JISC

Digital infrastructure directions will improve our understanding of the changing digital environment, the demands those changes are likely to make on UK higher and further education and the new opportunities that may arise. The programme will also address cross-cutting issues that are the cornerstone of any successful digital infrastructure whatever its purpose. These include having secure access to resources; being able to identify things or people unambiguously online; having a legal framework fit for the digital age. 

Each of our programmes (Information and library infrastructure, research management and research) will contribute to the directions programme. 

The work is organised under four strands:

• Strategic directions and infrastructure roadmap will produce reports on the trends emerging from our current programme of work and develop a roadmap of future work. These will inform the sector and potential international collaborators of our intenetions over the next one to two years.
• Legal directions will ensure that the infrastructure we develop adapts to the rapidly changing legal landscape - and vice-versa.
• Technical directions will report on technical issues arising from our programmes and the wider landscape that impact on the development of an effective digital infrastructure.
• Identifiers will address the issue of having unambiguous ways of identifying people, places and objects online over time. 
• Access and identity management includes work on the take-up of identity management and the development of next generation identity management components for authentication (proving you are who you say you are) and authorisation (proving that you're authorised to access a particular resource).