Jisc – helping the UK become the most advanced digital
teaching and research nation in the world
Talis Insight Europe 2016
Paul Feldman – chief executive, Phil Richards – chief innovation officer, Jisc

Jisc – a digital powerhouse for education and research
»Its time for UK HE to grab the digital
agenda and make a real difference to
our teaching and research
»Times are tough, funding is being cut
»Your chance to help transform your
institution is exciting
»And we are here to help you do that,
stimulate you with thoughts, best
practice etc.
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You know Jisc, or do you?
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Aim
We aspire to be the world
class powerhouse of digital
support and transformation
to the UK teaching and
research communities
Vision
To make the UK the most
digitally advanced
education and research
nation in the world

Jisc is…
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Under its own
oversight
Dedicated
entirely to the
sectors’
individual and
collective
needs
Not a vendor:
Jisc deals with
and/or works
with vendors
and publishers
on the
collective behalf
Not for profit:
every £ used
for the sectors’
benefit
Objective, but
not unbiased:
we put the
sectors’
interests
above all else
Of the sectors, by the
sectors, for the sectors
Championing the importance &
potential of digital technologies
for UK education and research

We do… 3 main things
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Shared digital
infrastructure
and services
Expert and
trusted advice
and practical
assistance
Sector wide deals
with IT vendors
and commercial
publishers
Current
examples:
Janet network,
shared data centre,
eduroam wireless,
geospatial services
Future
examples:
Learner analytics,
research data
management,
FE college
in a box
Current
examples:
Microsoft 365
email, Amazon
web services,
e-journals,
FE e-books
Future
examples:
Prevent web
filtering,Tableau,
new models for
digital publishing
Current
examples:
Financial x-ray,
cloud advice,
cyber
security/business
continuity
Future
examples:
FE mergers, open
access good
practice, national
monograph
strategy

Our customers and users
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Colleges UsersUniversities Skills providers

You experience us through our products
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Key challenges are culture and funding
»We are introducing a new culture in Jisc around the 3P’s and 2Ts
› Pace, Passion, Pride,Trust andTeamwork
»We assume that over the life of the parliament our income from
funding will go down
»How this will appear to you could be:
› We introduce new paid for services
› We shut down services that are low value/high cost
› We redesign key services to retain/increase value at lower cost
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What are we doing in core service areas?
»Janet futures – bigger, stronger and cheaper
› Doubling the backbone
› Security – DDOS protection
› Future-proofing
»Data centres
› Southern shared data centre now has 16 tenants across HE,
FE, Research and sector bodies
› Northern data centre contract progressing
› Scottish and Welsh/West centres – is there demand?
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Jisc digital resources and collections update
»Negotiations now cover over 40% of sector spend on e-
resources
»Working towards acceptable renewal of the Elsevier
ScienceDirectAgreement – both subscription and OA
»New agreement with Pearson for e-textbooks
»New framework agreement covering business and law
databases
› Working with sector to leverage buying power and bring consistency
»Redevelop Jisc’s portfolio of library support and management
services
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Our priorities
»The sector has given us clear feedback that they would prefer
for us to do fewer things better, and be more ambitious
»Our overarching guide is the digital transformation of further
and higher education and research, with focus areas of:
› Networking and advanced infrastructure
› Technology-enabled learning
› Digital library
› Open access and research management
› Learner analytics
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We want to make a digitally enabled future happen
»So we are developing these visions with you…
› HETeaching
› FETeaching
› Research
› Library
»With views to 2020 and 2030
»We aim for them to guide our development work and
provide a framework for our conversations
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HE learning and teaching: vision
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Research: vision
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National Digital Library Strategy
»Currently in early stages Jisc will work with SCONUL and
others to define a strategy for a National Digital Library
(NDL)
»A direction of travel to aid discoverability, value for
money and shared procurement.
»Focusing first on the HE space, but could extend both in
terms of the items and collections and end users.
Archives; Museums; Public & Public Libraries.
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National Digital Library
Key service elements could include:
»Discoverability
»Identity management
»Fulfilment
»Analytics
»Preservation and Access
»Skills
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National digital library
»A framework set of services
»Re-use existing services – avoid re-inventing the wheel
»Jisc’s in development National Bibliographic
Knowledgebase seen as potential key infrastructure
»Aggregation of a wide range of content to aid discovery
and access.
»Shared procurement and licensing.
»While bringing Open Access and free content to end users
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Jisc Learning Analytics Architecture
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Project partners
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Service dashboards
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Visual tools to allow lecturers, module
leaders, senior staff and support staff
to view:
» student engagement
» cohort comparisons
» etc…
Based on either commercial tools from
Tribal (Student Insight) or open source
toolsfromUnicon/Marist(OpenDashBoard)

Student app
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» First version includes:
› overall engagement
› comparisons
› self declared data
› consent management
Bespoke development by Therapy Box

Code of practice
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Library Analytics
» Jisc is using the LearningAnalytics Infrastructure and techniques to build a new
generation of library analytics.
» This will make it scalable and interoperable with other institutional analytics in a
flexible / extensible infrastructure.
» We have been building user stories and use case modelling, and are developing
plans to support these.
» Consultation with the library community identified Online Resource usage as key
focus.We are looking at using ‘big data’ approaches to analyse Ezproxy and
Shibboleth (UKAMF) logs amongst other sources to support this.
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deCODE – Iceland genomics research
• Family trees
• Personal
health records
OutcomesReference data
• Understanding
genetic nature
of diseases
• Predictors of
future health
• Personalised
medicine
Analytics number crunching
Iceland’s genetic data bank

LA warehouse: our DNA bank for higher E-Learning?
• Demographics
• Entry
qualifications
• Learning and
employment
outcomes
• Deep
understanding
of e-learning
• Metrics for
engagement,
learning gain
• Personalised
next generation
e-learning
UK learning data warehouse OutcomesReference data
Analytics number crunching

UK-led personalised next generation E-learning?
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What would I like Jisc to look like in the years to come?
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