No such thing as a free MOOC
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... >>
“Knowledge is the currency of the new economy” where research is “intelligently open”
A flow of policy reports focusing on research and access to the outputs of research appeared over the past month. Today the European Commission published two communications that respond to the way the “internet has fundamentally changed the world of science and research”. One on Access and preservation to scientific information reflects the outcome of a lengthy evidence process on... >>
Behind the headlines of the new Jisc Techdis tools – a personal view
It isn’t often that when I am delivering a plenary session at a conference that the audience is moved to tears, but that is exactly what happened at ND2012 . Let me explain what happened.... It was the final plenary on 30 May in Old Billingsgate. I was on stage excitedly introducing the video of John Hayes MP, Minister of... >>
Developing digitial literacies for working in a digital world
We heard this week that too many young people lack the social skills needed to get their first job. The report by the Work Foundation (PDF) doesn’t explicitly mention digital literacy, but perhaps it should. With an estimated 90% of UK jobs requiring some level of IT competency, the notion of digital literacy - those capabilities that equip an individual... >>
Where there's MOOC, there's brass?
Why bother paying inflated fees to attend university? Why pay to spend three years living on a campus, attending seminars and tutorials, running up debts? What if you could get it all for free, online? 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... >>
Jisc and crowdfunding
What links an e-paper watch , a statue of RoboCop and an open alternative to Facebook ? The answer is that all of these ideas have been funded via the crowdfunding site Kickstarter . Crowdfunding is an exciting new approach where individuals can choose to dedicate some of their own money to an idea that piques their interest. Here at... >>
How to feed, nourish and sustain your digital resources
From the late Nineties, European and UK funding agencies across sectors, from education to cultural heritage, have invested significant resources in the creation of digital content in the not-for-profit sector. The grants have facilitated major digitisation and encouraged innovative work that paved the way for forms of scholarship and communities possible only in an online environment. In the words of... >>
Where the open things are
The issue of making Open Access books discoverable was discussed in nearly all of our focus groups that we held earlier this year as part of the OAPEN -UK project. It’s not just about putting the PDF onto a platform and hoping that readers will find it, it’s about getting metadata out into the web, search and library systems where... >>
Open Practice: University College Falmouth see the big picture
The temptation within an innovative organisation like Jisc is to concentrate on talking about what is new. But a chance conversation on twitter with Alex Di Savoia at University College Falmouth (UCF), holder of one of our early Jisc/Higher Education Academy Open Educational Resources phase one projects, brought home to me just how much added value can be traced back... >>
Blackboard's new open source strategy: how virtual learning environments became commodities
Unthinkable a couple of years ago, and it still feels a bit April 1st: Blackboard has taken over two other virtual learning environment organisations : the Moodlerooms and NetSpot Moodle support companies in the US and Australia. Arguably as important is that they have also taken on Sakai and IMS luminary Charles Severance to head up Sakai development within Blackboard’s... >>