JISC Value for Money report (2006)
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View web retention policyA Value for Money exercise was performed for JISC services
Contents
Introduction
Value for Money is a measurement of quality that compares the resources used to procure goods or services with the benefit obtained from those goods or services.
Whilst a Value for Money exercise measures and compares costs, it must also take account of the mix of quality, resource use, fitness for purpose, timeliness and convenience to judge whether or not together, they constitute good value. As such, Value for Money is one measurement of good practice. Some elements under consideration may be subjective, difficult to measure, unavailable, intangible or misunderstood. Judgement is therefore required when considering whether value for money has been achieved.
The remit of the JISC is extensive. The organisation is unique in both national and international arenas as being the only single, national institution responsible for providing strategic guidance, advice and opportunities to use ICT to support teaching, learning, research and administration for national tertiary education. Whilst many countries have centrally provided research and education networks, and some provide 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 the JISC’s activities against those of similar organisations. It is possible, in some areas, such as network or e-resource provision, to compare an activity with other similar national and international activities.
The JISC remit covers diverse activities and it would be a considerable achievement to examine all activities in detail, even if enough information were available. The report has not attempted to evaluate the activities of the JISC executive and administration, other than to comment on the real benefits of a pervasive and unified JISC strategy. In several cases evaluations of individual services have been performed, either commissioned by JISC or by individual service providers. The report has referenced these whenever they have been available, and has not attempted to re-evaluate the services. Effort has been expended in evaluating the overall provision and the benefits, or otherwise, to the community, rather than from considering each individual service. This is particularly the case with e-resource provision, reflecting the value to the community of the availability of an integrated provision rather than the contribution of each resource.
Several aspects of service performance can be quantified and assessed as they occur, such as the amount of use, the evaluation of customer awareness and satisfaction, money spent versus time and money saved. In most cases it is impossible to place an absolute value on use. It must be presumed that if a service were not considered valuable, users would explore it occasionally then use would tail off. Those services that are continually well used must have a high value to the community. The converse is not always true. Low use services may be of low value; or they may be a single point from which data is downloaded for extensive further work; or they may be a vital source of information for a small user base. However, in these latter two cases, user evaluation of the service should be positive. In some cases the service may not have reached its full potential user base.
Those services that provide open access information, portals such as Intute and some JISC advisory services with open access web pages, are particularly difficult to evaluate in terms of use. In some cases data are not routinely extracted from log files. When usage data is available the significance of a visit or download can be difficult to assess. However evidence of continued use again indicates a measure of value to the community.
It is particularly difficult to effectively evaluate research and innovation programmes during their lifetime. Project execution may be measured against project milestones, but this does not indicate the value of the completed project. It is possible to identify a successful project after completion as one that fulfils the original objectives, with a product that serves a demonstrably useful purpose and is cost effective. Value for money may be proven for some projects in terms of time, effort or money saved by implementation or by information used from the project for strategic decision making. Failure of a project to demonstrate these might not indicate poor value for money - projects may have significance in identifying areas where it would not be wise to invest money or effort in future. Others may be of ephemeral value, but are essential avenues of exploration in areas of rapid technological change. All well managed projects presumably provide experienced staff whose skills and knowledge may be useful in other programmes and projects.
Realistically, if current programmes were perceived to be of limited value it would be surprising that the JISC had selected them for support. The majority of innovation calls for participation are oversubscribed which indicates the value of these programmes to the community. Indications are that Phase II of the Digitisation programme will be at least six times oversubscribed. The impact of the eLib programme is currently being reviewed.