JISC

In January, the Guardian published the University Challenge supplement, which explores the changing face of higher education in a series of technology-focused articles.

Featured articles in the University Challenge supplement

The Dawn of the cyberstudent article investigates how students are driving the changes in higher education, assisted by technological developments such as the collaborative web 2.0. In the article, Dr Malcolm Read, executive secretary of JISC, describes students' increased willingness to share, saying: “What students do now if faced with a problem is essentially talk to a couple of strangers on the internet saying, ‘This is my problem, can you help?' And then they will talk to another couple of strangers about what they have found out and what they are doing. This is a fundamentally different approach.” 

In Choose your weapon, today’s pioneering ICT tools are introduced, with a discussion of how technology itself can affect learning. Professor Sir David Melville, chair of the JISC-funded Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience (CLEX), describes how collaborative tools such as wikis and Facebook are changing the learning experience, creating new possibilities for collaboration – and plagiarism. "You can't hold it back," he says. "Academics have to modify assessment.”

With a focus on open content, the University of Europe piece describes how making more content available to more students could change higher education in Europe forever. It highlights a £5.7m JISC and Higher Education Academy (HEA) collaboration that is about to investigate the impact of open content, with interest in its pilot projects expressed by the European Commission. Malcolm Read believes that increased open content will boost the profile of university teaching, widen participation and raise standards, as ‘the public will migrate to the best material’.

Read the entire supplement online 
Read more about the JISC and HEA collaboration