JISC

Norman Wiseman

Norman gave a background to JISC’s involvement in Third Stream work (Business and Community Engagement) and the HEFCE funded work over the next few months based on the result of a user needs study in 2006 and the Think Tank work with community representatives. JISC sees its opportunity as at the interface between the campus and the rest of the world and this interface is one of the main areas of problems that JISC might help to address. In particular the issues of Knowledge Exchange between the HEI and the wider community, Employer engagement, Work Based Learning and Community Engagement. There will be many issues especially around the use of publicly funded IPR materials, issues of protection and material flows between HEI’s and extra institutional contacts, and the wider question of administrative support for this area of HEI activity. JISC will concentrate on four key issues – the provision of advice, raising awareness, communications, and customer relationship management – that were flagged by participants in the Think Tank. JISC sees its opportunity as at the interface between the campus and the rest of the world

Simon Whittemore

Simon described where Third Stream came from as a term together with other terms such as Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Exchange and Business and Community Engagement. They all relate to the process of externalising the work of institutions and working to extract greater benefit from the work of institutions. Context of BCE work includes economic challenge, civic changes and tensions and the need in UK to maximise the use of the HE knowledge base and make further connections into the regional agenda. Scope of BCE work covers Private Sector, Public Sector, Cultural Landscape and Social & Civic Area all of which are overlapping issues. Engagement is core to all of this if there is to be a contribution to companies and economic competitiveness.  It is about externalising work, helping HEI’s become more business-like and helping to manage change within institutions.

This all connects to JISC’s fifth strategic aim and there is a suite of work in the short term looking at social software uses, IPR advice, the application of the Advisory Services, the use of Customer Relationship Management systems and possibly the extension of the RSC’s role particularly in connection with work based learning.

Simon made reference to www.kegoodpractice.org and the creation of the Institute of Knowledge Exchange as useful reference points to gain more information about work in this area and the move towards the creation of KT professionals in the community

Di Martin

Prefaced presentation by describing it as the bottom up rather than the policy top down as seen from the HEFCE position. The presentation tried to cover the cultural, corporate and customer challenges for institutions together with ways in which JISC might be able to lend support and assistance.

Cultural issues include IPR, collaboration vs commercial in confidence, individual vs corporate, from research to innovation etc . JISC help here could cover staff development, costing and pricing, good practice models, advisory services, promotion and dissemination.

Corporate issues cover working across a large organisation, coordination with partners, business to business working, business intelligence, corporate vs local systems etc and JISC might help via external connectivity, CRM development, e-administration, interoperability, evaluation toolkits.

Customer challenges cover PR and showcasing, B2B, B2C, local community, employer engagement with learning, international activities etc. JISC might assist through good practice models, online transactions, social networking, innovative us of technology.

Q&A

Many HEI’s already have Knowledge Transfer mechanisms established – how do we all learn from these sorts of experience?
One key issue is learning from good practice and learning from what others have already done, and perhaps the good practice programme might be developed further. There is a need to ensure that good practice is captured adequately – perhaps JISC can create some sort of facility where HEI’s can lodge their experiences.

Observation Much WBL Foundation degree success is drawn from FEI and demand led, whereas much unsuccessful foundation degrees are HEI supply led. Major challenge of engagement between FEI and HEI where much of this is very fragile

Observation Much opportunity to engage RSC activity to promote the BCE issues and agenda and a plea for the BCE area to work closely with RSC resources

Observation Manchester LLL group commenting that one key area of support is clear and understandable presentation of what is available in a language that is appropriate

How do you avoid reinventing the wheel in terms of existing knowledge networks and their work?
We will work closely with, and through, existing partner organisations to try and ensure that we don’t end up duplicating work and resources. We will use these contacts as a basis for building future JISC work. We also need to locate pockets of knowledge and re-purpose this appropriately