JISC

Catherine Grout, JISC 

Catherine examined national trends in Content. She asked 'will a few multi-national corporations delivering information and learning become the force of the future – by passing the need for publicly funded institutions?'  And 'Is there really a role for formal published content in the future of education and research?'  These issues are examples of how content is changing very fast and the important role that the Strategic e-Content Alliance (SEA) has to play.

SEA's vision is to realise the potential of e-content for all users through the greater integration of services and technologies and the removal of political and administrative barriers

Stuart Dempster, JISC

Stuart explained that SEA was born out of the Common Information Environment (CIE) work and the Loughborough Study, which made key recommendations to JISC, in particular, highlighting the need for a National Digitisation and Content strategy.  The benefits to Users and Funders were highlighted in the presentaion. Stuart Dempster explained that JISC, the British Library, the BBC, the National Health Service, Becta, MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council) and the national e-Science programme are taking forward the Strategic e-Content Alliance initiative which builds on the previous the CIE work. He explained that the vision of the activity is to 'work across the public sector to fully realise the potential of e-content for all users through the greater integration of services and technologies and the removal of political and administrative barriers'. This initiative will deliver an e-content framework of principles and good practices which will provide a blue print for effective collaboration across the public sector in the e-content arena.

David Dawson, Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)

David talked of the varied and rich collections that are locked away in museums and libraries scattered across the country.  He emphasised the potential benefits to the citizen researcher, the non-traditional academic who can’t yet access resources. He gave an example of key Nottingham resources, which are held in a museum in Oxford; these can be made available electronically enabling access to all citizens not just traditional HE researchers.  He also highlighted that today’s public library user may well be tomorrows Student. 

Becta told a story of students of all ages and how the SEA is going to make a difference to their access to resources throughout their education literally from cradle to grave. He highlighted removing the institutional barriers as key to achieving this. We must stop thinking of a learner just within one sector but about his or her journey through education and the notion of lifelong learning.  The director of the e-Science institute emphasised the key role that he believes the SEA will play in developing the UKs e infrastructure. None of this infrastructure is interesting or useful without content. We must look at everything from the immediately generated datasets and the collected and documented resources to locally generated datasets by enthusiasts. He also feels that there is not enough transparency in science to those as not seen from within sciences. He believes that all science must be made available to the general Public. He mentioned many research activities that are driven by amateurs (e.g. bird songs, genealogy and so on).  To develop new knowledge, we must allow access to all science. 

Questions from the floor

Is JISC moving its remit to provide content beyond the FE and HE sectors to the UK Citizen?
Stuart Dempster answered that it was more about enabling access to content through other partners not that JISC is procuring content on their behalf.  One delegate said that she was inspired by resources freely available on the peoples network – however as a librarian she has to also procure often the same resources for use in her institution; she was concerned to know if this would change.  The SEA intends to break down these multi licence models. 

How can we digitise for the citizen when the needs may be diverse?
Stuart Dempster said that multiple presentation layers will be used to achieve this.One of the challenges is to establish what is required from the user though.  The public sector can be a dangerous place as well and just allowing access to all could well allow abuse by people wanting to commercially exploit content.  David Dawson highlighted the need for licences however as resources may well be globally accessible therefore policing a licence globally would be impossible.