JISC

JISC Portfolio for Senior Managers: Employing technology to support your business goals

As institutions deal with increased student numbers and seek to offer the best possible provision they can to their customers, it is more important than ever that they are well equipped to understand the learners that are coming through their doors. Students are no longer a relatively homogeneous group. Increasingly they might be part-time learners, combining studying with work and childcare, they might be studying remotely, be work-based learners or they might be from overseas – and institutions need to be as flexible as they possibly can in how they meet the diverse requirements of today’s students.

There is also a new emphasis on student perspectives, evident in initiatives such as the National Student Survey, the Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Student Experience, student juries and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills Debate on the Future for Higher Education.

JISC has been researching student expectations since 2005. For today’s learners, technology is a key support mechanism as they juggle their studies and other commitments. It is ubiquitous throughout their lives and they expect the same when they come into an institution. They also expect guidance and support from institutions on how best to use technology for their learning.

Meanwhile, staff working in institutions have to adapt to these changing student demographics and their expectations. University staff are charged with more demands from business and from professional bodies to ensure that the qualifications, skills and knowledge that their students attain is gearing them for their work and lifelong learning lives. Staff are faced with the challenge of how to make the most out of the finite resources that they have in order to ensure that the student experience is the best that those students can have in their institution.

Students and staff working together can really exploit the benefits of technology and ensure that it is planned in and designed into the curriculum. JISC enables the development and effective use of digital technologies to support learning and teaching in universities and colleges, so that staff benefit from the opportunities technology offers, and students enjoy a more flexible learning experience.

How JISC can help

JISC is leading the way in investigating students’ changing expectations and developing tools and resources to transform the learning experience to meet students’ needs. Our work enables universities and colleges to apply digital technologies to challenges such as retention, progression, graduate employability, diversity and widening participation, thereby giving students the best possible opportunities wherever and however they study.

Through a range of activities, including workshops, accredited training, and guidance materials, JISC and its services advise on the use of new technologies and their relevance to a range of core business processes. Topics covered include legal issues, support for accessibility, using digital media, improving administration and providing inclusive learning experiences.

The Design Studio

Curriculum design touches every aspect of an institution’s core business – from aligning its portfolio of courses to its mission and vision, through market research and product development to quality assurance, recruitment, assessment, resource allocation and timetabling. The Design Studio is a dynamic web-based toolkit which draws together a range of resources around curriculum design and delivery and the role technology plays in supporting these processes and practices.

The Design Studio

Managing Curriculum Change

Managing Curriculum Change introduces two major JISC programmes of research that investigate how the use of technology can help make curriculum design processes more agile and responsive and the experience of learning more engaging, inclusive and rewarding.

Managing Curriculum Change

Responding to Learners

This resource pack synthesises the outcomes from the Learner Experiences of e-Learning theme of the JISC e-Learning Programme, which funded a total of ten projects from 2005 to 2009. It had the sustained involvement of over 200 learners and more than 3,000 survey respondents to explore learners’ perceptions of and participation in technology-enhanced learning in a digital age.

Responding to Learners

Effective Practice in a Digital Age

A visually rich publication that includes ten case studies, Effective Practice in a Digital Age outlines key aspects of designing learning in a technology-rich context and is structured to address the needs of experienced practitioners as well as those new to technology-based learning and teaching.

Effective Practice in a Digital Age

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