1. Entrepreneurial spirit
2. Exemplary Employer
3. Best-Practice Management Systems and Processes
4. Local, Regional, National, International Social, Cultural & Economic Development
5. Reduce Cost, Generate Income
6. Streamlined Integrated Admin Systems
7. Environmental Quality and Sustainability
8. Superb Student Experience
9. Academic Excellence
10. Organisational Development

These agendas point towards value outcomes (“exemplary”, “best practice”, “quality and sustainability”, “superb”, “excellence”). We observe work done and maybe also signs of local change. How do we know its value?

I suggest that we have two sets of criteria (and maybe others: the old school TRIZ theory of problem solving; infoKits, etc), by which we might rate value.

1) Original programme outcomes

The original programme intended outcomes are as follows:

• Efficiency gains
• Sustainable Technical Solutions
• Enhanced Networks
• Strategic Leadership
• Service and Application Development

Innovation itself

• aspiration
• implementation

2) Programme outcomes

I have sketched a mapping of the five programme intended outcomes (above) to dissemination agendas (see below).

I suggest that for each JISC agenda, we try to understand how the intended/achieved programme outcomes contribute to that agenda. Putting it another way, for each agenda we/the JISC should be able to show how outcomes such as “efficiency gains” or “strategic leadership” contribute specifically to that agenda; how, for example, do “sustainable technical solutions” contribute to “best-practice management systems and processes”? Or, etc, etc.

Innovation itself

Innovation is a criterion too, but it needs to be defined. It has two broad modes:

1) genuinely-new-anywhere: the truly novel innovation, done nowhere before and 2) local-innovation: about which the project team and sponsors may or may not care or be aware, that their innovation has been done before or invented elsewhere; what is important is that it is genuinely locally new and ideally trialled/implemented for the first time, locally; how did they do that, here?

“Innovation” can be characterised by aspiration and implementation. You need both. It is no good to be aspirational without implementation; that is the realm of the armchair general or pub bore. It is no good to implement without aspiration; that’s just carpetbagging: following the vanguard. Innovation is, in part being entrusted with putting money where mouths are and delivering on the dare. In these projects there is always the characteristic of “success” in categorical terms. An idea or notion may be novel, aspirational, and implemented without achieving that which was aspired to. But, there are no failed pilot studies. It didn’t fly is an often useful outcome.

Most, if not all, projects have done good work, but have they necessarily been aspirational and implementable and implemented on either a local or wider scale?

Many projects show potential to be innovative in the genuinely new anywhere mode. We are seeking help from CETIS in pinning these down. Have they seen it done before? Have you?

Innovation may also be local, regardless if it has been done elsewhere. That is, there may well be local innovation which is genuinely, locally aspirational and implemented. For the purposes of eliciting lessons in institutional change management, we need to learn from local innovation as much as genuinely new innovation. Projects set off to do something; what was innovative about it? What ground-up Innovation themes emerged from the projects before the JISC dissemination agendas appeared? These are concrete contributions, which local outputs make to the new dissemination agendas.

By mapping programme innovation themes to the dissemination agendas (see third attached mapping below) we may be able to track back to or discover evidence in support of statements such as: Projects that have been engaged in this should have outputs that contribute to that in the following ways; or the reciprocal: we are interested in – say – best practice management systems for multi-media institutional publishing such as podcasting, lecture capture and even feedback conversations (see ASSET, ELTAC, STEEPLE). We are aiming to lead the field (our learners) in the creation and curation of new multimedia objects of knowledge. (See also advice on how to produce quality videos by Zak Mensah at JISC Digital media http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/video-assist/ )

Our contribution to JISC agendas

Our contribution for each dissemination agenda should be to identify:

• outcomes: how programme/project contributes to agenda
• outputs: illustrate outcomes with portfolio of exemplars
• innovation: Show outputs to be
  • locally innovative, for change management purposes
  • globally innovative, for strategic management purposes

George Roberts
groberts@brookes.ac.uk

HE Net is a JISC funded, collaborative research project between FE (Further Education) and HE (Higher Education) sectors. This forms part of the Benefits Realisation strand, which forms part of the HELLO Project (Higher Education Lifelong Learning Opportunities).

In 2008 653 students were successful in securing places in Higher Education. Student choice of institution showed that in excess of 250 went on to their local HEI. More students are moving from the FE sector after completing a Foundation Degree to HE to “top up”, often joining a third year, well established, larger group of students. The project investigates whether or not linking these FE students to existing, peer mentors at the HEI will aid and ease any anxieties about the transition.

The HELLO Project uses Mahara as the “social network” element of the project. This area is an organically grown, student-led space and is additional to the Moodle TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) Environment which is curriculum based and tutor-led. It is on this “social network” that the FE students can find a virtual, online peer where they can post questions and get responses. Peers from the University are subject related or “generic”.

We wish to present a short, oral paper on the key findings from the HE Net project. Focusing on cross intuitional issues where historical differences were found to impact on the students’ experiences. Technical issues were recorded in relation to hosting and managing external stakeholder access to data and systems. The suitability of participants was analysed with respect to who makes the most effective mentor? Is it a “traditional” or “non traditional” learner? What was the overall learner experience with regards to the project? By sharing key points of how to realise the benefits of this model across other institutions will open up discussion and debate amongst the audience regarding further roll out of this initiative.

The HELLO Project – using social networks to aid retention and progression

The HELLO (Higher Education Lifelong Learning Opportunities) Project is funded by JISC through its Lifelong Learning and Workforce Development strand. The project, which started in April 2009 and ends in September 2010, is investigating the impact of using a social networking site on the learning experiences of 200 students studying on part time and full time HNC, HND and Foundation Degree courses – including their retention and progression. The demonstration will show how the HELLO Project has built upon the earlier JISC-funded WoLF (Work Based Learning in Further Education) Project – a project established to address the need of a group of non-traditional work based learners to access learning outside of the classroom. It will also show how recent Learning Skills Council (LSC) accommodation projects have resulted in Leicester College experiencing a reduction of 65% in the students’ social space with an adverse impact on their ability to meet and collaborate with their peers. What is more, the college’s growing numbers of Foundation Degree, HNC and HND learners have expressed the view that they would like the opportunity to establish a distinctive ‘HE identity’ within what is predominantly an FE learning environment. The HELLO Project is seeking to address these needs by capitalizing on the potential offered by new technology, and is exploring ways in which it can promote cultural change within the college through the use of that technology to enhance the learning experiences of its students. The demonstration will show how: the social networks have been developed, including a Higher Education Student Community Site, with the potential of bringing together 800 staff and students in one online space; curriculum-led learning spaces have been developed using Moodle; and, a student-driven social network has been established using Mahara, which also has links with external stakeholders such as employers and other HEI. Finally, key findings from the on-going evaluation of the HELLO Project will be shared focusing on the project’s impact on staff and students.

Please contact  Punam Khosla punamk@btconnect.com if you would like to know more about this work.

Open source, content creation, being deleted from the web, e-learning, blogging and copyright are all hot topics on the blogs, with guests including Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales and technology commentator Bill Thompson stirring up the debate.

The documentary makers are appealing to web users to help shape the Digital Revolution (working title) series due to air on BBC2 next year. As JISC’s work focuses on how digital technologies support teaching, learning and research, this is an ideal opportunity for you to share your views and experiences.

Episode one director Philip Smith said: “We’re looking for characters and stories so that this is a human and accessible story that we’re telling, rather than an abstract one in a vacuum.”

The programme will focus on four parts including power on the web, impact on the nation state, impact on economics and the impact on human beings. The content is still in the early production stages and open for collaboration with the web communities around their subjects through the blog, Twitter and Delicious bookmarks at www.delicious.com/digitalrevolution

The programmes are hoping to be directly influenced in their thinking and scripting by the web in these preliminary stages, so join the discussions on their blog at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/digitalrevolution

The documentary will be presented by Aleks Krotoski, an academic and journalist who writes about and studies technology and interactivity. She is completing a PhD in social psychology, examining how information spreads around social networks online, and also writes for the Guardian.

Contribute to the blogs and read updates on the production at http://www.bbc.co.uk/digitalrevolution

Follow the programme on Twitter: @BBCDigRev

Listen to the BBC Two production team talk about what they are looking for at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/…

1) Audience Analysis – why and how should projects meet the expectations of users (e.g. students, teachers, parents etc) when developing online content for the web. http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/audience-publications/

2) Business models – how can publicly funded online content on the web be maintained and developed at a time of either zero growth or reduced funding allocation through flexible and hybrid revenue models. http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/business-modelling-publications/

3) Intellectual Property Rights and Licencing – why and how can projects best exploit their Intellectual Property and Licence online content. This is particularly important and has significant implications for the “open” agenda at JISC. http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/ipr-publications/

4) Search Engine Optimisation – why and how by using search engine optimization you ensure that your organizational web presence is enhance. For example, they way in which an MSc course at a university receives increased student applications (from home and abroad) through using “Social Web” tools to drive traffic to the university web pages. http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/category/seo/

5) Policy Resource Discovery – “Digipedia” – how can policymakers easily find the latest authoritative documentation on the “life-cycle” of online content. At the moment it’s difficult and time consuming. In order to improve efficiency we have developed a prototype moderated wiki (akin to a social web presentation layer for public policy documents). Please NOTE additional development on DIgipedia will take place in the autumn http://beta.digipedia.org.uk/

6) Content Resource Discovery – how can we “mash up” online content from across the various silos (universities, public service broadcasting, “cultural heritage”, health etc and present this information in new and novel ways. We developed a prototype – “CenturyShare” which searches across time (from 250,000 objects representing the public sector collections) – meaning that the usual tabular search result was replaced by an innovative search display http://www.k-int.com/projects/c-share

Stuart Dempster and Sarah Fahmy

JISC-BORG@JISCMAIL.AC.UK

BRII are looking to develop a scalable infrastructure at the University of Oxford that allows for the sharing of research activity data and the report describes the basic problems faced by BRII in a large and heterogeneous institution and how they went about getting solutions.

Previously I wrote about the Stakeholder buy-in themed assembly that the BRII project hosted. For those who attended, this document is the culmination of the work presented by Cecilia.

I can’t really do the project or the report any justice in these few words so I would suggest that you have a look at what BRII are doing for yourselves.

The report in PDF format can be viewed or downloaded (here)

Mitul Shukla
mitul.shukla@beds.ac.uk

For those people and projects who already use Twitter accounts, please consider following us at https://twitter.com/jiscssbr, and we’ll follow you back.

We plan to run a feed of all the people we follow through the SSBR site – making our community’s public messages accessible to those who don’t visit Twitter and helping us to build a stream of information about all your interests, tips and concerns.

Josie Fraser

This will become a focus of the synthesis work as the programme evolves through its middle stages over the next semester, transiting into a wider Benefits Realisation programme as the stage 2 projects reach their planned end and the stage 3 projects start realising early deliverables.

George Roberts

The morning programme featured John Cook’s key note address, the lunchtime programme featured interviews with JISC programme managers, Lawrie Phipps and Ruth Drysdale and the afternoon show included an interview with Howard Noble from the Green ICT project.

Guests on the evening show included:

• George Roberts providing reflections on the conference and much more
• Miles Berry on Open Source Schools
• Ana Garcia from the University of Madrid talking about coaching and innovation
• David Morris from the University of Coventry on Location Independent Working
• Pekka Kamarainen from the University of Bremen on innovation in the training of vocational teachers and trainers
• Paul Bailey from the JISC Institutional Innovation programme on innovation and sustainability.

The radio show was seen as an experiment and had a number of objectives. One aim was to experiment with mixing different media in an online conference. Different media provide different affordances, and a mix of media can provide a richer online learning environment. However, anecdotal evidence would suggest that participants can be confused by multiple platforms especially when each requires a separate login. The radio programme was streamed through Elluminate allowing easy access, despite offering lower quality than the online internet stream. Although other conferences and events – notably those organised by Webheads – have used internet radio as part of the ‘mix’, as far as we are aware this was the first time internet radio had been streamed through an online platform in this way.

A second issue with online conferences is continuity. Experience of previous events suggests that the concentration involved in participating in such events is tiring and that frequent breaks are desirable between sessions. However, with the lack of proximately of co-participants in a shared physical environment, the continuity of the event is lost. The radio programme provided continuity by ensuring there was always something happening, whilst at the same time allowing for less intensive concentration and participation than the regular conference sessions. At the same time the radio was able to offer both a continuity link in terms of the themes of the conference and an opportunity to extend, explore and reflect on those themes through pre-recorded and live interviews with those involved in similar or related projects and initiatives.

Whilst parts of the radio broadcasts were streamed into the Elluminate portal, the broadcast also allowed those not registered for the conference (for which registration was limited to JISC programme participants) to listen to the keynote presentation by John Cook. Although the radio was announced in advance, we suspect that most listeners learnt about the broadcast from Twitter.

Although our statistics are limited, it is interesting to note that a considerable number of listeners appear to be from outside the UK and particularly from continental Europe. This could be of potential importance in dissemination or ‘benefits realisation’ for JISC projects.

All the radio broadcasts have been made available after the conference as MP3 podcasts. The podcasts of previous live radio programmes have been relatively popular, usually attracting at least 500 downloads over a six month period. The podcast of last year’s JISC Emerge project live broadcast form Alt C in Leeds has had over 2500 downloads!

Getting the feel and atmosphere right for the broadcasts is an ongoing issue. We had a slightly different approach to the different programmes broadcast through the day. The morning programme, prior to the conference was mainly music, with some preview of the days activities. The morning and afternoon coffee break programmes featured JISC projects and initiatives, whilst the lunch time programme featured interviews with JISC programme managers. Finally the evening programme was seen as a magazine style ‘wrap-up’ to the day, featuring live interviews with organisers of other UK and European projects as well as providing an opportunity for reflection by the conference organisers. Our broadcasting of music in the radio programmes has proved highly popular, However, it is difficult to choose a mix of music which suits everyone’s tastes. All the music is from the Creative Commons Jamendo web site, meaning that we remain legal whilst at the same time promoting open content. However, this does mean we are unable to play music which is familiar to people and this may be challenging, especially early in the morning! Next time we will try to provide a wider mix of music.

In conclusion, we feel the radio was successful, enhancing the conference, providing a showcase for multi-channel and multi-platform connections and allowing for reflection and continuity in the overall event.

The shows were presented by Graham Attwell and Dirk Stieglitz selected the music, produced the programme and undertook the post processing.

International case studies reveal innovative strategies for financing digital resources in the non-profit sector

July 15, 2009, New York and London. Tens of millions of dollars, pounds and euros are invested each year by government agencies and private foundations to develop and support digital resources in the not-for–profit sector.

As institutional budgets tighten, will these digital resources be able to survive and thrive? A new study, released today by Ithaka S+R and the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance, illustrates the varied and creative ways in which leaders of digital initiatives, particularly those developed in the higher education and cultural heritage sectors, are managing to identify sources of support and generate revenue.

Ithaka Case Studies in Sustainability consists of twelve examples of digital resource projects and a final report, ‘Sustaining Digital Resources:
An On-the-Ground View of Projects Today’, written by Ithaka S+R analysts Nancy L. Maron, K. Kirby Smith and Matthew Loy.

The work was jointly funded by JISC’s Strategic Content Alliance in the UK and the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation in the United States. The full report and case studies are available online and open for comment (here).

The case studies provide a rare glimpse into the strategies of twelve digital initiatives across Europe, the Middle East and North America – ranging from an online scholarly encyclopedia of philosophy to an image licensing operation at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Each case is extensively researched, drawing from interviews with key stakeholders of the organisation, and details the costs and revenues that each project generates, while illustrating the decision-making process that underlies these strategies.

Dr Malcolm Read, JISC’s Executive Secretary said, “These case studies demonstrate the innovative and dynamic approaches for universities and others to sustain digital resources online in the most cost effective way.”

The final report serves as a guide to the cases, and argues that sustainability entails much more than simply covering the costs of putting a resource online. Equally important is ensuring the ongoing development of the resource to suit the continually evolving needs of its users. The paper presents a framework for thinking about sustainability, outlining the five stages that successful projects must undertake in developing sustainability
models: from acquiring a deep understanding of users and their needs, to thinking broadly about the range of revenue models that might be possible.

The studies also demonstrate that, while many projects are attempting to generate some revenue through subscription, pay-per-view, and a range of licensing arrangements, their overall financial picture still depends heavily on receiving direct as well as in-kind support from the institutions that host them.

The work is part of a long term examination into the sustainability of digital content, supported by the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance in the UK, and builds upon the 2008 Ithaka Report, Sustainability and Online Revenue Models for Online Academic Resources.

“Supporting digital content online is a challenge every sector is grappling with and we are just now starting to see patterns emerge in terms of how these initiatives are being financed and managed,” according to Laura Brown, Executive Vice President, Ithaka S+R. “We hope that by examining projects that appear to be thriving, we can begin to identify models that will work best to support these tremendously valuable resources.”

The projects that served as subjects for the case studies include:

BOPCRIS Digitisation Centre, Hartley Library, University of Southampton (UK) Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London (UK) DigiZeitschriften, Göttingen State and University Library (Germany) eBird, Information Science Department, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University (US) Electronic Enlightenment, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (UK) Hindawi Publishing Corporation (Egypt) Inamédiapro and ina.fr, L’Institut national de l’audiovisuel (France) Licensed Internet Associates Program, The National Archives (UK) Middle School Portal 2: Math and Science Pathways, National Science Digital Library (US) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University (US) Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, University of California, Irvine (US) V&A Images, Victoria and Albert Museum (UK)

Read more about JISC and the work of the Strategic Content Alliance at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance