JISC

Download the Value for Money reports for JISC Advance (2009) and JISC Collections (2009)

It is central to JISC's mission to deliver value for money through economies of scale, to provide research and development into how technology can better support education and research, and to provide a range of services and resources that meets the needs of colleges and universities.

JISC is directly saving UK education millions of pounds every year and it is possible to quantify elements of its activities that clearly demonstrate these savings. In addition, JISC adds further value to the sector, which is harder to quantify in financial terms but which does have an indirect impact on institutions’ abilities to be more cost effective.

In 2009 JISC Collections and JISC Advance provided updates to the original JISC Value for Money report published in 2006, to show the value of key areas of JISC’s activities to the education and research community using a variety of measures involving benchmarking, cost comparisons, calculation of time and effort, and other mechanisms.

These reports show for example:

• For every £1 of the JISC Advance budget, the education and research community receives £12 of demonstrable value
• For every £1 JISC spent by JISC Collections on securing national agreements for e-resources, the saving to the community was more than £34

Subsequently JANET (UK) has commissioned its own value for money study in 2009 Their report states that JANET provides value for money, particularly in relation to the core network infrastructure, and other less tangible benefits such as trust, fairness and JANET know-how. Assuming these benefits have a value, membership of JANET appears overall to be more valuable than procuring from a commercial provider.

Although many countries have centrally provided research and education networks, and some have provided supplementary services, no other country has a comparable single body providing an integrated range of network services, content services, advice, support and development programmes. Therefore it is impossible to benchmark the whole of JISC’s activities against those of similar organisations. It is possible, in some areas, however, such as network provision, to compare an activity with other similar national and international activities, and in others to use a range of mechanisms to quantify value for money.

See further evidence of JISC's value and impact in Transformation through Technology (2010)

Content provision

JISC Collections saved the UK academic community £43m between August 2007 and 2008 on an expenditure of £1.25m. This means that for every £1 funding to the Collections team, the community received services with a commercial value of over £34 (an increase from £26 calculated in 2006). It achieved this through its negotiation and licensing of datasets (e.g. Digimap, Britannica Online), heritage collections (licensed in perpetuity and made freely available to the academic community, e.g. 20th Century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers) and electronic journals (NESLi2 negotiations).

JISC Collections has redefined the way model licences are used in the UK to negotiate with publishers on behalf of the education community, to ensure the best terms and conditions for accessing and using online resources. The JISC model licence contains more favourable provisions than any standard commercial licence and ensures consistency to allow teachers, learners and researchers to use each online resource to its fullest potential in support of their activities.

As described in the report, the methodology is based on efficiencies that can be directly and robustly measured. It does not incorporate the value of the harder to measure efficiencies such as:

• Time saved and made available for other activities e.g. research/teaching
• Increase in quality of research/teaching preparation from having access to these collections which otherwise may not be available to staff and students
• Increased efficiency for courses and students using e-resources. Several people (e.g. class groups) can access a single document simultaneously
• Increase in quality by using electronic documents – several documents may be accessed for no extra cost – costs increase with each paper document
• Increased efficiency as e-resources can always be found and accessed – there is no need for interlibrary loans, return of documents from other borrowers and no loss of documents
• Preventing duplication of effort for institutions negotiating separately for these licences
• The time and money saved by developing model licences which minimise the risk (and potential cost) of libraries falling into dispute over individual licences

JISC Advance

The JISC Advance services are one of the great success stories of shared services within the sector and are held in high regard by the communities they serve. The report concludes that for total public funding of just under £3.4 million in 2008/09 the services delivered savings to the value of £41.5 million. This represents a saving of £12.25 for every £1 invested. The report comes with the caveat that it has not attempted to measure many other areas where the services add value in the sector, and hence is likely an underestimate of its true value, for example:

The report highlights that the true value of the JISC Advance services lies less in the directly attributable efficiency savings (considerable though these are) and more in the capacity they build to keep UK further and higher education at the forefront of learning and teaching and playing a significant role in the wider economy and society. Technology plays a vital role in the widening participation agenda and is becoming increasingly important in the whole area of engagement with business and the wider community.

The JISC Advance services are involved in, and advise on, developments at a strategic level across the UK and beyond. The work of JISC TechDis with the Publishers Association is leading to major changes across the publishing industry and the work of the combined services with the JISC Curriculum Design programme is supporting major process change across HE An example of how capacity building at the right time assists the sector is the work undertaken jointly by JISC infoNet and JISC Legal to prepare for the introduction of Freedom of Information (FOI) Legislation. AS FOI becomes embedded in the culture the amount of requests for information is increasing steadily. The latest UUK/Guild HE survey shows requests for 2008/09 are up by 3.6% on the previous year. This amounts to a total of 11,275 requests received by HE alone. The sector has an excellent track record of compliance due to the capacity building undertaken by the JISC Advance services. Assuming only 5% efficiency is due to the support and capacity building by the services this represents a saving to the sector of £100k

The JISC Advance services also offer a valuable dissemination route for innovation and good practice that is going on within the sector. Without this communication channel much good work would not be exploited to its full potential. There are over 20,000 individuals actively subscribed to JISC Advance services or engaged in communities facilitated by those services.

Network infrastructure

The Value for money study if the JANET Network (PDF) conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) on behalf of JANET (UK) in 2009 showed that JANET is perceived by the majority of customers to deliver value for money. This was based on perceived benefits which included reliability, a sense of trust, the value of being in an education-only ‘club’, the fairness of the JANET system, the flexibility of the JANET business model and the fact that the existence of JANET meant that economies of scale could be realised in terms of providing this service. Assuming these benefits have a value, membership of JANET appears overall to be more valuable than procuring from a commercial provider.

PWC’s overall conclusion therefore was that JANET does provide value for money, particularly in relation to the core network infrastructure. This appears to be borne out by comparison to data available in relation to the commercial marketplace although this comparison is at best difficult due to the fundamental differences in the pricing strategies employed by JANET against commercial leased line suppliers. Further such a comparison ignores the less tangible benefits of the JANET club, such as trust, fairness and JANET know-how. Assuming these benefits have a value, membership of JANET appears overall to be more valuable than procuring from a commercial provider.

Download the value for money reports for JISC Collections (2009) and JISC Advance (2009) below