Welcome

Welcome to the 32nd edition of JISC Inform

The autumn term brings pressures for everyone in further and higher education, as diaries fill up with teaching, research and external commitments.

Because there is so little room to step back from the bustle of everyday life in a college or university, JISC Inform takes some space to see where back-end improvements like managing your data better could actually help save time and resource in the longer term.

Universities are coming under increasing pressure to manage the data generated by their researchers but our recent research integrity conference showed that many people are unsure how to proceed. In this edition we highlight what university leaders can do to make a start with managing their data, including a quiz to find out your research data management diagnosis.

Open data is an approach that is changing the way that research, education and governments work by making it easier for people to access resources and creating opportunities for new connections between different pieces of information.

At JISC we’re working to release the full value from existing data sets so they can be re-used and re-combined in different ways to meet a range of requirements, the Knowledge Base+ article gives an example of this approach, where data from within a variety of existing services will contribute to this new infrastructure shared service.

With so much change surrounding education at the moment, we look to Professor Chris Cobb, chief operating officer at the University of London, for advice on managing change in institutions, specifically around shared services.

We welcome your views throughout the issue but especially in our debate on whether people are reluctant to share their data – upload your own video, audio and comments to join the discussion.

There’s inspiration too on teaching and learning from the JISC content team, who recommend highlights from the world of JISC content online for you to use, advice on how students might use JISC’s new geospatial apps through their mobile phones, and from Mimas’ Hairdressing Training Service, now taking Eastern Europe by storm.

We trust you’ll find something here to interest you – and as always, we look forward to your feedback to help us create an issue that works even better for you and the people you share these pages with.

Rebecca O'Brien (Editor)

Nicola Yeeles (Editor)