Sir Howard Newby looks to the future

In an exclusive interview in the new issue of Jisc Inform, Sir Howard Newby, Chief Executive of HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England), says that Information and Communications Technology (ICT), allied to more traditional forms of learning and teaching, can bring enormous benefits to the education community. “Blended learning” is the key now,” he says, “something that acknowledges the advantages that ICT can bring in terms of flexibility of delivery and access.”

In the interview Sir Howard looks forward to a future in which the education community engages more and more with the possibilities of technology, a future in which students will expect more of institutions in this area: “The greater flexibility of technology will encourage a “just-for-you” culture within institutions, developing not only bespoke courseware and learning materials, but whole courses of study, delivered into non-traditional surroundings – at work or at home.”

Sir Howard goes on to speak of Jisc’s work in the area of content development, and in promoting lifelong learning through programmes such as the Distributed e-Learning programme. He also talks of the impact that the Jisc-funded JANET network has had on the academic community: “When the Internet came, we as a sector“, he says, “were already used to using it, giving us a tremendous head start. Since then it’s been sustained at a world-class level and this is a real achievement. UKERNA and JANET are major national achievements that we should all be proud of.”

Other articles in the new issue of Jisc Inform cover the launch of the Digital Curation Centre, Jisc’s work to support the research community, and examples of new Jisc agreements in the area of online content, such as the new online Dictionary of National Biography. In a guest feature, Professor Justin Champion, of Royal Holloway College, talks of how another online resource – Early English Books Online – is transforming learning, teaching and research at his institution.