JISC

The autumn issue features an interview with Sir Keith O’Nions, Director General for Science and Innovation at the DTI. There is also 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.

Showing the way: Providing leadership in the use of technology

Contents

Breaking the sound barrier A groundbreaking new resource from JISC and the British Library
In brief Latest news from JISC
Leading the world An interview with Sir Keith O'Nions
Progression and participation JISC programmes are supporting learner progression
Making the most of the web A special feature on the Information Environment
A catalyst for change How RSCs are supporting implementation of the e-strategy
Supporting success A college principal gives her view
Capital gains An at-a-glance view of JISC's capital programme
Moving towards open access How JISC's work is helping to change scholarly communications
Reviewed and relaunched A multimedia resource continues to improve

Breaking the sound barrier

Even in digital form, sound recordings are often overlooked as an educational resource. However, a major new JISC-funded resource - Archival Sound Recordings from the British Library - is breaking new ground in the delivery of sound resources for education and research. Ben Sanderson of the Bristish Library meets the project's manager

A major new sound archive, which includes unique materials from the start of recording history up to the present day, is now freely available to further and higher education and to users of the British Library's reading rooms.

Launched last month, the Archival Sound Recordings has been selected from one of the world's largest sound archives - the British Library's - and contains some 12,000 items, totalling 3,900 hours of listening.

Peter Findlay is manager of the project at the British Library. He says that selecting which recordings to digitise was a crucial aspect of the project.

'We wanted to reflect the holdings of the archive as a whole,' he says, 'but we also wanted to deliver what the academic community wanted. So we involved the community through an extensive survey and through our user group made up of subject specialists.'

The results of this consultation are 11 specialist collections, including major holdings of classical music, jazz, popular music, unique musical and cultural recordings from Africa, interviews with some of the leading lights of post-war British art, architecture and design, the history of recording technology, and much more.

Peter Findlay is excited about the creative possibilities these collections open up in a variety of educational contexts, not all of them immediately obvious.

'One of the collections is "Soundscapes",' he says, 'a collection of sounds reflecting the cultural and economic life of communities, including natural and environmental sounds. Feedback already suggests that this is going to chime with the growing interest in the environment, especially by the young,' he says. 'The resources are about access, yes, but also about the rich and creative use of those resources.'

Like other projects in JISC's digitisation programme, Archival Sound Recordings has broken new ground both in terms of its technical innovations but also in its approach to rights issues, particularly complex as far as sound resources are concerned.

'Previously the music industry had always felt uncomfortable with the notion of downloads,' says Peter Findlay, 'even for educational purposes, but the project has achieved a lot by opening up a dialogue with them.'

But the project will become best known for widening access to unique resources, says its manager, and for its impact on a wide range of disciplines, from music to art, from ethnology to history, and beyond. 'Sound is as important as the visual,' he says. 'It can add a whole new dimension to our understanding of the world.'

Ben Sanderson
British Library

For further information, please go to: www.bl.uk/sounds

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inbrief

JISC's draft strategy sent out for consultation

Responses were received from HE and FE institutions, partners and other relevant organisations and associations to JISC's draft strategy 2007-2009 which was issued in July for formal consultation.

The strategy sets out JISC's broad vision for ICT in education and research and the activities JISC will deliver in partnership to help meet that vision. It also presents a number of key deliverables against which JISC's progress can be assessed. The responses are being analysed and fed into the final version of the strategy due for publication later this year.

Open source makes 'substantial advance' in UK education, says report

More than three quarters of all UK colleges and universities consider open source options when engaging in IT procurement exercises, says a report published in August.

The report, undertaken by the JISC-funded OSS Watch service, also found that use of Moodle, the open source course management system or virtual learning environment (VLE), has grown to 56% in less than three years. Randy Metcalfe, Manager of OSS Watch, said:

'This survey shows that although open source use is on the rise, institutional engagement with the open source development community remains patchy. OSS Watch will redouble its efforts over the next two years in order to help colleges and universities work through the challenges of engagement, from contribution of code to open source business models.'

Copy of the report and executive summary

Major funding call issued in September

The second call under JISC's capital programme was issued at the end of September. Institutions are being invited to bid for funding in the following areas: e-infrastructure; e-learning; repositories and preservation; and users and innovation.

A town meeting is being held in Birmingham on 11 October and the deadline for proposals is 12.00 noon on Thursday 23 November. An at-a-glance guide is available on pages 18 and 19 giving full details of the programme. For further information, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk/capital

Funding agreement for English FE

JISC has reached agreement with the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) on the LSC's contribution to the JISC budget. Communications have been sent to all English FE colleges outlining precisely which services will be available to English FE as a result of the new funding framework.

The following will be available to the English FE sector for the next three years:

• JANET connections
• support from the Regional Support Centres (RSCs)
• membership of the UK Access Management Federation
• all JISC's advisory services
• delivery services at national data centres (EDINA and MIMAS)
• access to all current content under existing licensing agreements
• membership of the new JISC Collections content company

The funding agreement also means that the LSC will continue as a member of the JISC Steering Group and have observer status on the JISC Board, the JISC Network committee and the JISC Organisational Support committee and will also nominate two members onto the JISC Board. Members of the FE community will in addition be eligible to nominate themselves to be considered as members of the JISC Network committee, the JISC Organisational Support committee, the JISC Content Services committee and the JISC Learning and Teaching committee.

Partners issue £2m e-Science call in arts and humanities

JISC, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) announced a major new call for bids for research grants in the area of e-Science for the arts and humanities in August. Grants will be awarded up to a total value of £2m, plus up to six four-year postgraduate studentships.

This is the main part of a joint initiative of the three funders, which extends the national e-Science programme to arts and humanities research. A scoping survey, nine workshops and demonstrators, and an Arts and Humanities e-Science Support Centre have already been funded.

'This is an important new initiative by the three key players in the field,' says David Robey, Director of the AHRC's ICT programme. 'e-Science has already had a transforming impact on UK science, technology, and medicine. It is increasingly important for the social sciences, and its impact on the arts and humanities is potentially just as great.'

JISC Collections formed as a mutual trading company

JISC Collections has been established as a legal entity. This move has been made in order to allow the new organisation to operate within a commercial framework and to enable greater efficiency and effectiveness when negotiating with content providers on behalf of UK FE and HE.

Further and higher education institutions have now registered as members of the company. Nominations forms for election of representatives to the company's Board of Management are being sent out and a ballot will be held at the end of October.

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Leading the world

An interview with Sir Keith O'Nions, Director-General for Science and Innovation at the DTI

Sir Keith O'Nions, Director-General for Science and Innovation at the Department of Trade and Industry, has responsibility for the £3.4 billion science and innovation budget. Here he talks to inform about why innovation has moved up the government's agenda, JISC's role in helping to develop a national e-infrastructure and how such an infrastructure is helping the UK to achieve its science and innovation goals

The UK has always done well at blue skies research, but less well at translating research results into products. But bridging the innovation gap went up the political agenda earlier this year when the then Office of Science and Technology at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) lost the word 'technology' in its title and took on 'innovation' instead.

'Science and innovation are a very high priority,' says Sir Keith. 'The reorganisation has brought the two together and is an endorsement of their importance in government policy.'

Before the re-naming, Sir Keith's post was Director-General for the Research Councils with responsibility for distributing the Science Budget between the eight Research Councils (RCs). Now, his role has broadened to include not only knowledge transfer, but also government policy in promoting technology-based innovation and collaborative research between businesses and between businesses and universities.

'It's hugely interesting. There really is connectivity between deep blue skies research and its translation into products, services and innovation,' he says.

Early successes

In 2004, the government published the ten-year Investment Framework for Science and Innovation, which mapped a route to establishing the UK as a global leader in innovation and knowledge-driven industries. It's still early days, but Sir Keith points to a few preliminary successes.

The damage caused by under investment in university infrastructure during the 1980s and 90s has been under repair for some years, he says, and is continuing. The introduction of full economic costs, whereby research funders, such as JISC or the RCs, pay for the full cost of the research they fund in universities, is a direct result of the Investment Framework and is also beginning to help university finances.

Other early successes include the Higher Education Innovation Fund, which is stimulating the creation of spin out companies from universities, and improvements in the pay and conditions of those embarking on research careers.

The development of an e-infrastructure is an important milestone, highlighted in the Investment Framework. Many aspects are already in place having been developed under the UK e-Science Progamme. JISC's role is now to work with the RCs to take this fledgling e-infrastructure to maturity. 'JISC is a very very important part of the equation,' says Sir Keith.

e-Science

The UK e-Science Programme started as a coordinated initiative involving all the RCs and the DTI in 2001 (see inset box, right). By giving researchers access from their own desktops to resources held on widely-dispersed computers, e-science enables faster, better or different research and new ways of collaborative working.

Over its first five years, the programme has funded the development of generic, proof-of-concept e-science technologies and demonstrated their use in many applications ranging across the sciences and into the arts and humanities. 'The e-science community is now together, on the way and self-sustaining,' comments Sir Keith.

A major impetus behind the development of e-science has been the need to manage and extract value from the vast amount of data created by modern scientific methods, ranging from genome sequencing machines to sub-atomic particle smashers.

For Sir Keith the scientific data deluge is an important area of personal interest. 'If you look forward 5, 10 or 15 years, it's clear that so much of our research is going to depend on massive datasets. We'll need to be able to handle, archive and interrogate them in a secure way and in a virtual environment so it doesn't matter where you are. This is already key to so much science and it's going to be more and more important,' he says. 'We've made a cracking good start. Everywhere I go there's recognition of the contribution the UK has made in this area. The e-Science Programme has shown real leadership.'

e-Science: inshort

e-Science refers to the science that can be done when researchers have access to resources held on widely-dispersed computers as though they were on their own desktops. The resources can include very large digital data collections, very large-scale computing resources, scientific instruments and high performance visualisation.

The UK e-Science programme is a coordinated initiative involving all the Research Councils and the Department of Trade and Industry. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council manages the e-Science Core programme, which is developing generic technologies, on behalf of all the Research Councils and the research communities they support.

JISC's role

JISC is now taking up the banner and joining with the e-science programme and the RCs to develop the e-infrastructure to the point where it's so easy to use that researchers across all disciplines and others in academia and industry, even those with little computer experience, will appreciate its benefits and use it routinely.

This means developing proof-of-concept technologies to the point where they are transparent to users. 'This isn't going to be the sole responsibility of any single organisation, but JISC, together with the RCs, has a very big part to play. By working closely with the RCs, JISC will also have a strong influencing role on them,' says Sir Keith.

The development of the e-infrastructure is being guided by a roadmap that has been drawn up by six working groups consisting of representatives from JISC as well as the RCs and OSI, which acted as coordinator (see inset box, left). 'The OSI's role has been as a facilitator. There's an immense amount of talent and motivation out there and it's been a matter of bringing it together so it can fly.'

Science and Innovation: inshort

The DTI/Treasury/DfES report Science & Innovation Investment Framework: 2004-2014, published in 2004, set out a ten-year vision for UK science and innovation, the contribution they make to the UK economy, and the required infrastructure to make this vision a reality (see accompanying interview). In support of the ten-year framework, the Office of Science and Innovation established six working groups to investigate future requirements in key areas of e-infrastructure. JISC is represented on all of these groups and chairs two of them. The working groups have reported and these reports will help JISC prioritise e-infrastructure activities using 2004 Spending Review funds while also informing priorities for future rounds.For further information, please go to:http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/

The health of UK research

Sir Keith made the transition from academia to government in 1999. He left Oxford where he was head of the Department of Earth Sciences to take up the post of chief scientific adviser at the Ministry of Defence.

He now describes himself as an 'innocent bystander' in the world of geophysics and geochemistry. He became DGRC in 2004. 'The values in the Civil Service are not unfamiliar to an academic. There's a strong sense of sharing information. It's an interesting transition but not necessarily a hard one for an academic,' he says.

He joined government at a time of increasing budgets for research: the Science Budget will have doubled in the ten years since 1997. Most of that budget is still spent by the Research Councils. The money is well spent to judge from international comparisons of research output which reveal that the UK punches well above its weight.

Many research areas such as biomedicine and social and environmental science rank second only to the USA. But there is room for improvement in others, particularly the physical sciences and in translating the outcome of biomedical research into clinical research and bedside care. 'We're not yet getting all the benefits of having truly world class biomedical research for health. There's room for improvement in translating this research,' he says.

Sir Keith ends on a positive note, though, citing statistics that show just how well the UK is doing. 'With about 1% of the world population, the UK pays for roughly 5% of the scientific research done worldwide, produces about 9% of the scientific publications and is responsible for about 12% of citations. More than 13% of the most cited papers (the top 1%) come from the UK and the number's growing. That is quite remarkable. What's more, we do it in a very economic way. By any measure we are the most efficient of the G7 countries in terms of research.'

Judy Redfearn
JISC/EPSRC

For further information please go to: www.dti.gov.uk/science

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Progression and participation

Two JISC programmes have been demonstrating how ICT can support progression and widen participation. Sara Hassen reports.

Technology is helping students to progress on to courses they might not otherwise have been able to. This is one of the findings of a JISC-funded project which, along with several others, is exploring how 'e-portfolios' - online spaces for reflecting, planning and showcasing work - can help learners make career choices and progress into higher education.

Technology is helping students to progress on to courses they might not otherwise have been able to. This is one of the findings of a JISC-funded project which, along with several others, is exploring how 'e-portfolios' - online spaces for reflecting, planning and showcasing work - can help learners make career choices and progress into higher education.

Professor Peter Hartley is director of Enhancing Learner Progression (ELP), based at the University of Bradford, one of 21 projects in JISC's Distributed e-Learning programme which has been setting up 'regional pilots' to support progression and wider participation.

'We've been working in collaboration with a number of schools and colleges in the area,' he says, 'looking at ways in which e-portfolios can help learners at various stages of transition. For example, we are using them on our Compact scheme. Learners complete mini-modules and earn credits which they can use on their UCAS applications.'

As they build up their electronic portfolios, so students can use them in a variety of ways, including applying for courses. 'We had one student', continues Peter Hartley, 'who used their e-portfolio to apply to the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds. No one had ever successfully applied for that course from that school before. It was a real-life example of how an e-portfolio can enhance the learning experience and support achievement.'

But what does the technology add to the mix? Could a straightforward print portfolio of achievement work as well? 'The e-portfolios appear to enable learners to structure their thoughts,' replies Peter Hartley, 'and to build their achievements around that structure. It enables them to bring together everything in one place. It's part of the learning. This means that the design of the e-portfolio becomes very important.'

Insights like this have emerged from projects in two JISC programmes - Distributed e-Learning and MLEs for Lifelong Learning. Sarah Davies is one of the JISC programme managers overseeing this work. She says that projects have been piloting tools to support learner progression as well as exploring the many cultural issues involved in developing progression routes between schools, colleges, universities and the world of work.

'Some projects have developed online environments to support them making choices about the next stages of their learning or perhaps work,' she says. 'Others have looked at issues of study skills and access to tailored learning materials. Regional pilots are also working with the Lifelong Learning Networks set up by HEFCE to look at vocational progression routes in the regions.'

A recent report has highlighted the achievements of these projects, achievements which are feeding into ongoing work in this area through JISC's capital programme. This, says Sarah Davies, will build on the impressive work to date and explore in greater depth issues around 'real-world join-up for learners.'

Having seen the benefits of this work first hand, Peter Hartley is enthusiastic about its potential.

'If the technology is used properly,' he says, 'and if staff development is factored in, with case studies and other materials, so that tutors are able to guide learners, then e-portfolios can be a great success story. We've seen how they can work.'

Sara Hassen
JISC

For further information, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk/elearning

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Making the most of the web

Tailoring a vast array of digital information for personal use by each of the 6 million students and staff in FE and HE is the vision for an important area of JISC's work called the 'Information Environment'. In this special feature, Philip Pothen reports on progress so far, while overleaf, an explanatory diagram gives an overview of what the Information Environment is and what benefits it will bring to colleges and universities.

While use of a wide range of digital resources has transformed the ways in which we teach, learn and undertake research, the opportunities for exploiting their rich potential are still largely untapped. How do we know we are using all the resources we have access to, for example? How can we cross-search all those resources or just the ones appropriate to the level or type of resource we require? How can we contribute resources so that others can find and access them?

For some years JISC has been investing in the development of an Information Environment, which will answer these and many other questions. Central to this investment is the growing need of students, teachers, lecturers, researchers, library staff and others not only to access the growing range of online information but for increasingly rich and sophisticated ways of both accessing and using that information.

Rachel Bruce, JISC's programme director responsible for this area of work, says that finding the information we require, or supporting others to do so, is crucial to ensuring we make the most of digital resources that now form part of everyone's learning and research activities.

'There's a huge amount of information that's growing all the time,' she says, 'but finding ways through that information to reach the right resources isn't always easy. The Information Environment is an infrastructure that will allow educational institutions to manage, bring together and use all that information in ways that make sense to people and in ways that make the most of the technology.'

Much of this infrastructure is made up of so-called 'shared' or 'machine-to-machine' services, Rachel continues, a series of facilities, invisible to the user, that link, sort, filter or cross-search information sources. 'Although invisible to users,' she says, 'these services are crucial to the Information Environment. They could be portal services, which cross-search a variety of resources, or they could be profiling and personalisation services, for example, which ensure a user accesses only resources which their college or university subscribes to, or resources which a student has chosen as their preferred resources.

'They could be services such as the Open URL Router, which directs institutions to the appropriate copy of a bibliographic resource according to local preferences. These are services which it doesn't make sense for institutions to provide for themselves, but on a national basis they can combine to provide a vital and powerful infrastructure .'

Amanda Hill of MIMAS at the University of Manchester is working on another 'shared service', the Information Environment Service Registry (IESR).

'The IESR provides information on what content is available,' she explains. 'This is then used by portals to inform users what resources are available and what they could be accessing. It provides a standard way of describing resources. This means that we can avoid duplication and help ensure that the investment in digital resources is maximised. If the online Information Environment is like a muddy pond, the IESR is the glass-bottomed boat that enables users to see what's available and what they could be using.'

But it's not only national resources that the Information Environment is making available. JISC is investing significantly in supporting institutions to develop and establish institutional repositories to house a wide range of content and to make that content freely and openly available to all who want to use it. For such a vision to be realised, however, shared, or national, services will be needed to enable cross-searching of repositories, for example, or to advise on issues of intellectual property rights, metadata, versioning or administrative processes.

Repositories such as Jorum - launched in January, at MIMAS and EDINA - offer another model for making resources available and encouraging a culture of sharing, in this instance, of online learning and teaching materials.

'A growing number of people are using Jorum as a place of discovery for learning content others have created,' says Jackie Carter, Jorum project manager at MIMAS; 'others are depositing content because they want others to use their resources. It's an important part of the Information Environment in that it's a national service providing a means of encouraging sharing between institutions.'

With colleges and universities also investing in the provision of their own resources, the integration of national and institutional resources is a key objective of the Information Environment. JISC's Rachel Bruce says that a national Information Environment couldn't be built without the active involvement of institutions. She points to those 'resource discovery tools' the Information Environment has already delivered and which are already well used, such as copac (library catalogues), the Archives Hub (descriptions of archives) and SUNCAT (journals, or serials, holdings), which provide important national finding aids for institutionally held resources. Universities are contributing their own records to these catalogues, helping to build rich national resources, which in turn complement local catalogues and holdings.

But when will existing services such as these combine with development projects to provide an integrated and seamless Information Environment? Rachel Bruce is optimistic, emphasising the long-term benefits of this work.

'In the next 18 months we'll be funding a "test-bed" which will help to demonstrate how the information Environment will work in an institutional context,' she says. 'This will give us vital feedback and allow us to demonstrate how all of this work links up. The Information Environment is an evolution and so we're looking at joining up with developments in e-science, for example.

'The Information Environment is about taking information to users wherever they are and making it an accessible and easy part of their research, learning or teaching. It's a big and important task, but it's an investment that we think will reap rich rewards.'

For further information, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk/ie

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A catalyst for change

JISC Regional Support Centres are providing a vital link between national education agendas and the work of further education colleges and other learning providers, writes Philip Pothen.

While national strategies can set the agenda and the broad direction for the work of education providers, it is the implementation of these strategies and ensuring their impact on learners that constitute perhaps the most challenging work of all. With the DfES's e-strategy presenting a vision for the use of ICT across all educational sectors and children's services in England, the JISC Regional Support Centres are in the forefront of national efforts to make this vision a reality.

Marion Miller is manager of RSC Yorkshire and Humber. She says that the important role the RSCs have been given in implementing the 'Harnessing Technology' strategy published last year (see inform 13), gives the RSCs - and the post-16 learning providers and local authorities they work with - a significant say in how the strategy is delivered.

'The RSCs are represented on the National Delivery Group,' she says, 'which is the key body set up to implement the e-strategy. This means that the regional agenda is central to how the strategy is delivered on the ground. It also means that through our work in the regions organisations are in an important sense involved too. That's a measure of how the strategy is concerned to be inclusive and to make a big difference where it matters - for providers in FE and HE.'

As an example of how local and regional initiatives are feeding into the wider work of implementation, Marion cites the summer conference her RSC organised, which brought together schools, colleges, higher education institutions, specialist colleges, Adult & Community Learning (ACL) practitioners as well as commercial organisations in the region.

'It was held under the "Harnessing Technology" theme,' she says, 'and it focused on change and how to engage digital learners. We wanted to hear about and offer fresh and sometimes radical ideas on how to do that.'

Such ideas, Marion continues, are now feeding into plans for a major national event to be held in Birmingham in November at which implementation of the e-strategy will be reviewed and future plans established.

'The RSCs are on the steering group for the event', says Marion Miller. 'We can bring our cross-sectoral knowledge and experience to bear but also feed into its plans some of the ideas we've been sharing in our regions.'

Louise Jakobsen was a delegate at RSC Yorkshire and Humber's summer conference. Having just started in her role as e-Learning Curriculum Manager at Park Lane College in Leeds, she says the conference gave her a great chance not only to network and to find her feet, but also to hear about wider developments both regionally and nationally.

'The enthusiasm and the passion of the speakers were infectious,' she recalls. 'I went back to my college reinvigorated and full of ideas. Podcasting was one example we heard about and which I could feed back to others at my college, and another was the use of Freeview TV recordings to improve school-home links and raise the basic skills level of the local population through access to a variety of learning opportunities. I think that with only a small amount of development, we could use a similar format to support our own staff and students.'

But as important for Louise was the way in which the RSC event placed the work of her college in the wider regional and national contexts.

'What the RSC does so well,' she says, 'is to bring together the key developments from the bigger national picture and give that to colleges in a way that makes sense to us. They're adapting that knowledge for the needs of different colleges so, for example, we're not having to spend money on things that may not work for us. They're bridging that gap, making us feel part of a bigger picture, keeping us informed and in touch.'

Ann Thunhurst, Manager of RSC South East, insists that this communication channel is two way, that the RSCs are a 'conduit' for colleges and other learning providers to influence national agendas. Also closely involved with planning for November's event, she suggests that implementation is about much more than holding national events, however important they may be.

'It's all very well having a conference,' she says, 'but we need to ensure the momentum is maintained, that the impetus is followed up. The upcoming event will provide that initial impetus but the RSCs have an important role to play in ensuring this work has continued impact on learning providers in our regions.

'We do this by linking organisations in our regions, through groups - of principals, curriculum staff, learning resource, technical and other staff. Through these groups we're contextualising some of the outcomes of national agendas.'

In other areas too the RSCs are helping organisations to meet the challenge of national agendas and to reap the benefits of them, including those of the Quality Improvement Agency (QIA) and the Learning and Skills Network, as well as significant elements of the recently published post-16 White Paper. And with skills, training and staff development at the forefront of national initiatives, additional funding has enabled RSC South East to support the roll-out of the ITQ (Information Technology Qualification) and the 'e-skills passport' to all regional and ACL providers.

Ann Thunhurst's RSC is leading in this initiative. She says it's a good example of the ways in which the RSCs are evolving and their role as influencers is growing.

'As well as being a resource for learning providers,' she says, 'we can also be a bridge between these organisations to channel through national agendas. We can be a catalyst for change.'

For further information, please go to: http://www.rsc-yh.ac.uk/ and www.rsc-southeast.ac.uk

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Supporting success

Wakefield College is one of the most successful colleges in its region. Top of the league in West Yorkshire for A Level results and above national averages in vocational qualifications, its principal Heather MacDonald believes that the college's commitment to mainstreaming ICT is one factor in its continuing success.

'ICT is very important to Wakefield College,' she says. 'It's central to our learning strategy and in particular to our commitment to personalised learning. We have young learners coming to us at 14, 15 and 16, and they're all now digital learners.'

This has important implications for the college, Heather MacDonald suggests, and not least for ensuring that staff skills are able to meet the challenge of engaging learners already adept at using ICT.

'Ensuring our staff have the necessary skills in teaching and learning is very important to us,' she says, 'so we strongly promote staff development in ICT. We have advanced practitioners and highly trained ILT managers. We ensure too that the resources are in place to support their work. And we give ICT a high profile in our work.'

RSC Yorkshire and Humber has an important role in ensuring that the college remains highly skilled and in touch with development in ICT, says the college's principal.

'The RSC is very much part of the process of skills development and of supporting us to deliver high-quality learning. They came in and did an assessment of our delivery in this area, an objective review, and it was extremely useful. It gave our senior managers a lot of very valuable information. They ran sessions and staff development days and gave us good feedback on what we needed to do.'

College staff are also involved in RSC forums, essential for networking and for the exchange of ideas, says Heather MacDonald.

'The RSCs can help us feel part of a wider network, with universities, Adult and Community Learning providers and other organisations. I was a member of the group helping to develop the RSC's strategy, so we can have input too.'

And what of national strategies? What role does the RSC have in supporting colleges in this area?

'The RSC provides the translation of the relevant national strategies,' replies Heather MacDonald. 'They talk to us about implications, advising and supporting us, helping us to take the national strategies forward.'

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Capital gains

With a call for proposals in April, a major call for proposals currently issued and another to follow next year, JISC's capital programme represents a significant investment in a range of areas central to the use of ICT by UK education and research. This at-a-glance guide shows where the investment is being made, some of the benefits it will bring and gives a timeline of key dates for the programme.

JISC's capital programme - in short

Programmes to invest an additional £81m over three years awarded from HEFCE and HEFCW have been earmarked to support central objectives of the DfES's e-strategy, the Science and Innovation Investment Framework: 2004-2014, and 'Reaching Higher', the Welsh Assembly Government's strategy for the higher education sector.
These programmes will focus on the network, digitisation, e-learning, repositories and preservation, e-research (e-infrastructure and virtual research environments), and users and innovation.

Repositories and preservation - To develop digital repositories and mechanisms to support preservation
A £13.8 million programme to support the establishment of digital repositories and accompanying preservation mechanisms, including cross-searching facilities, the funding of institutions to develop a critical mass of content and advisory services.

Digitisation - To digitise scholarly resources of national importance
A further £4.8 million investment in the digitisation of major national resources. Successful projects will join six current projects digitising high-quality online content, including sound, moving pictures, newspapers, census data, journals and parliamentary papers.

e-Research: e-Infrastructure - To enhance the UK's research infrastructure
This £10 million programme will build on work to establish a national e-infrastructure undertaken with partners during the initial five-year UK e-Science programme.

e-Research: VREs - To support the creation of multi-disciplinary online environments for research
The £2 million programme will develop the activities of the existing VRE (Virtual Research Environments) programme, bringing together tools and technologies into collaborative multi-disciplinary environments to assist both lone researchers and multiple research teams.

Users and Innovation
Using new technologies and approaches to enhance the practice of individuals in institutions
A £4.75 million investment in ICT technology and practice that will identify, develop and promote a consistent approach towards next generation environments for learning, teaching, research and administration.

e-Learning - To support the development of e-learning
An £11.36 million programme to harness the potential of e-learning to support lifelong learners, with particular emphasis on providing a personalised learning experience, through the use of e-assessment, e-portfolios and online communities.

Network - To enhance the network infrastructure (SuperJANET5)
SuperJANET5 is a £27.6 million state-of-the-art optic fibre network linking 19 regional networks across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, which will support a potential user base of up to 18 million users.

Other - Programme management, evaluation and dissemination

For further information, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk/capital

Capital programme timeline

• April 2006 - First call
  First calls under JISC's capital programme. The call focuses on e-learning, repositories and preservation, e-infrastructure and digitisation
• September 2006 - Second call
  Institutions are invited to bid for funding in the following areas: e-infrastructure, e-learning, repositories and preservation and Users and Innovation
• 11 October 2006
  Town hall meeting for the second call at Jurys Inn, Birmingham 23 November 2006 Deadline for proposals
• April 2007 - Third call
  The call will focus on: e-infrastructure, e-learning, repositories and preservation

For further details of calls, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk/capital_roadmap

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Moving towards open access

JISC is in the forefront of moves to make the fruits of publicly-funded research more freely available. Guest journalist Tracey Caldwell explores the changing scholarly environment and looks at how education and research, both UK and internationally, are set to benefit from important developments

Everyone stands to gain from open access to scientific research. Authors attract a higher readership and publishers can benefit from adding value to content using new technology. The taxpayer funding the research reaps the benefits of the resulting acceleration of scientific discovery in the shape of improved medical treatment, for example.

Everyone stands to gain from open access to scientific research. Authors attract a higher readership and publishers can benefit from adding value to content using new technology. The taxpayer funding the research reaps the benefits of the resulting acceleration of scientific discovery in the shape of improved medical treatment, for example.

New technologies provide innovative and exciting ways of making digital resources and research papers available. As open access has developed, the concerns of funders, authors, publishers and librarians have changed. There is an increasing willingness by all stakeholders to explore open access opportunities together to achieve the aim of improving dissemination of publicly-funded research.

The open access vision is international. JISC acts as a conduit for open access developments worldwide though its partnerships such as that with the pan- European Knowledge Exchange. Rachel Bruce, programme director of the JISC Information Environment group, says: 'JISC does a lot of work with Knowledge Exchange partners, such as SURF, on copyright barriers to the dissemination of research. We are working together and learning from each other. Research is global; it makes no sense to operate in one country - we have to work together.'

Academics in the UK are seeing huge changes in the way research information is shared and in teaching and learning. The JISC Scholarly Communication Group (SCG) explores changes in policies and practices to assist UK further and higher education institutions by monitoring developments across the world and by commissioning studies and surveys on particular issues.

There are indications that student learning is benefiting from access to academic research. A JISC study published in the summer, "The Use of Research Content in Undergraduate Teaching", looked at how academic staff use research content in their teaching of undergraduates and how they alert students to this type of content. The study was conducted across seven English universities and seven different discipline areas.

The report found that digital resources are not maintained independently but are integrated into courses. It supported earlier findings that the approach to open access is evolving very differently for each academic discipline.

One important development was JISC's Open Access initiative, which over three years provided over £380,000 to publishers to explore open access models of publishing for their journals and raise awareness of open access publishing among UK academics. This initiative has also enabled journal articles reporting UK research to be read and cited by scholars across the world. It has funded 12 publishers of open access journals and well over 1,000 articles have been published.

At the recent conference 'Moving towards OA' JISC brought together the academic community and publishers to present their positions on open access, to learn from each other and inform JISC's strategy in this area.

'Although there are important issues about sustainable business models, there is an important point of principle about having ease of access to publicly funded research,' says Bruce. 'In order for us to achieve that we aim to bring together stakeholders. We have reached the point where open access is happening and in many different ways - for example, managing institutional assets and changes in publishing models. But there needs to be clearer understanding of what the costs are.'

Despite their differences, open access stakeholders share common goals, says JISC consultant Fred Friend:

'Sometimes apparent conflict is more superficial than it might first appear. Publishers might also say they want increased access to content. The way they go about it might be different to other stakeholders but the motivation is the same.'

Interoperability is key to the technologies supporting new forms of scholarly communication. JISC has committed nearly £14m over two years from its capital programme to the development of digital repositories. This is part of a broader aim of creating a common information and communications environment, including addressing intellectual property rights and interoperability standards.

It has also funded a repository support project led by SHERPA to help build repository skills and to offer best practice guidance. This £1.4 million project will run alongside others started in response to the latest funding call in September and will support subject repositories, and institutional repositories.

Rachel Bruce recognises that institutions need support as they progress towards the goal of managing their research and learning outputs.

'One of the main areas we are funding is the setting up of repositories for those institutions that currently don't have them. Another is to enable institutions that do have them to enhance them. There are challenges, for example, in terms of making it as easy as possible for authors to deposit their research. We know there is a need for automated tools and institutional champions but not all strategies are right for all institutions and we are interested in proposals that pick out the best way forward for each particular institution, while always looking at interoperability.'

The goal of making publicly funded research openly available, allowing connections to be made with other researchers and improving research, looks increasingly achievable through a flexible approach, teamwork and a common purpose.

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Reviewed and relaunched

Following a review of Education Media OnLine (EMOL), the free online multimedia service has now become Film & Sound Online. Brian Mitchell looks at how this new and improved service is set to further enrich education and research.

Film & Sound Online is a searchable online database of hundreds of hours of film and sound. Seventeen collections of film and sound are available for download either in full or segments, and all come with full descriptions.

Used across a wide range of disciplines such as the arts, humanities, health sciences, engineering and social sciences, Film & Sound Online comes with flexible licensing conditions.

As the materials are copyright cleared for educational use, they can be incorporated in electronic teaching and learning materials such as course packs, lecture presentations, student projects or through authenticated access to institutional virtual learning environments (VLEs) or intranets.

Mark Brown, Electronic Services Librarian at the University of Central England explains:

'There's lots of positive interest from colleagues at my institution, especially from academic staff involved in our VLE. We like the ability to extract content from this resource and put it on a protected VLE.'

Ann Craig, Head of Academic Liaison at the University of Worcester, gives an insight into how this resource is being used: 'Many of the collections are very good. The films from the Imperial War Musuem are directly relevant to the History and Humanities staff. The Health and Nursing staff make use of the collections in their field, such as the Healthcare Productions and the St George's Hospital Medical School Collection.'

Other collections such as Amber Films are useful for a variety of courses and subject areas, for example 'The Sadler Story', a documentary that charts the life and beliefs of pacifist and socialist Jack Sadler can be used to support the analysis of documentary film theory in its historical, creative, methodological and theoretical contexts on communications studies, film studies and media studies courses.

The films depicting life in north-east England are also useful for those specialising in history and sociology as they can assist in developing a critique of Thatcherism and its effect on the political economy during the 1980s and the erosion of the traditional heavy manufacturing communities.

With an updated interface, Film & Sound Online also has enhanced new functionality. The key improvement is that users of Film & Sound Online are now able to browse by subject.

Other new features include a 'Showcase', which gives a brief, visual demonstration of the range of content available, and a 'View or create learning materials' page, which enables users both to view case studies and reviews and to create learning materials.

Brian Mitchell
JISC Collections

For further information, please go to http://www.filmandsound.ac.uk/

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JISC inform is produced by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to raise awareness of the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to support further and higher education in the UK. Contributing authors include members of the JISC family of services and initiatives, JISC's partners and staff working in the FE and HE sectors.
The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of JISC.