and colleges have begun to make more intelligent and active use of social media. For example, in following major political stories readers, bloggers and professional journalists are increasingly making use of sites such as British Politics and Society at LSE, Nottingham University’s Ballots & Bullets and the University of Oxford’s Politics in Spires to understand the background and meaning of news stories, drawing on the passion and expertise of academic specialists to further their own understanding. Strictly speaking, only the last of these is available under an open licence allowing for reuse, but all of these bloggers expect to be retweeted, quoted, referenced and their work drawn upon. It’s the point of blogging, and in many ways the point of academic practice.

One theme emerging from the research around OER is the idea of open academic practice – it comes out strongly from our ongoing evaluation and synthesis of the UKOER programme, and from other linked research such as a recent Oxford University study into the practicalities of academic reuse. Open academic practice draws a link between OER, open access to research outputs and research data, and the general practice of “professing” (in the late-medieval sense) a subject, by what we now call a “public intellectual”. By seeing OER as a component of what is traditionally expected of academia, rather than as a new imposition, we are arguing from a much stronger foundation based on what many in the sector see as their primary motivation – to explain to people the importance and relevance of the subject specialisms they have devoted many years to understanding.

Evidence is increasingly being identified that students, both traditional, and wider open learners, are getting a lot of benefit from openly available materials. From on-campus students having access to a range of supporting materials (as reported by Steve Carson at MIT), to prospective students using OER to think more clearly about subject and institution choices, there are a range of benefits that can be accessed. A recent literature review highlighted these issues, but also alerts us to gaps in our understanding where further research would help improve our understanding.

JISC and the Academy have recently supported a range of new projects (under UKOER phase 3, details to be announced soon), investigating ways in which we can use the approaches and affordances of OER to meet other key societal goals. Goals such as supporting alternate forms of delivery, making meaningful links with employers and publishers, working across sectors even preserving subject areas and teaching approaches that would otherwise be lost.

The world of OER may not be as new and as ground breaking as it was 10 years ago but for such a radical idea to survive for 10 years, and to become almost mainstream in the process, is an incredible achievement of which the global OER community, and in particular those working in the UK, should be proud.

This blog post first appeared on the Guardian Higher Education Network on 28 October 2011.  Visit the Guardian site

First, a question: how much are resources re-used? The Value of Reuse report pictures our knowledge of re-use as an iceberg where much use is invisible.

That suggests that a better question might be: why so little visible reuse of educational resources? I think it stems from how we measure re-use. The e-learning world has been so focused on repurposing that we are expecting to see the content being copied/changed. But reading is use too. Interestingly, there is a strange discomfort with talking about tracking/measuring the use of open content, which I’ve started to explore. Perhaps it stems from an anxiety that measurement means metrics, and that metrics are at odds with the “long tail” nature of academic work. But I have a lot still to understand about how to provide meaningful evidence of digital impact that supports individual and institutional drivers.  So perhaps the right question to ask is around what reuse might look like in different contexts.

To encourage reuse, we need to be clear on what might motivate people to share their resources. Attention is reward, as is intrinsic motivation. People who share blog posts, tweets, slides, images on the web know it is rewarding in its own right.

Should that translate into official recognition by the employer of the academic? I guess there are different ways of carrying out the role of an academic. We see that variation in openness in the research process: different attitudes in different discipline areas and different points in their career, and probably different personalities. So I agree that no-one should be forced. It should be choice, and at the moment, most institutional reward structures are neutral on OER: the reward is individual and social.

However, the HE sector is changing. Maybe academics do need to do more of their thinking in the open. Researchers are being encouraged to think about impact and engagement. Then there are the economic and ethical arguments for open access for research, which are perhaps starting to raise expectations about opening up other academic outputs.

My biggest interest at the moment is how technology can support the changes in practice of the early majority, which I think is happening, even if it’s off the radar. Making use visible is important, connecting content and people. Of course to make use of this, as others have commented, we need to support digital literacies.

We’d love feedback on how services like Jorum and innovation programmes like the joint HEAcademy/JISC OER Programme can help keep moving open academic practices forward. And if you’re new to the concept, visit the OER Infokit to get started.

You can participate in the discussion on the oer-discuss list which we run with the UK OU: please join in!

• Recommendation 1 – the need to take steps to enhance the transparency of costs of operational activities within higher education in order to help demonstrate where and how value for money is being delivered.

We’ve developed two tools that can help here. Firstly, the JISC IT Service Costing Toolkit that was funded under the JISC Flexible Service Delivery programme is designed to help universities calculate the cost of their current IT infrastructure and future investments. It can also help managers make the case for alternative service models by allowing you to weigh up investments in new infrastructure versus shared services or hosted services. The toolkit is now used by Oxford University Computing Service in order to provide a sound method for costing their legacy IT Service provision

Under the Digital Preservation programme the JISC Impact Calculator was funded and is available at JISC Infonet. This allows HEIs to baseline and forecast the quantitative impact (including costs) of investing in new ICT solutions. Although the impact calculator’s genesis is in information management it can be applied more widely.

• Recommendation 3 – The report also helps to articulate the sophisticated approach that needs to be taken to the adoption of shared services; that is that shared services are more effective if work is done on streamlining processes prior to implementing changes to shared services.

Within a number of shared services that JISC has worked with the sector on, we’ve examined processes to define where these can be better supported and streamlined. For example JISC has worked with SCONUL as a precursor to taking forward a shared electronic resource management support service on the examination of processes within university libraries. After significant prior work JISC Collections is now managing the establishment of a shared service to support the management of electronic library resources in colleges and universities.

If you’re looking for examples of how other universities and colleges have handled changes to their service delivery, JISC’s Flexible Service Delivery Programme supported the production of some “Process and Service Improvement” case studies. These case studies demonstrate how that with mapping and costing legacy service provision, HEIs can plan for change across a range of business and academic areas.

• Recommendation 10: Developing and implementing new ICT systems and facilities can play an important role in reducing energy costs and lowering carbon emissions, with energy savings from more efficient ICT solutions (including outsourcing)

Through our investments in greening ICT JISC has developed a wealth of knowledge in this area, and this agenda is being further explored with European infrastructure partners through the e-Infranet project.

It is pleasing to see the report note that JISC’s work adds value by developing shared practice, and of course in particular by providing shared services. On page 44 of the report the role of JISC Collections, innovation programmes and other services are noted in terms of offering value for money.

As is highlighted on page 55, JISC is working with HEFCE on the development of University Modernisation Fund (UMF) cloud services, for example the development of a shared cloud brokerage service for universities via Janet. Recommendation 11 mentions the need for procurement expertise and JISC Advance is already taking forward plans, also via UMF, to establish a service to help universities procure the best value administrative systems. The businesses cases for these activities clearly show that they will help drive efficiencies in universities.

JISC welcomes the report and UUK’s leadership in undertaking this work. We look forward to seeing UUK’s plans on implementation, and in particular working with UUK on recommendation number 6, where an ‘efficiency hub’ is proposed to promote relevant services to the sector and to share good practice and innovative developments.

Before I go I have to acknowledge that colleagues Craig Wentworth, Alex Hawker, John Chapman, Neil Grindley and others helped provide information to UUK to show examples of how the sector is working on achieving change and efficiency.

This is part two of a two-part series in response to the UUK report – you can read Rachel’s first blog post commenting on the overall direction of the report here.

I think the report gives a really useful overview of the terrain and sets out the evidence that shows how the university sector is already addressing the agenda but also states how the higher education sector might start to better address efficiency into the future. The report’s  findings are set out against a backdrop of the reduction in the amount of public funding directed at the learning and teaching grant in England alongside the drive across the UK for better value for money.

I was fortunate enough to be involved in the Sub Group that UUK established with representatives from relevant sector agencies and organisations. The Sub Group helped to identify issues and highlight relevant activities for the UK Efficiency and Modernisation Task Group, which was chaired by Professor Ian Diamond, and UUK, to take into account in their deliberations and research.  There’s an overview of the task group’s work here (PDF).  When the work began there was, as you’d expect, quite a focus on shared services, but quite quickly a richer picture emerged of activities that needed to be addressed in order for the sector to move further forward.

As the report states the UK university sector is already pretty effective in its contribution to the economy. As calculated a few years ago, it contributes £59 billion of output to the UK economy, and generates £5.3 billion of export earnings annually.  But UUK recognises the need to do more.  The report shone a light on a wealth of good work already underway, which is heartening.  It states that  perhaps the biggest hurdles to overcome in becoming more efficient lies in the fragmentation of good practice and that there is need for more coordination around solutions and sharing of good practice required.  In his foreword Professor Diamond says,“The sector has been remarkably good at hiding this progress… it will be important that [the many good examples of efficiency are] promoted more widely.”

So key issues that the report says need to be addressed include: further transparency around costs; sharing of good practice and solutions; streamlining internal processes prior to any shared service identification and implementation; further coordination of higher education procurement at a national level and improved frameworks for benchmarking so it can be used as way to drive efficiency.

The report places efficiency in a strategic context and a long-term view of a diverse sector. This takes us to that often mentioned tension around collaboration and competition; this is something that I think the sector already handles in a number of areas and I think the recommendations that UUK set out are a good basis for understanding where efficiencies and collaboration can take place in order to allow for difference and competition to flourish where it makes sense.

So in short this is a useful report, one that looks more broadly than JISC’s mission, but shows how JISC can be part of a more effective and efficient sector through partnership with other agencies, UUK and universities.  I look forward in anticipation to the follow up to the report.

On Monday I’ll share with you the specifics of how we believe JISC can help organisations respond to UUK’s recommendations.  We’d be interested to hear what people think of the recommendations and how JISC can respond. 

This is the first post in a two-part series responding to the UUK report on efficiency and effectiveness in higher education. 

Read Rachel’s second blog post commenting on specific recommendations on Monday.

Discuss the issues raised here on the Guardian Higher Education Network online today at 2pm where the topic of discussion is “Do universities need to become more efficient?”

In addition, the rapid growth in personal ownership of new and more powerful technologies such as mobile phones and tablet PCs, along with the pervasive use of social software is changing the way we work, socialise, communicate and collaborate.  It is only natural that students will expect to see the powerful benefits these technologies offer – technologies that are common-place in many aspects of our working lives – used to support their learning ambitions as they endeavour to balance the competing pressures of study, work, caring and social responsibilities.

So how are colleges and universities responding to these challenges and preparing for the future?JISC’s new guide on Emerging Practice in a Digital Age shows how colleges and universities are continuing to embrace innovation in use of mobile technologies, social software and virtual worlds despite constraints on public funding.  The guide shows how they are harnessing new and emerging technologies to enhance the learning experience and respond to changes in economic, social and technological circumstances in a fast-changing world.
Through the three themes of: working in partnership with students, developing students’ employability potential and preparing for the future, the guide demonstrates how considered and innovative use of technology can enhance learning. It highlights opportunities to transform practice and explore some of the benefits and challenges using written, video case studies and podcasts of expert voices from the JISC 2011 Emerging Practice symposium.
For me, key messages include the need to go beyond listening to students to working with them as co-collaborators of their own learning, the need to focus on learning design as an integral aspect of introducing new technologies, the importance of working with employers and the need to develop digital literacy skills for both staff and students.

The change in culture and shifting locus of control from institution to learner is something that David White, Co-manager, Technology Assisted Lifelong Learning (TALL), Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford highlights: “I think we need to accept that the culture has changed, that institutions don’t need to own or control that culture but they need to take advantage of it and to equip their students to engage with it in new forms of literacy. We can’t just slide across traditional forms of literacy, and I think that is where the challenge is set.”

With an emphasis on emerging practice, the guide makes the case for strong leadership at a senior level to ensure the vision and opportunities presented by these emerging technologies are realised with due consideration to the support mechanisms necessary to make their introduction successful.  The need to look ahead, embrace change and create the right culture by developing strategies that engage staff and students is something that Clare Killen, the author of the guide suggests is likely to lead to longer-lasting transformation, “in the longer term, efforts to create the right culture and to engage others in the process of change may prove to be more valuable and lead to more sustainable and responsive practice in a world of rapid change”.

For information about the JISC e-Learning programme, visit: www.jisc.ac.uk/elearningprogramme

Planning and designing the curriculum involves every aspect of the business from market research and course development to quality assurance and enhancement, resource allocation, timetabling, recruitment and assessment.

During the past two year I have been working  on the Transforming Curriculum Delivery through Technology Programme which funded 15 projects based in universities and colleges  with the aim of enhancing curriculum design and delivery through innovative uses of technology.

This work has focused on some of the key challenges that universities and colleges all face such as: improving  motivation, achievement and retention;  managing large cohorts; supporting remote and distance learners; engaging learners with feedback; ensuring ongoing responsiveness to stakeholder needs and delivering resource efficiencies which enhance rather than reduce the quality of the learning experience. By exploring new, creative and flexible models of delivering curriculum we have learned more about how and where technology can  add value and even transform the way in which the curriculum is delivered in different contexts.

We’ve found, for example, that students’ learning can benefit from efficient, integrated systems. At Lewisham college, for example, students on the new 14-19 diploma course are no longer dealing with printouts but getting instant access to their timetables, attendance and punctuality records through the college’s new learning portal.  The result is more motivated students who are more in control of their own progress, as student Sherrane Scott highlighted, “I use [the portal] for many things. The main use for me is to check my work in the courses section of the site. I use it because it is useful and convenient. It is also set out in a clear and understandable way.“

If you are interested in finding out more about this project, and the other work in the programme and want to understand more about the potential of technology-enhanced curricula on , our new guide Transforming curriculum delivery through technology: Stories of challenge, benefit and change is now available. This guide provides an overview of the outcomes from the programme and offers some insights into the ways in which institutions and individual curriculum areas can make use of technology to respond more robustly to the demands of a changing world. Copies can be downloaded or ordered from www.jisc.ac.uk/curriculumdeliveryguide (allow 2 weeks for delivery). For further information about the work of the projects and access to all our programme-related resources, please see the Design Studio. A recording of a presentation I gave recently providing an overview of the programme and its achievements, is also available.

Accompanying the guide, our latest radio show in the ‘JISC On Air’ series looks at how technology can deliver curriculum changeand  includes interviews with representatives from projects involved in the programme whodiscuss the impact achieved in two very different contexts and disciplines.

When we started creating a search environment to look at multiple databases in one we were given the oddest, but most precious piece of advice: ‘lose the search box’. The stunned looks around the project team’s faces said it all… isn’t searching about, well, searching?

At the BUFVC we offer access to many different types of datasets, from listings of practically everything that was broadcast on British TV and radio since 2001, to newsreels produced throughout the 20th century. In the United Kingdom there is no audiovisual equivalent for the British Library legal deposit. We therefore work hard to fill that information gap and find ways for education institutions to gain access to audiovisual content.

When we thought of ‘federating’ most of our data (searching it all at once) we thought it would be easy. And it was. We know our data well and could map it quickly.  But that wasn’t the real challenge. It was by looking at how users interacted with the developing system that we learnt the key lessons. If you are searching our 13 million records there are two difficult steps: what to type in that search box and how to then get rid of all the stuff you don’t want.

The answer to the first dilemma – how to stop users worrying about the empty search box – was to make it less important. We needed to make sure that whatever the exact search term, users should be able to make interesting discoveries even if the results were not the best. To do this we created relationships between our records based on semantics. This means that users will see suggestions for searches and records that may take them in different (but related) journeys.

The second dilemma is all about filtering. The search results page became our control centre, allowing users to filter results, tweak searches, see the suggestions for related searches and use a variety of additional tools. All this makes for a busy page but after many rounds of user testing we think our designer hit the right balance between complexity and elegance. Some of these features include:
•    Human-friendly filters such as identifying results by availability (‘can I see it online, do I need to order it from someone?), media type (moving image, audio, documents), genre or collection
•    A comprehensive history function that keeps track of viewed records, searches and tweaks to searches and the ability to mark and cite or export records in a variety of standards

When reflecting back on the project, I remember mostly the sense of fun, the permission we gave ourselves to think creatively, and our exciting user testing rounds. Developers and users don’t often mix but with good moderation these sessions proved magical. These are three elements I would urge anyone to replicate in future projects.

We are not alone in this development; sites that enable discovery and aggregate results from multiple collections are increasing in number – Edina’s JISC Media Hub is well worth a visit. We hope to have created something which rewards users with new connections through discovery. Work will only be completed in September and there are many plans beyond that. In the meantime if you are looking for moving image and sound, be it television or radio, newsreels or commercially available programmes for education pay a visit to our beta site and give us your feedback. If you are reading this from a UK higher or further education institution, please remember to login to access all areas.

The open-source based software and interface will be released as a package under an Open Source licence later this year. This project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by Royal Holloway, University of London.

Luis Carrasqueiro is Chief Executive, British Universities Film & Video Council
luis@bufvc.ac.uk

In an example from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity, a virtual learning environment-based blogging tool has been used to enhance the dynamics of tutorials and seminars and to improve the consistency of students’ engagement with more challenging elements of the curriculum. Following successful trials commencing in 2005, the School of Divinity has used blogging as part of a wider blended learning strategy to develop student skills of critical thinking and reflection.

The detailed case study is a word doc you can download: Engaging learners in critical reflection – University of Edinburgh

What are the advantages?  In my experience, group blogging helps to unite a diverse body of students and makes it easier to identify individuals’ difficulties. The quality of discussion on the blogs is often high, with more competent students raising the performance of weaker students, and contributions made as part of these discussions can later become aids for revision. The time involved in monitoring blogs has not proved excessive – in fact the blogging activity may have reduced the time spent supporting students experiencing difficulties.

What’s your experience of using blogs with students? I would welcome your comments.

Find out more about JISC’s work in online learning

As Eric pointed out, being innovative can help show prospective students that the university means business when it comes to staying at the top, thereby helping to drive revenue from course fees.  It can also support widening participation by reaching out to students in non-traditional areas – as at the University of the Highlands and Islands, where technology is conquering geography and allowing students to tap into the network of over 80 different learning centres from their own homes and workplaces.  There’s no doubt that smart technology use can enhance students’ experience of university, whether that be keeping in touch with a tutor out of hours or logging on to an online learning environment -  like the University of Bristol’s online laboratory ChemLabs, which better prepares undergraduates for their real-life practical work.

Technology can drive income from business, too. I’m aware that the vast majority of the work that goes on between universities and their business and community partners is heavily dependent on virtual collaboration through email, telephone or web tools and resources.  Last year a JISC project at the University of Glamorgan developed a ‘listening zone’ for feedback, ideas and partner-making, and acted as a marketplace for business referrals and contacts.  Building an online community takes time but can be a valuable way to add value to what’s happening every day between local entrepreneurs and academics.

Now that higher education is entering an unregulated market, we’re bound to see increased competition between universities.  But shared services can achieve cost savings by providing economies of scale. The recent upgrade of JANET, the UK’s education and research network, will save £63.2 million over its five years of operation.  We’ve also seen the success of the Bloomsbury Colleges group in London which was set up in 2004 to collaborate together in academic administrative matters to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort while maintaining the colleges’ independence.

In addition to sharing these strategic approaches, we need to get better at learning from one another about which technology works, and where.  Risks taken by individual institutions need not be repeated.  For instance, JISC has investigated the possibilities for an academic cloud specifically for researchers – and decided that at the moment, the arguments are not persuasive.  You can read the report from 2010. There are countless examples of good technology use available across the sector and it’s encouraging to see groups like the enterprise architecture practice group for strategists coming together on a regular basis to ask how we can discover from each other.

I sometimes feel that the word ‘technology’ sounds expensive.  You can estimate how much your ICT equipment is costing your university and the environment using the JISC carbon footprinting tool. But the simplest technology can have a really big impact.  We’re all aware, for example, of the potential for energy saving light bulbs to help us cut our bills at home, and the same principle can be applied to green ICT on an institution-wide scale. JISC funded a project at Cardiff University to make better use of storage solutions for files that aren’t being accessed every day.  It’s simple technology but when put into full production at Cardiff, it is anticipated that this will save 10kW of energy (approx 51 tonnes of CO2) per year, which at current prices is around £10,000 per annum.  A green agenda can also help you make better use of space on campus by strategically outsourcing ICT functions using cloud computing, resulting in lower cooling costs and new space that used to be taken up with servers.

Having said that, there’s no doubt that investing in new ICT facilities can be costly.  As universities try to prioritise, what should they do if buying a new system becomes unavoidable? JISC ProcureWeb is a shared service which enables institutions to save money through efficient procurement and was estimated to have saved the sector £1,350,000 in 2008/09. You can read JISC’s advice on getting the best price for any new equipment you’re consider on the JISC Infonet contract negotiation infokit I’d also encourage universities to ensure that they’re not paying more than they have to for their existing services.  For example, there’s a searchable list of all the free and discounted licensed digital resources available through JISC at the content website.  In 2009/10 alone, JISC Collections saved UK colleges and universities over £50m on subscription costs.

You can find out more about how JISC can help you in the reducing costs area of our website – which focuses on how we can help support your institution with strategic thinking, background documents, practical advice and downloadable resources on all the topics I’ve mentioned in this post.   By wisely investing in technology, I believe a university can save costs, generate revenue and share the burden of spending – but I also don’t want us to lose the innovative spark that keeps UK plc at the forefront of research globally.  We must continue to take calculated risks with technology if we want to support our students and researchers with their bright ideas and ensure that our universities attract people who are themselves forward looking and innovative.

This blog post first appeared on the Guardian Higher Education Network on 18 April 2011.  Visit the Guardian site

Our parallel session at the JISC Conference 2011 was entitled Using Digital Media to Improve Teaching and Learning.

Between our speakers we had a wide range of knowledge, skills and experience: each of our speakers was a cartographer of the digital media landscape, mapping not only the Ariel perspectives of policy and future trends but also individual bumps along the road. Rather than promoting digital media as a pedagogical ‘magic bullet’ our session focused on ways to mitigate the problems of using digital media:

- view ‘workflows’ themselves as useful tools in a similar way to open source software. Workflows can be shared, refined and recirculated amongst communities to help us learn from the experiences of others (Zak Mensah, e-learning officer at JISC Digital Media)

- support  your students as producers of digital media, a concept of importance as resources are cut and students are encouraged to take ownership of learning resources (Dr Jane Williams, director of e-learning within the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Dentistry and Medicine)

- where possible be aware that the idea of ‘attendance’  needs to develops in line with new technologies. Learners  ‘in attendance’ may be using a webcam at home or contribute to discussion via Twitter (Doug Belshaw, JISC Infonet).

In summary, our session suggested that the use of digital media really can enhance teaching, but also poses the risk of only passively engaging the learner.  No single individual or even institution in isolation could possibly ‘keep up’. Only by pooling knowledge and sharing stories of what works and what doesn’t can we use successfully integrate digital media into our teaching and learning.

Find out more at the virtual goody bag for this session.

However journalist Anne Mroz, writing in the Times Higher Education magazine, cautions that:

“Any broadening of provision and innovation in delivering it is welcome. But online distance learning needs careful handling. Problems will arise if courses grow out of financial and political pressures rather than considered educational strategy.”

HEFCE, on behalf of the government, will shortly be publishing the final report of an Online Learning Task Force examining precisely this area of opportunity. The taskforce, chaired by Lynne Brindley of the British Library, has seen evidence from across the sector – including the TALL report cited above and a fascinating study by the National Union of Students.

The Online Learning Task Force has a difficult remit. How do you capture the full experience of university, with all the personal growth and development that this entails, via a web browser? Is it simply a cheaper way to get more students through the system? Who is looking for online learning, and what do they want? Are Kaplan right that technology is the only possible future for higher education?

Ahead of the report, we discuss the issues with  David White who led on the TALL report, Richard Hall e-Learning co-ordinator at De Montfort University, and staff and students from the University of Leicester, as part of the latest JISC On Air radio show. The show explores many of the issues around the questions raised above.

Listen now
Episode 2: Online Distance Learning (Duration: 24:04)

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Find out more about this programme

The recommendations reflected some good practice ideas and raised some serious issues. The report undertook a literature review, surveys and focus groups.  In the context of the Building Capacity programme, which embeds the outputs from JISC innovation projects, it is clear that some of the report’s assertions have been closed off from the reality of the immense amount of work undertaken by institutions. This could be for several reasons:

• The community responsible for moving the technology enhanced learning agenda forward have not been fully engaged in communicating with those (students and staff) on the outside of that community or fully transparent in their discussions.
• Universities have already moved beyond the remit of the report, almost to a post-digital state, where ICT is becoming ‘transparent’ and moving toward the ubiquity the reports calls for.
• The report did not engage with the full activities within universities, such as the ‘e-learning’ teams, staff development programmes etc.

Here are some comments on specific recommendations in the report:

All institutions should have an ICT strategy that is revised every three years and students should be actively engaged in the process of developing that strategy.

The report does not differentiate between ICT and e-learning strategies. In the case of the former almost all institutions have a well established ICT strategy that is examined on a regular basis by the senior management team.  The risk in adopting the recommendation as it stands is that the sector goes back to thinking about, and equating, learning with, for example, computers. The learning and teaching strategy should be distinct from the ICT strategy, where the ICT strategy is influenced and driven by the learning and teaching strategy (and other strategies such as research) and not the other way around.

University faculties should appoint Senior Fellows responsible for new technologies and integrating them into teaching and learning.

This approach was tried, and to a large extent succeeded, in FE colleges with the BECTA programme of Information and Learning Technology (ILT) Champions. In many universities similar approaches have been implemented, however, they often do not focus on sole teaching methods such as use of ICT but take a much broader view. The emphasis for teaching fellows does, and should, remain on encouraging appropriate teaching methods rather than a push for a specific product or format.

ICT usage and learning should be embedded into the design of new programmes through the validation process.

Like the previous recommendation, this seems to generalise, and I would ask is this appropriate for all programmes? We run the risk of shoehorning technology practices that do little or nothing, or even worse, damage the learning experience when we insist on embedding some practices over others.

Periodic reviews should assess the extent to which virtual learning environments and ICT are used to enhance learning.

This is one of the recommendations that stands out as something that should be delivered if it is not already. In fairness this is possibly already in place in institutions, and certainly in the Building Capacity projects’ institutions that I’ve spoken to they have been doing it for several years as part of their quality processes.

Institutions should consider ways of making university administration more accessible through technology, including e-submission of assessments, registration and course choices.

This is an area that can not only help deliver higher student satisfaction, but can also improve the experience, effectiveness and efficiency of staff. Many JISC programmes are working in this space and there are high gains to be made. Where universities are doing this well, the researchers working on this study may not even have been aware of these invisible efficiencies.

ICT skills should be integrated into Professional Standards Framework, in institutional promotional criteria and also selection for teaching awards.

The report seems to focus on training staff rather than placing precedence on enhancing the digital literacy of all staff in institutions. The bigger issue is what programmes are compulsory for other staff; it is currently only new lecturers that are required to go through the programmes and there is no requirement for continuing professional development once they have been accredited.

The report is important, reads well and raises many issues that the sector should look at, especially with regard to students’ perceptions. But, as the recommendations stand they are pushing us back to when technology was, in places, driving learning and teaching. In visiting institutions where we have projects, I see in most cases that senior management teams are building strategies that put learning and teaching (and research) at the forefront and then create the ICT strategy to service them. In some cases the technology may not be visible, as it moves into common usage, a post-digital environment potentially. The challenge arising from this report is not how to use more technology, nor how to integrate it into practice. The challenge is articulating our existing practice in ways that act as both an exemplar to students (and support their own digital literacy), and enhance our practice by sharing the exemplary work that is already there.

Yet this is far from the truth. Opinions vary, but it is probably fair to say that more than 95% of the world books, magazines, newspapers, videos, films, documents still lay hidden in archives and libraries, inaccessible in digital form.

And there are numerous benefits to continue with the work of digitising all this content – it’s more than making it convenient for the learner to access something from the comfort of their own home or office.

So, for example, research is radically changed by the availability of millions of new documents, as shown by resources like the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, which is changing the face of the study of history of London.

Equally, costs of publishing and travel can be significantly reduced by open access journals, such as the 2m pages of text provided by the Wellcome Trust’s Medical Journal Backfiles digitisation.

The University of Oxford’s Great War Archive not only gathered and digitised the general public’s material evidence from World War One but enabled new communities and expertise to be developed outside the campus walls.

And projects such as Freeze Frame collection of polar photographs, or the Old Weather resource for transcribing weather reports in Naval logbooks, not only provide new data for educators and learners around the world, but also allow for a greater appreciation of the nation’s ‘prize jewels’ within its cultural and educational collections.

Much of the argument is laid out in a new JISC report written by Simon Tanner of King’s College London. Inspiring Research, Inspiring Scholarship is available as a pdf document from the JISC website.

Lord Browne’s recommendations this week remind us that the majority of students (or their parents) will be stumping up an increasing amount for a place at university. It is no surprise then that they want to be 100% sure that their education will be worth the money.

Those of us in the business of delivering and supporting higher education want to enrol students who are well prepared – if students know what they are letting themselves in for they’re more likely to flourish and stay the course.

This is easier said than done. Typically, course publicity, application, selection and enrolment generate an overwhelming amount of information. The trick is making sense of it all.

In the first of a new series of online ‘radio’ programmes – JISC on Air – we explore how digital technologies are helping universities to share reliable and consistent course information and support new students throughout the recruitment process.

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Episode 1: Successful Student Recruitment (Duration: 18:22)

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More information on this programme: http://jisconair.jiscinvolve.org

Photo by Tom Wills: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomwills/5036718688/in/set-72157625060586946/