JISC

The autumn issue of JISC Inform is published this week and features an interview with Sir Keith O’Nions, Director General for Science and Innovation at the DTI.  With a role that includes responsibility for knowledge transfer and government policy in promoting technology-based innovation and collaborative research between business and universities, Sir Keith has a pivotal role in ensuring that UK research and innovation remain among the best in the world.

Among the strands of work that Sir Keith discusses is the development of a national e-infrastructure, an area in which JISC is working closely with the Research Councils, the development of e-Science (‘everywhere I go there’s recognition of the contribution the UK has made in this area,’ says Sir Keith) and JISC’s role in partnerships with other organisations. ‘With about 1% of the world population,’ says Sir Keith, pointing to the importance of research to the UK economy, ‘the UK produces about 9% of the scientific publications and is responsible for about 12% of citations.’

The new issue of Inform also contains a special feature on the Information Environment, an important area of JISC’s work which aims to present a wide range of online content to users in increasingly rich and exciting ways. ‘There’s a huge amount of information that’s growing all the time,’ says Rachel Bruce, JISC programme director responsible for this area of work, in the article entitled Making the most of the web, ‘but finding ways through that information to reach the right resources isn’t always easy.’ The Information Environment, she continues, will answer this challenge through national or ‘shared services’ which will bring together and present information in ways that make sense to people and make the most of the available technology.

Another feature explores the evolving role of the JISC regional support centres and in particular their support of national education agendas such as the DfES’s e-strategy, while other articles look at JISC’s work to support open access of research and other materials through the encouragement of institutional repositories and other initiatives. Further articles look at the new Archival Sound Recordings resource developed through partnership between JISC and the British Library and the newly-relaunched Film and Sound Online multimedia e-resource.

Copies of the new Inform have been sent to colleges and universities this week, but if you would like further print copies, please contact publications@jisc.ac.uk

A web version is available at: Inform