JISC Inform: Pooling Resources, Providing Tools for Collaboration In
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Research goes virtual: developing collaborative environments Give and take with JORUM JISC informissue 10 summer 2005 PPoolingooling resresourcesources PPrroovviiddiinngg ttoooollss ffoorr ccoollllaabboorraattiioonn iinn eedduuccaattiioonn he magazine of the Joint Information Systems Committee ISSN 1476-7619 ISSN Committee Systems the Joint Information he magazine of T aanndd rreesseeaarrcchh Supporting institutions An interview with Paul Ramsden, Chief Executive, Higher Education Academy JISC inform summer 2005 ‘The future JISC depends on organisations collaborating to inform be successful’ 3Digimap steps back in time 4: Interview with A familiar resource becomes historic Paul Ramsden 4Supporting institutions An interview with Paul Ramsden, Chief Executive, Higher Education Academy 8The National Grid Service builds up steam Sharing facilities on the Grid 10 Sharing resources Pioneering digital repositories 11 Making effective use of JISC e-resources How JISC e-resources can enrich education and research 12 Diagram: the JISC Model Licence and its benefits 15 Research goes virtual Developing collaborative environments 18 Give and take with Jorum A unique new service is set to take its bow 20 Spreading expertise RSC helps colleges prepare for inspection 22 Impact and integration JISC 2005 conference in pictures JISC inform is produced by the Joint Editor Tell us what you think Information Systems Committee (JISC) to raise Philip Pothen awareness of the use of Information and Your feedback on this publication, Communications Technology (ICT) to support Production Coordinator including suggestions for contributions, further and higher education in the UK. Greg Clemett Contributing authors include members of the is most welcome. Please contact JISC JISC family of services and initiatives, the Designer Communications and Marketing: JISC’s partners and staff working in the FE Kelvin Reeves email [email protected] and HE sectors. or tel 0117 954 5083 The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of JISC. www.jisc.ac.uk JISC inform summer 2005 New developments of a familiar resource are allowing online access to historic maps for the first time. Tim Riley reports on how this new e-resource will have a major impact on the way we explore both our historic and our geographic environment Digimap steps back in time Maps give us a sense of place but, covering Great Britain from the mid- when presented in historical 1800s to the early 1990s. Digital scans of sequence, can give us a powerful OS maps, totalling some 400,000 sense of time too. Add the separate map images, can now be ‘joined’ functionality of the online to provide seamless coverage where the environment and the potential for maps allow it. Zoom and pan facilities learning, teaching and research help users to navigate, and up to four becomes immense. maps of the same location at different dates can be viewed side by side. For some five years Digimap has provided online access to contemporary Ordnance This new resource continues the trend of Survey maps and geographic data. An online resources providing a level of established resource in further and higher functionality not possible until now. supplied service Survey/EDINA An Ordnance right 2004. / database copyright © Crown map service education, less than a third of its users These new possibilities are in turn are, in fact, geographers. Specialists from transforming learning, teaching and a range of subject areas as diverse as research by providing new ways of medicine and hairdressing are currently looking at resources, whether in this case using it. The new Digimap Historic Map historic maps, or in other cases, the full Collection is set to continue this trend for text of out of print books, Census data multi-disciplinary use of maps and which can be manipulated by powerful software, or images and moving pictures. geographic data. The resource will be of benefit to a range Funded by JISC and hosted and developed of subject disciplines, including those by EDINA, the service for the first time investigating the changing landscape, the offers online access to historic maps development of modern transport and communications networks, archaeological sites, and so on, but will also be of use in genealogical studies, the evaluation of past planning decisions and agricultural history, to name a few. But perhaps most exciting of all are the ways of using the resource which learners, teachers and researchers will discover for themselves. Tim Riley EDINA EDINA Digi from sourced map, Landline.Plus Contemporary 2005 Group and Landmark Information copyright maps © Crown Historical O.S. maps from 1883, 1921, 1931 and 2005 show For further information please go to: the development of Somerton from a small Up to four maps of the same location at www.edina.ac.uk/digimap rural settlement to an urban district of different dates can be viewed side by side Newport Gwent 3 INTERVIEW JISC inform An interview with Paul Ramsden Supporting instit The Higher Education Paul Ramsden has had a busy year. As its serving and to be seen to be serving Academy was founded Chief Executive he has been responsible the HEIs.’ for leading the still-new Higher last year to support Education Academy as it sets about ‘The student experience’ higher education making the right connections and in delivering the best establishing new partnerships. ‘We’re just The Higher Education Academy has three possible learning a year old,’ he says, sitting in his office in key strands to its work: to provide an the new Academy building on the authoritative and independent voice at experience for all outskirts of York, ‘but we’ve been the policy level; to support the students. Chief establishing connections with funders, professional development and Executive Paul Ramsden partners, organisations like the recognition of staff in higher education; spoke exclusively to Leadership Foundation, the QAA (Quality and to support institutions in their JISC Inform about the Assurance Agency), JISC, and establishing attempts to improve the quality of the our presence in the four countries of student learning experience. Academy, the place of the UK.’ ICT in its work and its It is the ‘student learning experience’ partnership with JISC Central to the Academy’s work, though, which perhaps most clearly drives Paul has been the need to establish contact Ramsden in his work at the helm of the with higher education institutions (HEIs) Academy. ‘We are about improving the themselves. ‘They are our clients,’ student’s learning and support Professor Ramsden explains. ‘They pay a experience. There’s a business aspect to subscription. It’s important for us to be this, but also a value aspect. If you speak 4 JISC inform summer 2005 ‘I believe that JISC and the Academy have a common vision about excellence and about supporting our institutions to provide the kind of experiences our students need’ accredited programmes - ‘most Professor Ramsden speaks of the first universities have at least one of them’ - time he used an Apple Mac. ‘I was struck which provide the Academy with its by the fact that someone had thought registered practitioners. He speaks too of hard about the user’, he says. ‘That’s how the significant investment in the it should be in universities. When you’re Academy’s network of subject centres, using a car you don’t think about the which provide discipline-based support compression ratios of the cylinders. The throughout the UK. ‘The work of the computer gets on with it. Someone subject centres,’ he says, ‘is regarded both somewhere needs to have thought about nationally and internationally as a big how it works, but the big emphasis for us success. They have been working very is the fact it has to be seen as part of the much with the grain of academic life and bigger question of the student utions although their work will develop, that experience.’ work is certainly something to build on. There are also obvious connections HEFCE has charged both the Higher between the work of the subject centres Education Academy and JISC with to most senior managers in universities, and that of JISC,’ he adds (see page 7). implementing its e-learning strategy, they will say that these things are vital. published in March of this year. Paul Working with JISC Ramsden sees this partnership as a good ‘But what do we mean by the student example of how the Academy will need experience?’ he asks. ‘Well, does it stop Can working with JISC, then, help to to collaborate in general. at the lecture hall? Or the IT room? Or support institutions to improve their the PC? What the student remembers is students’ ‘learning experience’? Professor not always the inspirational lecturer, Ramsden is clear that it can. ‘I believe important though he or she may be, but that JISC and the Academy have a maybe the departmental admin assistant common vision about excellence and who helped them change their about supporting our institutions to enrolment. Or the car parking facilities, provide the kind of experiences our or the IT facilities, or the quality of students need and increasingly require. assessment they’ve received. So what we We have an enviable reputation in this mean by the student experience is that country for the quality of our courses, we allow them to say what they mean by but this reputation is not something that it, to say what they think is important.’ stands still. We have to be getting better all the time. Clearly ICT is a crucial part What has the Academy been doing so of higher education. It’s not an optional far to improve the learning experience extra, and our students have been telling of UK students? Paul Ramsden talks of us that for a while. It’s something that the Academy’s 150 or so nationally one simply expects to be there.’ 5 JISC inform summer 2005 ‘We were both involved jointly in the resources and e-learning uptake.