Digital and physical infrastructure

Planning, investing and maintaining a comprehensive, secure and reliable system of technology and equipment that supports the efficient operation and growth of an organisation.

Activities/principles/values

These keywords identify cross-cutting concept used in both the framework and the maturity model. They occur across the different elements:

Accessibility and inclusion | Application architecture | Business continuity planning | Business processes and operations | Corporate strategy | Cyber security | Data architecture | Data creation and management | Data privacy | Digital leadership | Digital poverty | Digital strategy | Enterprise architecture | Environmental sustainability | Governance | Horizon scanning | International activities | Investment | IT strategy | Local/regional/national contexts and intelligence | Requirements gathering | Sector intelligence | Security and business continuity | Stakeholder engagement | Sustainability

Examples of potential activities

• Establish horizon scanning activities that enable all stakeholder groups to participate and contribute
• Carry out regular review audits to map dataflows, workflows and processes across different functions to inform digital strategy
• Ensure digital planning is coordinated with other relevant plans and strategies (eg estates, learning, teaching and assessment, student experience, research, information and communication, international, IT, corporate plan)
• Develop a cross-organisational steering group to take digital strategies and plans forward
• Implement strategic digital visions as appropriate through digital leadership and effective governance (e.g. cloud first, mobile first, digital first, people first, sustainability)
• Balance investment and effort to refresh, consolidate and/or integrate existing/legacy systems and services and develop new ones as appropriate
• Plan for changing investment and procurement in the switch from majority capital expenditure to majority revenue expenditure (e.g. move to cloud services)
• Plan for a balanced investment between fixed computing and resources/facilities for personal device use (e.g. under a bring-your-own or leasing policy)
• Coordinate software purchasing, licensing and access across diverse parts of the organisation to maximise efficiency and availability and minimise risk
• Ensure digital infrastructure planning and decisions take account of the diverse needs of staff and students, particularly those at risk of exclusion through issues such as poverty, disability, mental health, physical location, language, or any other access difficulties
• Ensure that digital infrastructure decisions and activities do not create barriers to participation, working or learning
• Ensure digital infrastructure planning and decisions are considered against organisational targets for environmental sustainability (e.g. energy use, carbon footprint, net zero)
• Ensure that virtual environments reflect and are representative of diversity in the real world
• Provide opportunities for all stakeholders to proactively engage in the design of the digital environment
• Provide and maintain secure systems, services and content (e.g. cyber security protections and protocols)
• Establish an incremental plan, targets and a roadmap to implement and/or integrate new systems, platforms, or applications to ensure minimum disruption to established business activities
• Develop and support systems and services that enable effective and ethical collection and use of high-quality, secure data (e.g. business intelligence architecture, data centres, data dashboards, high performance computing (HPC), data visualisation) and procedures

How Jisc can support your organisation

Services

• Cloud professional services
• Road to Cyber Essentials (blog series)
• Critical services protection
• Joining the bits (infrastructure team blog series)
• Assistive technology network
• Meeting accessibility regulations: practical resources and advice to help you understand and implement government legislation

Groups

• Accessibility and assistive technology communities
• Digital experience insights community of practice

Reports

• Scaling education: What is the carbon impact?

Guides

• Framework for digital transformation
• Practical steps to meeting accessibility regulations
• Exploring digital carbon footprints

Ensuring secure and reliable connections between stakeholders, business processes and data and networks within the organisation, as well as facilitating connectivity with appropriate external networks.

Activities/principles/values

These keywords identify cross-cutting concepts used in both the framework and the maturity model. They occur across the different elements:

Accessibility and inclusion | Business continuity planning | Building digital communities | Cyber security | Digital poverty | Digital networks | Security and business continuity

Examples of potential activities

• Establish organisational guidelines for the impact of digital connectivity on the environment; suggest ways to mitigate this through changing practice (e.g. ways to address the carbon footprint of sending and storing emails)
• Carry out ongoing monitoring of network usage, performance and capacity, and highlight aspects that present current or future challenges (e.g. e-sports, e-science)
• Ensure websites, digital services and apps provided through the organisation are accessible across multiple platforms/devices and comply with accessibility standards and regulations
• Ensure no one is disadvantaged by accessing outdated, less secure services and systems
• Consider the challenges, technical impacts and potential restrictions of global interconnectivity
• Establish appropriate plans and policies that specifically focus on data privacy and ethics, and cyber security issues that are unique to work-from-home environments
• Expand, upgrade and adopt digital security measures such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), password tools, threat detection, monitoring, ransomware protection software and endpoint and wifi security
• Work to achieve ISO 270001 certification to manage information security
• Work with and access specialist services to support incident response, forensics and the recovery of organisational digital estates, to mitigate the impact of attacks
• Access appropriate services to support cyber security activities (e.g. Cyber Essentials), and participate in events and activities to support threat intelligence sharing

How Jisc can support your organisation

Services

• Connectivity
• Cyber security: building solid cyber practice and culture together
• Cyber Security Portal
• Road to Cyber Essentials (blog series)
• IT support staff retention (blog post)
• Learning analytics

Groups

• Cyber security community group

Guides

• Aligning cloud connectivity with your cloud strategy

Resources, services and assistance provided to help stakeholders use digital technologies effectively for work, learning or research.

Activities/principles/values

These keywords identify cross-cutting concepts used in both the framework and the maturity model. They occur across the different elements:

Digital champions | Digital capability | Digital learning champions | Learning technologists | Staff support | Student support

Examples of potential activities

• Manage roll-out and training for new digital systems and major updates
• Establish a shared understanding of the differences between IT support and supporting a range of different digital practices (eg digital learning, digital research, data analytics)

How Jisc can support your organisation

Blogs

• IT support staff retention

Planning, development, administration and maintenance of physical estates that are financially and environmentally sustainable, with buildings that are fit for purpose. Ensuring that physical and virtual infrastructure integrate efficiently and effectively to deliver strategic objectives.

Activities/principles/values

These keywords identify cross-cutting concepts used in both the framework and the maturity model. They occur across the different elements:

Digital strategy | Environmental sustainability | Estates strategy | Intelligent campus | IT strategy | Learning environments | Learning spaces | Library and learning resources | Study spaces

Examples of potential activities

• Carry out a full audit of teaching rooms, their purpose or configurability and the equipment in them – including rooms with specialist facilities
• Streamline systems across the organisation to facilitate room and equipment booking and measure room use to ensure physical spaces support current practice
• Use data from intelligent environments to identify traffic and use of campus spaces to support ongoing improvement and development
• Provide virtual tours for people who cannot access physical spaces
• Provide a variety of bookable hybrid and virtual spaces
• Include the effective pedagogical use of learning spaces and equipment in the plan for developing digital capability of teaching staff and provide training materials and support for staff and students who use the spaces
• Consider furniture, room layout, technology use and pedagogical approaches in different learning spaces to ensure flexible options are available. Consider limitations that may impact on learning and teaching in a blended/hybrid context
• Assess the level of technical support required to maintain (and keep current) the large number of technology-equipped rooms. Ensure that a sufficient and appropriate mix of technical, administrative and teaching support is available

How Jisc can support your organisation

Blog posts

• First steps towards a smarter campus and healthier buildings
• Scaling education: What is the carbon impact?

Guides

• Building the future intelligent campus: using data to make smarter use of your university estate
• Benefits and considerations of smart campuses
• Exploring digital carbon footprints