From the Beagle to the BountyLogbooks map climate change

25 years of the JANET networkA timeline of achievement

Digital age for researchersThe Harvard perspective on Open Access

Issue 26 / Autumn 2009

Research 3.0Digital technology: writing the future for researchers

2

ContentsResearch 3.0 – driving the knowledge economy 3JISC’s research activity for the coming year

News in brief 4The latest news from JISC and its services

Moving into a digital age for researchers 6Robert Darnton, Director of the Harvard University Library, discusses research in the digital age

Half a century of British design online 8Designs online, the importance of digital resources to researchers, and how to evaluate their impact

Recognising innovation in technology 9Why JISC is honouring Cardiff dermatologists with a special award

Big solutions help further education 10JISC Regional Support Centres making a difference in further education around the UK

e-Books explored 11How e-books are set to supplement and not replace our physical libraries

25 years of the JANET network 12Timeline of achievements of the world-class network for universities and colleges

Blue sky thinking or head in the clouds? 14What JISC is doing to investigate the potential uses of the cloud for education

Know your Intellectual Property Rights 16Hands-on help on IPR for digital media

Debate 18Should researchers share data?

JISC launches a new service company 20Guy Lambert shares his vision for JISC Advance

From the Beagle to the Bounty 21How 18th century ships’ logs are making waves in climate change research

Five-minute interview 22JISC’s new committee with Professor David Baker

JISC dates for your diary 23Information on the JISC Conference and upcoming events

Editor: Rebecca O’BrienAssociate Editor: Nicola YeelesDesign and Production Manager: Greg ClemettDissemination and Production Coordinator: Amy ButterworthDesign: iD FactoryCover image: JISC Virtual Environments for Research in Archaeology project, courtesy of Johnny Greig

JISC Inform is produced by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to raise awareness of the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to support further and higher education (FE and HE) in the UK. Contributing authors include members of the JISC family of services and initiatives, JISC’s partners and staff working in the FE and HE sectors. The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of JISC.

A word from the Editor

Welcome to the autumn edition of JISC Inform. With the 2009/2010 academic year well under way, this edition looks at how digital technologies are helping colleges and universities reach out locally as well as internationally. A round-up of activity from JISC’s regional support centres shows what advice and guidance at grassroots can achieve. The winners of the JISC award at the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards show technology making a difference to international study, and the JISC funded CORRAL project illustrates the power of putting logbook journals online to drive groundbreaking climate change research.

We look to early next year at what JISC’S work in cloud computing is aiming to achieve for researchers and with this issue’s debate focussing on the topic ‘should researchers share their data?’ there is a common theme to JISC’s future activity. Of course, changing needs in this area require a responsive infrastructure to support them, and as JANET (UK) takes stock of 25 years of national network, it’s also a chance to look ahead at plans for faster and more expansive connectivity for UK education.

Research, Open Access and collaboration are all featured in this edition and over the next 12 months JISC will highlight, through its ‘Research 3.0 – driving the knowledge economy’ activity, how it supports the UK research community with advice, a technical infrastructure and services, to add value for researchers throughout the process. This activity, along with all of JISC’s work, will be celebrated at JISC’s 2010 Conference – ‘putting technology at the heart of education and research’ – on 13 April 2010.

If you would like to contribute to JISC Inform or would like a particular topic featured, email us at informeditor@jisc.ac.uk

inform plus+

…is an added online feature that allows you to learn more about the stories featured inside each issue of JISC Inform. It includes links to podcasts, publications, interviews and more in-depth information than we are able to include here.

www.jisc.ac.uk/inform

12

4

14

8

16

3

e-Research / Research 3.0

J ISC has been funding innovation and research projects within colleges and universities since

1993, finding ways for digital technologies to enhance the researcher’s experience and providing services such as the National Grid Service to pool computing and data resources to Mimas, which is a national data centre hosting some of the UK’s national research assets.

Commenting on the government’s recent report into science research, the Minister for Science and Innovation, Lord Drayson, said: ‘Once again, we have outperformed other nations in the G8 and secured our position as second in the world in scientific productivity.

‘Supporting the science community and maintaining

our excellent research base is critical to the UK’s future economic

growth and prosperity.’

‘Supporting the science community and maintaining our excellent research base is critical to the UK’s future economic growth and prosperity. This is why the government will invest a record level of almost £6 billion in UK science and research by 2011.’

This year sees the start of a three year JISC programme in e-research investing more than £10m in support for most parts of the research process from idea generation through the research process itself to publishing and sharing research papers. A major part of the programme will address how to save and preserve research data for future re-use and so maximise the return on money spent on research today.

In addition to this work JISC is looking at what the current researcher’s needs are, as well as delivering the initial findings from a three-year study entitled ‘The Researcher of Tomorrow’.

This research in conjunction with the British Library looks into the information-seeking behaviour of doctoral students

and in particular looks at the ’Google generation’ researcher – those born between 1982 and 1994. The aim is to provide guidance for librarians and information specialists on how best to meet the needs of these scholars.

Under the banner ‘Research 3.0 – driving the knowledge economy’, JISC will look at what is currently available for researchers to deliver world-class outputs, and also what will be needed to maintain this in the future.

‘As the UK focuses on finding ways to stimulate economic

recovery, education and research are key contributors.’

Matthew Dovey leads JISC’s e-research programmes that support researchers. He says, ‘As the UK focuses on finding ways

to stimulate economic recovery, education and research are key contributors.

‘We are aiming to stimulate debate across different research disciplines looking at what the sciences, arts and humanities all need to be able to undertake, support, share and publish their work.

‘The issue over how to store and manage research data has been an ongoing challenge for the research community. JISC is funding projects to look at how researchers want and need to store their data, how it can be reused and repurposed as well as how researchers can share computer power across universities to reduce electricity consumption and make more efficient use of resources.’

Research 3.0 – driving the knowledge economyAccording to the government’s ‘International Benchmarking Study of UK Research Performance 2009’ report, the UK is ranked second in the world and number one in the G8 for its quality research. We ask how JISC is contributing to this success.

www.jisc.ac.uk/eresearch

News in brief

4

Are you a director or manager of ICT, senior librarian, or strategic learning and teaching manager?

If so, JISC is interested in your views and perceptions of its activities, services and support, as well as other topical issues.

This year’s Key Audience Survey went live on 2 November and during the coming weeks you are likely to receive an invitation to take part.

Charles Hutchings, JISC market research manager, explains: ‘Your views, comments and perceptions are invaluable to JISC in helping to determine that we are providing you and your institution with the right levels of support and services, as well as the opportunities available to contribute to JISC’s programmes and activities.’

A new e-learning awards scheme to reward good practice has been launched at JISC’s regional support centre for Yorkshire and Humberside, with students themselves contributing to the branding.

Universities and colleges in the region will be able to nominate colleagues in various categories.

Students at Leeds College of Art and Design proved their e-learning credentials by designing the logo for the awards project, with the winning design from 17-year-old Jamie Avis.

Marion Miller, manager of JISC RSC YH, said: ‘It was important to include learners in putting this project together and it has been great to work with such talented young people.’

JISC key audience survey

e-Learning awards launch

News in brief / Autumn 2009

www.rsc-yh.ac.uk

Darwin enthusiasts and researchers will soon be able to explore online the annotations that he wrote on 300 of the books in his personal library, thanks to high-resolution digital imagery and an international partnership.

Funded by JISC with the National Endowment for the Humanities in the US, Darwin’s marginalia will be digitally married to the texts they illuminate, giving

scholars an insight into his thoughts.The project is one of four exciting new

initiatives in the transatlantic digitisation collaboration grant programme that will also see created a massive archaeological resource, a virtual reading room for Islamic manuscripts and a library of

performance records from the famous Parisian theatre company Comedie-Francaise.

JISC programme manager Alastair Dunning said: ‘The first phase of JISC/NEH projects is generating substantial benefits for research communities on both sides of the Atlantic, not just in terms of the resources created but also in the skills shared between the communities. The second phase will build on this, giving further evidence of the advantages to be gained through international collaboration.’

Images reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

Darwin’s library bridges the Atlantic

Open Access Week 2009During International Open Access Week (October 19–23) JISC showcased with videos, podcasts and interviews the routes through which the UK’s researchers can open up their work and contribute to the

country’s economy.Dr Malcolm Read, JISC executive

secretary, says, ‘Although JISC has achieved a great deal in promoting the Open Access debate earnestly and consistently over the

past 12–15 years, we still have more to do to engage the research community and practitioners more effectively.’

JISC championed the UK’s contribution to the event, which was led by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, an international collaboration of over 800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication.

www.jisc.ac.uk/news

www.openaccessweek.org

www.jisc.ac.uk/news

5

For the last two years JISC’s podcasts have been in the top 20 of the Educational Technology Podcasts within Apple’s iTunes, and are attracting subscribers from all over the UK.

The selection of 17 audio and video podcasts produced by JISC’s regional support centre (RSC) for Scotland South and West is freely available to subscribe to and enjoy.

Mark Clark, RSC advisor in technical and infrastructure management, said: ‘iTunes is an ideal way to automatically deliver learning materials to learners and subscribers. We want to give our learning providers a simple and accessible way to subscribe to media rich material, allowing us to disseminate examples of good practice from around the region to subscribers all over the country.’

JISC is top of the iPops

A strategic partnership agreement between JISC and the LFHE signals the start of a fruitful relationship from this autumn.

Richard Chapman, JISC partnership manager, explains: ‘The purpose of the new partnership is to promote more strategic management of ICT within colleges and universities, and to ensure the long term development of senior leaders within the sector that have the range and experience to direct this kind of top level work.’

11% of the UK workforce are now remote workers and 60% of all new businesses launched in 2008 were started from home.

One of those workers, Marieke Guy, was announced as the winner of The Remote Worker Award in a prestigious ceremony at the spectacular Cliveden House in Berkshire.

Research officer at the JISC-funded digital information centre UKOLN, Marieke impressed judges by demonstrating how remote working has made a beneficial impact on her career and home life, and working to improve conditions for other remote workers. In recent months she has blogged on the

Education experts have taken the first steps towards building a JISC Collections archive containing over 500 hours of film and 56,000 photos documenting modern history.

The expert panel consists of

As next steps, JISC will be contributing to the LFHE’s ‘Preparing for Strategic Leadership’ programme, designed for those new to academic, administrative or professional services leader positions, and the two organisations are discussing plans for ‘self-evaluation framework’ funding which was recently approved by JISC’s organisational support committee.

In the past few months, JISC has also renewed agreements with Becta, the SURF foundation in the Netherlands and UCAS.

green credentials of remote working, wifi advances and communication tools, among other topics.

Marieke said she was ‘ecstatic’ at having won the award, which was organised by the Remote Employment website in association with BT Business.

e-learning advisors, librarians, academics and image specialists who collectively represent over a hundred years of experience of working with digital images in education. They have chosen 11 collections from ten suppliers to form an archive for students and academics which will be available from July 2010.

Following £2.5 million in funding from JISC and a competitive procurement process, JISC Collections has licensed the collections for at least 25 years as part of the Digital Images for Education initiative.

JISC forms partnership with the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (LFHE)

UKOLN’s Marieke wins remote worker award

From Gorbachev to global warming

www.rsc-sw-scotland.ac.uk/podcast/Podcasts.htm

JISC’s new guide to Second Life is written by lecturers for lecturers, to help others to use virtual worlds for teaching.

‘Getting Started in Second Life’ answers some common questions like how to set up in Second Life, what the rules of the world are, how to plan lessons and how best to help students use it effectively for learning.

The aim of the guide is to present the basics in order to help lecturers experiment, rather than them getting lost in mastering the detail of the virtual environment.

Lawrie Phipps, JISC programme manager, said: ‘With more institutions exploiting online learning it is important that JISC provides the tools to ensure that UK institutions remain at the forefront of this area. The Second Life guide is an important tool in helping lecturers make full use of this exciting medium, and supporting student learning appropriately.’

The authors are all lecturers who have used Second Life in their teaching, so the guide is full of examples from their own experiences.

Get a life with Second Life

www.jisc.ac.uk/publications

http://imagesforeducation.org.uk

For more JISC news visit www.jisc.ac.uk/news

www.jisc.ac.uk/news

People / Robert Darnton interview

6

T he basic idea of Open Access is that every scholarly article produced by researchers will be made

available on a repository (an online digital storage bank) and anyone in the world can consult those articles free of charge.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard voted unanimously in favour of an Open Access policy. Professor Darnton explains, ‘It is amazing, you don’t often get a cantankerous group of professors to be unanimous about anything, but there clearly was a lot of enthusiasm for this.’

And why the consensus? Darnton believes the enthusiasm comes as a matter of principle. ‘Open Access gives us an opportunity within the university world of realising a principle that goes back to the Enlightenment, the principle of making knowledge available to everyone, and it’s a way of opening up universities in general,’he says.

Sharing information and knowledge comes through strongly when Professor Darnton talks about the interests and passions of academics.

‘Now, the rest of the world may not be interested in some wildly esoteric research on cell biology, but we’re really talking about the output of the entire Harvard faculty, which covers, really, all branches of knowledge.

’…type “Oliver Cromwell” into Google or some other search

mechanism, and if there’s been a recent publication of a scholarly sort concerning

Cromwell, that will be immediately accessible.’

‘So I think that there will be many people, worldwide, who are interested in what the faculty is producing. In September 2009 it went public and is searchable through all kinds of search mechanisms.’ One of the examples that Darnton gives is searching for academic texts. For example, a person can type ‘Oliver Cromwell’ into Google or some other search mechanism, and if there’s been a recent publication of a scholarly sort concerning Cromwell, that will be immediately accessible. It can be downloaded, printed out, read, assigned to students, or whatever the researcher wants.

Darnton concludes that making research outputs Open Access increases

What is the best way for researchers to publish and share their work? There is no easy answer to the question with researchers around the world making decisions that suit their needs and desired goals. Harvard University in the US adopted an Open Access policy for all its research papers to be made available in the university repository, on an opt out basis. October 2009 marks 12 months since the policy was adopted. JISC Inform spoke with Professor Robert Darnton, director of Harvard University library and trustee of New York Public Library, about the cultural change that is taking place at Harvard and the background to why professors at the university decided to share their knowledge in this way.

Moving into a digital age for researchers

the public value of work going on inside our educational institutions, especially for large universities like Harvard which have a lot to give.

But as with all change the transition to adopt an Open Access policy at Harvard was not without its problems and it was a bumpy journey over a long period of time to find consensus and agreement. Misunderstanding was a common problem which came through the university’s consultation process and Professor Darnton and his team spent time clarifying what putting research papers in the university’s repository actually meant.

‘Some academics think that if they make their article available on a repository, that they are giving up copyright. That’s not true at all. In fact, we think that we will enforce copyright,’ he explains.

‘The second misunderstanding is that if they make their article available on a repository, they won’t then be able to publish in certain journals that are opposed to this. Now, that can be the case sometimes, but it’s really more complex than that.’ Darnton explains that in his experience many journals are willing to cooperate with Open Access repositories. However, there may be conditions to that cooperation, for example insisting on an embargo or delaying Open Access to the article until after a six to twelve month period.

But Darnton regrets this approach. He thinks articles should be made available instantly, but as he says, ‘this is a fair compromise in many cases and that is a way to satisfy both the journals and the authors.’

What distinguishes Harvard’s policy from other Open Access policies is that, although everyone is committed to making his or her article available on the repository, nonetheless each individual can choose not to make that article available by simply taking a waiver, which is automatically granted.

The approach means Harvard can be sensitive to individual needs – as Darnton says,’We’re not infringing on the liberty of authors to publish where they want to publish. That’s a very common misunderstanding.

‘What we think we’re doing at Harvard is combining two things: first of all, the collective power of the university to make Open Access possible. But secondly, the liberty of the individual to opt out whenever he or she wants. So it’s collective, but not coercive. That’s what is needed, I think, in other countries by way of explanation

in order to prevent misunderstandings, which are very common.’

Professor Darnton doesn’t claim to be an Open Access evangelist but he does feel passionate about the subject area. In Harvard’s journey for several of their faculties to adopt Open Access policies, there are obvious political challenges and culture changes that took time to talk through.

‘I think that many of us are passionately committed to Open Access. But we tried to be as rational as we possibly could, to make the discussion one where there was more light than heat.

‘The heat actually came from one quarter, for which I have a lot of sympathy. There are many small scholarly journals which are not for profit, although they do charge money, and they often communicate esoteric areas of knowledge to small sub-groups. So this is not the mass public by any means, but it’s a scattered public of specialists who care about, in my case, French publishing in the eighteenth century.

‘I think it’s passionately interesting, but the rest of

humanity couldn’t care less.’

‘I think it’s passionately interesting, but the rest of humanity couldn’t care less. So I belong to a group called the Société de Bibliophil de Grien, the Bibliophiles of Grien in Southern France and, well, there are not many of us who care about the old books in that part of France, typography, etc. There is a journal, it’s a lovely journal, but it has great difficulty surviving.

‘Now, people worry that this kind of journal could in fact find it impossible to sustain itself economically if articles are all going to be available free on the internet. ‘

One of the reasons, but not the principal reason, for Open Access is to free libraries and readers in general from the excessive pricing of publishers. ‘We think that Open Access can do this, first of all, by making the articles free, but secondly, by providing the impetus for changing the entire landscape of learning.

‘We argue, in other words, that it’s much cheaper for universities to subsidise authors to pay the expenses for their article to appear in a journal than it is for those same universities to buy the journals directly from these publishers that charge really exorbitant

prices. I could give you lots of examples of how much they charge, but just one, the journal Tetrahedron costs $30,439 for one year’s subscription. That’s the kind of problem we are facing. And so, Open Access is in part, but only in part, a reaction to that.’

Professor Darnton argues that that in five to ten years’ time it could be the case, but that this world does not exist at the moment.

‘It seems to me that small journals will do just fine because the whole environment surrounding them will be utterly different. They will have costs to cover and we at Harvard are now trying to deal with that in a new programme which involves subsidising authors to pay fees to journals. We want to turn the whole system around and have the finances run from the production end instead of the consumption end. It’s aimed at the skyrocketing costs of scholarly journals, which have inflicted terrible damage on the budgets of libraries everywhere in the world.’

He claims that there are several misunderstandings within this argument. Despite the opinions on Open Access creating a lively debate across researchers, librarians and publishers, Professor Darnton believes a pragmatic approach is needed from all parties. Darnton goes on to explain:

‘Publishers are enormously valuable and I do not see their value decreasing in the digital world that is now upon us. I feel that their role is crucial and that we have to work out a kind of symbiosis between the publishers and libraries and authors as we try to shake the new digital world.

‘The danger, as I see it, is that it will be commercialised, or over-commercialised. So I feel that a lot of cooperation is going to be necessary if we can make this new system of publication, which will coincide with the old print system, actually operate for the public good.

While Darnton passionately believes in the importance of publishers and publishing, he feels that we are witnessing a fascinating moment in time. ‘The world of publishers, in university presses and trade publishers, the world of libraries, of authors and of students – it’s all in movement, it’s all changing,’ he says. ‘And if we can just get it right now, I think we can make a tremendous difference for the next decades.’

7

Moving into a digital age for researchers

To listen to a podcast with Robert Darnton:

www.jisc.ac.uk/podcast91robertdarnton

Content / Digital resources

8

F rom teacups and tricycles to clocks and cola bottles, the images provide valuable visual evidence of the

ways in which design has been evaluated and promoted throughout this period, through the Design Council which is the UK’s national strategic body for design.

The project is part of JISC’s enriching digital resources programme which has invested just under £2 million to develop the range and quality of digital resources available to students and researchers in colleges and universities. The 25 projects in the programme are digitising collections and enhancing existing resources for use in learning, teaching and research.

JISC’s digitisation programme officer Ben Showers says: ‘JISC’s investment in enriching digital resources is a real commitment to preserving resources for the use of generations to come. The Visual

Arts Data Service is an exciting and hugely important collection of unique and valuable images, and the enhancement of the website will makes these resources even more accessible for teachers, researchers and students across the creative arts.’

The images show a wide variety of products including tableware, furniture, lighting, toys, domestic appliances, textiles, wallpapers, office equipment, engineering components and machinery, as well as other areas of design such as architecture, town planning, interior design, graphic design and corporate identity.

‘The collection … demonstrates the Design Council’s long track record of promoting the use of design to strengthen the UK’s

economy and improve society.’

‘The collection is an incredibly rich resource for anyone interested in design,’ says David Kester, chief executive of the Design Council. ‘In particular, it demonstrates the Design Council’s long track record of promoting the use of design to strengthen the UK’s economy and improve society.’

The collection also contains many unique images that record the Council’s own activities and initiatives, such as its annual award scheme and the exhibitions it organised or contributed to in the UK and abroad, including ‘Britain Can Make It’ and the ‘Festival of Britain’.

An illustrated online guide to the collection has also been launched to help researchers and students navigate the resource.

In a recently JISC survey…

73% feel that the use of digitised materials will be very important or essential to the future of their research.

Most respondents (60%) believe that digitisation is not adequately funded and 73% that more training is needed in using digital collections.

76% of respondents believe that new research questions will require the use of digitised resources.

From TIDSR global survey on the use of digitised resources 2009, across academics, students, non-academic researchers, librarians and administrators.

Available online at http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr/kb/27/tidsr-survey-use-digitised-resources

The slide collection was transferred to the Manchester Metropolitan University in 1995, and since then a series of digitisation projects has resulted in over 13,000 images (nearly two-thirds of the collection) being made available online through VADS.

Half a century of British design launched online

www.vads.ac.uk

Four thousand images from the Design Council slide collection launched this autumn with JISC support, providing a unique insight into the history of British design and its promotion by the UK government from the 1940s to the early 1990s.

How-to guide helps evaluate the impact of your digital resourcesA JISC toolkit to help analyse the impact of digitised resources is now online, allowing you to assess the effectiveness of your materials through a variety of practical techniques, tools, background information and software advice.

As the evaluation of online scholarship is a moving target, so the toolkit contains a flexible set of measures and best practices, not a single software solution. However, the impact-measuring tools have been tried and tested by the creators at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, who were funded by JISC to work on the toolkit for the impact of digitised scholarly resources (TIDSR) project.

The tools can help you explore issues such as: How do I increase traffic to my resources? Why should I use interviews to investigate the impact of my resources? How do I organise a focus group? What are bibliometrics and scientometrics, and how can they help with analysing impact?

Access the toolkit at http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr/welcome

‘Kiosk at the Festival of Britain South Bank exhibition, London, 1951.‘Bond Bug’ three-wheeler car made by the Reliant Motor Company in 1970.

Box office system for theatres, 1986 winner of a Design Council Award for computer software.

9

Recognition / Times Higher Awards

A commitment to promoting innovation and providing leadership in technology has led JISC to sponsor the inaugural Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards’ ‘Outstanding ICT Initiative’ category this year. Dr Malcolm Read, JISC’s executive secretary, said: ‘We are very proud to sponsor these awards to help showcase the innovative use of digital technology that is keeping the UK at the forefront of the world’s knowledge economy.’

D ermatologists from Cardiff University who broadcast live surgery to more than 30

countries were the winners of the prestigious award, which aimed to reward a project demonstrating exceptional talent in business and management at university level. The initiative means that surgical procedures can now be watched through webcams and podcast technology by undergraduate students on placement, registrars, distance-learning postgraduate doctors, and 3,000 members of the department’s web-based continuing professional development society across the world.

Dr Maria Gonzalez, reader in dermatology and course director at Cardiff University, said: ‘It’s great that JISC sees the value of promoting this work, which has an impact not only on the end user but also in disseminating new ideas. We didn’t have high expectations but winning the award has definitely raised our profile.’

Chris Cobb, JISC committee member and pro vice-chancellor at Roehampton University, explained that the broader implications of the project were a key factor in the judges’ decision to choose the Cardiff entry. He said: ‘The use of video-streaming and two-way audio has opened up surgical procedures and innovations to much wider

audiences. In particular, Cardiff’s support for teaching surgical practice in developing countries is highly commended.’

Dr Gonzalez explained that dermatology theatres are not the big rooms normally used for general surgery. She explained: ‘We can only squeeze in one or two extra registrars to observe the procedures going on in the theatres. We have 300 undergraduates but they never got in to see any of it. Thanks to this project, for the first time all 300 undergraduates can potentially see the surgery and talk to the surgeon at the same time.

‘One of the main benefits of our system is that learners are able to view specialised dermatological surgery performed in a centre of excellence. If similar benefits were to be seen in other universities, this type of system has the power to revolutionise how surgery is taught. The potential for knowledge transfer is immeasurable,’ she added.

The inaugural awards ceremony, hosted by Times Higher Education’s editor Ann Mroz and comedian Rory Bremner and with an opening address by David Willet MP, shadow secretary for universities and skills, saw over 900 people from across the sector come together to celebrate achievement in higher education.

Recognising innovation in technology

Dr Maria Gonzalez, course director at Cardiff University.

Webcam technology in the dermatology theatre.

Services / Regional Support Centres

10

Big solutions help further educationHow JISC’s regional support centres (RSCs) are providing grassroots technology support to lecturers, managers and students in colleges around the UK.

Scotland North and EastA computing lecturer wished to explore electronic ‘ask the audience’ style voting with his class. Friendly staff from RSC Scotland North and East demonstrated how free web services including Yahoo Pipes and Google Chart can provide this function, a solution now stimulating great interest in the uses of Twitter and in-class voting for teaching and learning.

NorthernA guitar tutor wanted to offer his adult students the opportunity to extend their learning beyond the timetabled classes. RSC Northern helped him develop a private social network on the internet so that learners could easily communicate, access resources, share ideas and contribute their own material after hours.

Yorkshire and HumberFishing industry courses in Whitby typically have high drop-out rates because students spend the first eight weeks on basic safety training before going out to sea. RSC Yorkshire and Humber stepped in to help Whitby and district fishing industry training school focus a funding bid for simulation equipment to give land-based students a taste of the high seas. Thanks to their guidance, the college was awarded a large learning innovation grant worth £158,000.

East MidlandsRSC East Midlands conducted an e-progress review for Tresham College. This acted as a catalyst for developing the role of the learning resource centre in promoting the use of e-learning resources. As a result, more staff time was

allocated to help raise awareness of the resources, and there are plans

to develop their range and access.

EasternA belly-dancing teacher had no mirrors available in her teaching studio.

RSC Eastern helped her to project live video footage of her students onto the wall in her studio, so that students could watch themselves in real time as they danced.

LondonA specialist performing arts college in London wanted to implement e-learning institution-wide. RSC London advised on how to adopt a virtual learning environment to help students who are out on placement to maintain contact, and on other solutions like electronic learning portfolios to record evidence of students’ progress.

South WestCornwall College is the UK’s largest further education provider, with seven campuses across the county. RSC South West has helped the college go green by assisting with staff development sessions through a virtual online meeting system, featuring integrated audio and embedded Powerpoint presentations. This system offers a more economical and efficient and ultimately greener way of communicating.

South EastThe arrival of Barracuda was welcome at Chichester College as they looked for new ways to engage staff with e-learning. The multi-purpose CD published by RSC South East comprises a vast range of e-learning resources, exemplars, ideas and information. The college found a successful recipe for staff inset days combining the Barracuda resources with an informal café-style approach.

West MidlandsSenior managers at a West Midlands college called on their RSC for help choosing mobile learning devices, following a successful bid for capital funding. RSC West Midlands gave practical equipment demonstrations and explained the benefits of each device, enabling the college to choose the best tools for their students.

WalesProviding guidance to colleges on merging and collaborating is a priority in Wales, Ireland and Scotland. RSC Wales funded managers from Swansea and Gorseinon colleges (which are soon to merge) to visit Belfast Metropolitan College as part of the ‘Celtic Camel’ initiative. They experienced first hand the impact of college mergers on learning resource services, helping them to make better-informed plans for their merger.

Northern IrelandHow can lecturers understand and develop their use of e-learning? ‘Planning for effective learning’ is RSC Northern Ireland’s well-received workshop approach to assist lecturers when focusing on their interaction with students, the learning process and the human element of teaching and learning.

North WestHow can prisoners use technology for learning? Over the last year, RSC Northwest has been working with the Manchester College to answer this question, and find out which issues particular to prisons can impact on how learning technologies are offered. The results of the ‘Building on e-Guides’ project will be used to inform technology choices for offender learning and skills across the UK.

Scotland South and WestA world of technology for students with physical difficulties was opened up to a Lanarkshire college after RSC Scotland South and West gave training to staff. Rather than lecturers prescribing solutions, the college invited students to try the applications themselves, resulting, for example, in an acting student now using text-to-speech software to learn lines through her MP3 player.

www.jisc.ac.uk/rsc

11

F or 12 months, in the world’s largest e-books study, over 50,000 learners in the UK had

their online movements, behaviours and attitudes examined as part of JISC’s national e-books observatory project.

The project was set up to undertake essential market research on e-book user behaviour and to examine what impact ‘free at the point of use’ access to course text e-books via the university library has on traditional print sales. Course text e-books in medicine, media studies, business and management studies and engineering were made available and 127 universities participated in the project.

Caren Milloy, project manager at JISC Collections, ran the project in partnership with CIBER at University College London. ‘The work was launched in response to librarians wanting to provide equity of access to books in their short loan collection. Librarians and academics often receive complaints from students when the titles they need for their studies are not available.

‘Providing electronic access is a way to relieve dissatisfaction and to ensure equity of access but the titles are not always available as publishers are wary of cannibalising their print sales.

‘…understandably there is a concern that if course

text e-books are made freely available through the library, students will not purchase the print.’

‘Currently, UK publishers receive over £200 million revenue from course texts sold direct to students and understandably there is a concern that if course text e-books are made freely available through the library, students will not purchase the print. Therefore a key driver behind the project is to gather empirical evidence about users’ e-book behaviours to inform the development of e-book business models that are sustainable both for libraries and publishers.

‘The findings of the project show that course text e-books are not a replacement for the printed texts but act as a safety valve for librarians at those times of

peak demand for their short loan titles. In addition, the print sales analysis undertaken by CIBER suggests that there are no short term indications that ‘free at the point of use’ impacts negatively on print sales to students. Currently course text e-books are supplementary to print. This is a positive message for publishers.’

In June this year, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, USA, made a speech to launch a new digital textbook initiative. He shared his view that he believes the printed textbook is ‘expensive, outdated, antiquated and heavy’.

Caren added, ‘In the UK this project provides us with real data that we can use to champion the development of course text e-books in line with user needs and behaviours. We are continuing to work with publishers, e-books aggregators and librarians to test the idea of print and electronic co-existing by trialling a range of business models over the new academic year.’

JISC through JISC Collections is not only supporting universities in finding possible solutions to the demands of short-loan collections and working with publishers to find business models for e-textbooks but it is also investing alongside the LSC (Learning Skills Council) in over 3000 e-book titles for UK colleges.

Anna Vernon at JISC Collections has spearheaded the project to bring

e-textbooks to colleges across the UK for the first time. ‘The work JISC funded to look into the use of e-books for universities showed a real demand and benefit for librarians, staff and students. The work we have done for colleges in the UK has opened up over 3000 e-books in subjects as diverse as fashion design,

software engineering, heath and social care, automobile electronics, beauty therapy and practical lambing.’

‘The work JISC funded to look into the use of e-books

for universities showed a real demand and benefit for

librarians, staff and students.’

e-Books for UK educationStudy / eBooks

Imagine taking part in a Big Brother experiment, but it’s not your mannerisms, social skills or dress sense that are being observed, but how you use an electronic course text as part of your university studies.

e-books for FE project: http://fe.jiscebooksproject.org/

JISC national e-books observatory project report and discussions around the report’s findings:

www.jiscebooksproject.org

To listen to a podcast with Caren Milloy, Senior Collections Manager:

www.jisc.ac.uk/podcast87ebooks

JANET now has more than 18 million UK users including research institutes, universities, further education colleges and primary and secondary schools.

25 years of JANETJANET is the UK education and research community’s world class computer network. 25 years on, it’s time to see how the infrastructure has changed to meet the needs of universities and colleges while saving the sector millions of pounds every year.

www.janet.ac.uk

View an interactive version of this timeline:

www.jisc.ac.uk/inform

1973

The first Wells Report looks at the future potential of networking in higher education, and recommends a national computer network linked through Post Offices which connect to universities and Research Councils.

1973

1979

Network Unit recommends creation of the Joint Network Team (JNT) of the Computer Board, a full-time body to formulate and supervise all network development.

2002

Adult and community learning organisations connect to JANET.

1984

April: JANET allows researchers and academics in 60 universities and research councils to access high speed internet connections and a national research network for the first time.

1992

Video conferencing is launched, saving the sector money as well as greatly improving the quality and reliability of conferences. In 2008-09 alone, 32,295 videoconferences were facilitated by JANET.

1997

Further education colleges in England and Wales begin to connect to JANET.

2009

April: JANET becomes the first national research and education network in the world to complete a 100Gbit/s network trial.

Netsight, JANET’s traffic monitoring system, is upgraded, showing the current and past performance of the network.

July: JANET txt is extended to allow users to exchange images, audio and video through a multimedia messaging service

JANET video conferencing recording service is launched.

1994

The United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association (UKERNA) takes over responsibility for JANET.

2001

SuperJANET4 moves to a 10 gigabites per second (gBit/s) infrastructure following £50m investment.

JANET links to other European and worldwide networks through the GEANT connection.

1991

Polytechnics and further education colleges start to link to JANET.

2003

English schools begin to link up via JANET.

2004

JANET teams up with the BBC to stream the Olympic Games live from Athens.

2007

Students at Kingston University and College use JANET txt for registration by texting a unique lesson code to a dedicated number at the start of each seminar. David Robinson, head of learning information services, says: “Text messaging has succeeded in transferring a bureaucratic burden from teachers to machines.”

2006

JANET Roaming allows teachers and learners from universities and colleges to log on to the JANET network anywhere using their own username and password, without the need for a guest account.

2007

SuperJANET5 provides a 10Gbit backbone to the network and UKERNA becomes JANET(UK).

Students and researches from the universities of Liverpool, Edinburgh and the LSE establish a secure connection to their own organisation when they are visiting the other campuses using a wireless infrastructure provided by JANET.

May: JANET txt allows all connected organisations to send and receive text messages to and from relevant groups and individuals. 1 million texts are sent within the year.

October: Astronomers in Cambridge help to create a single telescope as large as Europe by working with colleagues in Italy and Poland through JANET’s link to the GEANT2 network.

November: JANET Lightpath supports institutions who need a specialised network in isolation from other JANET traffic, such as those working on large scale data storage centres and facilities like particle accelerators and radio telescopes.

2008

September: UK academics helping with the Big Bang recreation project at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland receive data routed over JANET as part of the global collaboration.

2008

December: British troops in Basrah, Iraq, wish their children and families a ‘Merry Christmas’ during a JANET video conference at a military school in Fallingbostel, Germany. One of the soldiers said: ‘I thought it was awesome, and I wish it could be done more often. From everyone at the Military Service Desk at Basrah, thank you JANET.’

2008

January: JANET wins the shared services category of the eGovernment awards, followed in April 2008 by a government computing award for innovation.

February: JANET Aurora, a dark fibre network, is launched to support research into generating and controlling photons and optical systems at five UK universities.

September–December: Core network capacity upgrades to 40Gbit/s.

1993

SuperJANET goes live – the fastest network of its kind in the world – and continues to be funded by the newly-renamed JISC.

Services / JANET (UK)

1312

2004

Buckinghamshire County Council pioneers an adult learning initiative through JANET. The system uses laptops, smart cards and a managed learning environment to take learning to the learners.

1979

1984

1991

1992

1993

1994

1997

2001

2002

2003

2006

2008

2007

2009

e-Research / Cloud computing

1514

Cost effective solutionsAs cloud computing can be a way of outsourcing services that universities and colleges are currently providing, universities and colleges only pay for what they use. The institutions could save money because they only use the service for a short time – for example, admissions software – or because the service is too large for one institution to justify purchasing.

JISC has funded the development of a kind of decoder that allows different institutions to run the same e-learning software over the cloud via Amazon’s web services.

Wilbert Kraan says: ‘This “content transcoder” is one example, but many other services are conceivable whose running costs or investment risk can’t be justified by known demand within one college, but would work “web-wide”.’

’The cloud is going to unleash a hurricane of applications soon.’

David Flanders, JISC rapid innovation programme manager, predicts: ‘The cloud is going to unleash a hurricane of applications soon. But once it all settles down the cloud will become like a business model that has been missing from our “data portfolios” so that instead of buying all the resources, such as data storage, we can now also rent them from the cloud.’

ICT managers could also potentially find themselves buying less physical hardware because multiple virtual servers can run on one physical server.

The question of securityBut it’s not all blue skies for the cloud. ‘Moving significant chunks of an institution’s IT systems to third parties can enable a lot of flexibility and efficiency, but also has consequences in a number of areas that require some thought,’ advises Wilbert. JISC’s survey shows that security and legal issues are of particular concern to educational institutions.

It’s fair to say that security needs differ. Anonymised medical data is more appropriately stored on a grid facility like the National Grid Service or within an institution’s repository, while photographs of a field trip might be stored on the cloud to allow students to share and search.

The private cloud model offers the most control to institutions concerned for the reliability and security of their connections. But issues of governance, availability, performance, data lock-in, confidentiality and security need to be addressed before universities and colleges are likely to feel comfortable embracing the cloud and entrusting it with all but low-risk, commodity services.

How can JISC help?In this spirit of enquiry, JISC is funding a number of projects to investigate how the cloud can best be used for better learning, teaching and research in further and higher education. Two invitations to tender have recently closed, signalling the beginning of a review of how the cloud could be one of a range of tools available to researchers.

James Farnhill explains: ‘We want to help enable institutions to provide researchers with the infrastructure they need, to allow them to do better quality

research and find new avenues for investigation. These two invitations to tender will help in assessing the potential of cloud and how it can complement infrastructure, such as the grid, that is already in place.’

Looking ahead, JISC will ascertain whether student enthusiasm for open, collaborative and participatory Web 2.0 activities can be used to achieve institutional goals through a project entitled ‘Promoting Student Web 2.0 Contributions with Lightweight Enterprise RSS’. The JISC-funded ‘Building Research and Innovation Networks’ project brings together virtual research environments, Web 2.0 and cloud techniques to support the academic.

The new computing model may not take us to cloud nine, but looking beyond the horizon may provide a different perspective on issues currently being faced in UK universities and colleges.

A mid this uncertainty, JISC is stepping forward to examine how it can help institutions

navigate the options available to them. Two recent invitations to tender are investigating the potential of the cloud and its limitations, while a number of JISC-funded projects are making use of cloud technologies to open up new opportunities for universities and colleges.

What is cloud computing?The term ‘cloud computing’ means different things to different people, but Wilbert Kraan, assistant director at the University of Bolton, says the term describes ‘computing capability that is delivered as a service over the internet’.

In fact, cloud computing is not one model, but three:

■■ The public cloud offers services over an internet connection, like webmail

■■ A private cloud is set up inside the firewall and managed by the user organisation, such as the one utilised by the Japanese government

■■ The hybrid model is a combination of the two.Educational managers can choose to

outsource services to the public cloud, or they could set up virtual servers in-house and host their own private cloud. The private and hybrid cloud solution ‘Eucalyptus’ which allows institutions to create their own cloud is currently under the spotlight in a National Grid Service investigation.

There’s already a ‘buzz’ surrounding cloud computing. James Farnhill, JISC e-research programme manager, says: ‘Many people are already using

the cloud without even realising it and they have found their own ways of integrating useful cloud-based services into what they do every day.’

Internet calendars, instant chat, webmail and sharing documents through the web, via applications such as Google Docs, all make use of the cloud. But this is only scratching the surface of what universities and colleges could do to revolutionise the facilities available to learners, teachers and researchers.

Martin Bellamy, the government’s new cloud implementation officer, says: ‘Cloud computing has the potential to become the dominant model for how we deliver information-based services for years to come. Organisations in both the public and private sectors should be asking how we can leverage the opportunities opened up by this exciting new delivery model.’

What are the possibilities?The cloud could be used to complement universities and colleges’ email, data storage and software solutions.

■■ A researcher could choose to collaborate with others through a cloud-based email provider, while using their university address for communication from the university

■■ Concern for the capacity of existing data centres has led JANET(UK), providers of the JANET education and research network to investigate cloud data storage solutions as part of an ongoing strategy

■■ Currently JISC’s rapid innovation programme is creating more than a dozen different software tools with the cloud in mind. For example, the

JISC-funded MathAssess project allows institutions to make use of a specialised test service from a virtual learning environment hosted on the cloud

The green debateThe potential for the cloud to reduce both the energy needed to run institutional data centres and the CO2 they produce is of interest to JISC’s greening ICT programme. Rob Bristow, the programme manager, explains: ‘Using the cloud you can move computing effort out of what are, in many cases, inefficient local data centres in universities to facilities where you can take advantage of economies of scale. The ability to shift computing load dynamically to take advantage of free cooling, means the institution doesn’t have to use mechanical chilling.

‘These factors could make the cloud a really good candidate

for helping to lower the sector’s carbon footprint…’

‘These factors could make the cloud a really good candidate for helping to lower the sector’s carbon footprint,’ he concludes.

It’s still early days to make claims for the green credentials of cloud computing. Development director for organisation and user innovation at JISC Craig Wentworth says: ‘Economies of scale may bring efficiencies to bear that individual service users couldn’t hope to achieve with their own facilities – but the true total environmental costs of cloud installations requires more investigation.’

Discover how JISC is investigating cloud computing through the invitations to tender:

www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities

Understand more about outsourcing email and data storage through JISC’s briefing papers:

www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/bpoutsourcingv1

Explore cloud computing in the context of future technology in the horizon report from the Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards (CETIS)

http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009

Get involved in the Transcoder trial: http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Get_

Involved_with_Transcoder

www.jisc.ac.uk/inform

JANET (UK) continues to develop the network and its applications to make sure that it meets the needs of learners, teachers and researchers – especially as more schools and further education colleges are using the network. The network must remain resilient, scalable and sustainable.

Learning and teachingUsing mobile wireless technology, JANET is looking at offering 3G data services which will provide anyplace, anywhere network access for both learners and teachers. Video conferencing provision is being reviewed with plans for enhanced picture and sound quality. JANET (UK) will also continue to work on streaming student orientated television to the community.

ResearchJANET is responding to calls from the research community for a national wireless experimental platform or ‘testbed’ based on a dedicated wireless spectrum. Optical technology will become part of the solution for helping researchers collaborate via a dedicated network, and lightpath provision could help colleagues in

different countries work together connecting through international networks like GEANT. Increasing use of the network, and of media rich applications such as video, high-speed internet and real-time imaging, means more capacity is required; it is envisaged that the JANET core will require a 100Gbit/s connection by 2012.

What’s next for JANET?

JANET (UK) headquarters at the Harwell science and innovation campus, in Didcot.

A quarter of IT and network services managers in UK colleges and universities are aware of cloud computing being used for outsourcing. But few of these institutions provide guidance to their staff and students on the use of cloud computing, according to a recent JISC survey.

Content / IPR

16

Know your rights: intellectual property and technology

As digital technologies allow people to be not only content providers but also content creators online, the issues arising around permissions and ownership of online resources are increasing. Naomi Korn, JISC’s intellectual property consultant, shares her advice on some of the most commonly asked questions.

Lecturer

I am uploading a student-made video featuring students and other performers on to our college website. Whose

permission do I need?

Make sure you get permission from the students who have made the video, any students appearing in the video as well as any other performers. You will also need to ensure that permission has been sought to use any other material that may be included, such as music, images and film. In the case of music, distributing it online will require additional licences from music collecting societies such as PRS for Music.

Library manager

I want to create an online forum for students and staff to comment on library services, specific exhibitions and

activities. How can I make sure that people don’t abuse the system?

User generated content can carry legal risks including those of obscenity, incitement to racial hatred and breach of privacy. It will also be important to get permission to reuse any content that users post. Post a ‘Terms and Conditions of Service’ which users need to consent to before submitting comments. Instigate either a moderation policy or take down procedures to mitigate any risks.

Learning technologist

I am recording staff at my institution for a series of podcasts which will be embedded into learning resources

and available online. What can I do to protect our rights and those of the staff featured?

Staff will need to give their consent prior to being recorded. Making it easy for users of the resources to understand how they can use them, including the podcasts, will help to protect your rights. The best way to do this is via a licence, such as a Creative Commons licence, or terms and conditions.

17

J ISC has developed a series of tools giving advice and guidance to

help with IPR queries, such as ‘where do you stand when the owner of the works you would like to use is unknown?’, and how to gain permissions to reuse and repurpose information.

■■ JISC Collections CASPER Project for copyright advice for JISC e-learning resources: http://jisc-casper.org

■■ JISC Creative Commons briefing paper: www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/bpcreativecommons

■■ JISC Digital Media for how to use digital media in higher and further education: www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk

■■ JISC Legal for legal advice on ICT use in education and research, including IPR: www.jisclegal.ac.uk

■■ OSS Watch for advice and guidance on the use, development and licensing of free and open source software: www.oss-watch.ac.uk

■■ Strategic Content Alliance IPR and Licensing Toolkit for public sector bodies which can be customised and adapted to suit you: http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/ipr-publications

■■ Web2Rights project for IPR and other legal issues toolkits, plus an animation about Web 2.0 and IPR issues for teachers, learners and researchers: www.web2rights.org.uk

What are intellectual property rights?Intellectual property rights cover things created by the human mind, both artistic and commercial.

The main intellectual property rights are:

■■ Copyright

■■ Patents

■■ Trade marks

■■ Design rights

■■ Protection from passing off (a similar type to trade marks, based on the idea that one party should not be able to take advantage of the reputation and goodwill of another)

■■ Protection of confidential information

The collaborative nature of Web 2.0 and the likelihood of multiple contributors from different countries has resulted in the shifting of risks and blurring of who owns copyright and who is responsible for dealing with infringements.

Librarian

I am creating an online archive of documentary photographs. Some of the older photographs will no longer be in

copyright because they are too old, however, but many of them will still be protected. Where do I start?

Seek permission from rights holders before any works are placed online. Start by separating out the photos which are still in copyright from those which aren’t. You may find photos for which you’re not sure, and others for which the rights holders are unknown or cannot be traced (‘orphan works’). You will need to decide on the measures that you put in place to deal with orphan works. For works which are still in copyright and rights holders are identifiable and traceable, you can adapt and customise template permission forms which can be downloaded from the Web2Rights toolkit (see below).

Information services manager

I have commissioned a software company to create a bespoke piece of technology for online learning. How can I keep the rights?

Make sure at the point of commissioning that you ensure any new Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in the technology that is generated is either assigned to your organisation, or your organisation is granted an exclusive licence in perpetuity to use the technology as it needs. Ensure that in the development of the technology, the software company takes full responsibility for seeking permission to use third party rights. If this is not done, in using the new technology, your organisation may risk infringing IPR.

Student

I’ve found some images on the web that I want to use to create a resource, and then store through my institution. How can I

find the rights holders?

■■ Take a closer look at the images, particularly for identification marks of the creator.

■■ Search on the internet, including online databases such as The WATCH file [Writers, Artists and Their Copyright Holders] http://tyler.hrc.utexas.edu

■■ Contact commercial image providers, such as picture libraries and stock photography suppliers

■■ Liaise with the owners of other works by the same creator, such as other museums, libraries and archives

■■ Work with family history societies and genealogical groups

■■ Advertise in the relevant trade journals

Debate / Research sharing

18

I t is widely known that the private effort in sequencing the human genome was criticised

for trying to withhold information. It was in the interests of the private companies financing the project to retain some means of making money by patenting the human genome. But the scientific community stood up to the giant corporations and demanded that the data be shared openly and freely. It meant so much to everyone that keeping it hidden would have irreversibly damaged the biological sciences community.

’Even the tiniest fragment of data, which may have

been overlooked, can result in a novel discovery

or the debunking of a scientific method.’

Your data, my data, everyone’s data is important to the entire scientific community. The angry voices cannot be directed solely at a handful of companies; they are directed at everyone who owns data. What you hold on your desktop, memory stick, or CDs may be important to you, but it is even more important to the scientific community. Even the tiniest fragment of data, which may have been overlooked, can result in a novel discovery or

the debunking of a scientific method.I often think that the scientific

community has become something not dissimilar to the Lord of the Rings character Gollum with his precious ring, wanting to retain an item of such importance to oneself, that the consequences to the rest are often overlooked.

‘Without this freely available data I would not be able to conduct my research

effectively, nor would I be able to compare my results with any other datasets or publications.’

I am a bioinformatician, without access to a biology lab or samples. Young academics like me depend on Open Access data. Thankfully, I do have access to data that has kindly been shared in the scientific community, allowing me to use it for my own research needs. Without this freely available data I would not be able to conduct my research effectively, nor would I be able to compare my results with any other datasets or publications. The biggest problem I would face, however, is that I would not be able to expand upon what is already known. In computer science, software that falls under the many open source licences and banners is typically free for all to see, modify, and contribute to. This should also be the case with data within the remaining sciences.

Why would a researcher want to share their data? For my own personal gain, I want collaborations, papers, and money to carry out my own research. If I want to work with other departments or individuals of specific expertise, I should at least be willing to let them see my data. Similarly, I should also be able to see theirs, with the hope that something of mutual benefit can be extracted. If I want to publish, I must deposit my data into the main data banks. As financial support for research continues, funding bodies often require this to happen. In return, the price of repeating data analyses does not require money to be pumped into re-generating

data from scratch. This sounds like a win-win situation – more open data, and more money for conducting novel research. Not if we withhold our data.

Recent years have seen a number of tools and databanks being developed purely for the sharing of experimental data. I’ve mentioned the deposition of data into the major sequence and gene expression databases. Websites like myExperiment provide a means of publishing experimental data and cater for the scientists who want something in return: credit, attribution, community support, and references. A recent Nature News article, however, noted that a number of these online data archives remain close to empty. If we are to make leaps and bounds in scientific research, we must start to deposit our data in these repositories, mine it efficiently and effectively; and stop being hung up on personal over community gains.

Debate: Should rese archers share data?YES

The truth about sharing in the humanities

63% of academics do not currently collaborate with others on

research projects.

49% of academics were the sole researcher in their largest project,

with 30% collaborating with between one and four colleagues.

65% had collaborated with someone inside their department or outside

their institution in the last five years. 28% had collaborated with undergraduates.

Among those who collaborate, email, websites and listservs were found to be the most essential tools. Social networking tools, virtual research environments and groupware are used by less than half the respondents.

Figures from the usage and impact study of JISC-funded digitisation projects, July 2009. The study surveyed 550 humanities scholars from across UK higher education.

19

H ow does a researcher prove themselves as an academic? Within university departments there are

always a number of people at the same level; it is in the department’s interests to employ young competitive staff all working hard to prove themselves. These fledgling academics are judged on their outputs. In the scientific world, these are initially data, graphs, images and ideas, with research papers and conclusions following second.

‘…it is the name on the paper which has the most currency,

and which researchers are working towards.’

Data is the rock on which papers are built; it is by analysing this that a researcher shows their expertise by justifying theories and explaining iterations. But it is the name on the paper which has the most currency, and which researchers are working towards. You may have good ideas, but it is your name on that paper which proves it.

There is a fine line between sharing and collaborating, and funders are keen on collaborative grant proposals to make their money go further. In my physics department we’ve also had collaborations with commercial companies – in this case there’s less competition and the project worked well. Working towards a common goal feeds a drive to distribute data. But

science is different to arts and humanities research in that it feeds industry: the market for commercial information and the need to protect intellectual property lend a financial consideration to keeping data secret within the project.

’…given that data is normally collected under a specific set of conditions, not only

are the global standards for sharing data not in place to

make this feasible, but I would question the relevance to other researchers of figures gleaned

in my own laboratory…’

But sharing is concerned with giving your own hard-won data to another person without expecting anything in return. If you are never going to use it in your research, or are employing it for different purposes, sharing might be an acceptable way to gain specialised expertise, a different angle on your research. But given that data is normally collected under a specific set of conditions, not only are the global standards for sharing data not in place to make this feasible, but I would question the relevance to other researchers of figures gleaned in my own laboratory, with a specific hypothesis in mind. Some data simply isn’t transferable. No doubt the increasing sophistication of technology which allows researchers to conduct computer aided experiments in quicker times will begin to negate the need to look outside their own laboratory for raw data.

’Once data’s been shared, there’s nothing to stop the

recipient from taking the data and publishing those figures.’

Once data’s been shared, there’s nothing to stop the recipient from taking the data and publishing those figures. If I found some amazing results, I wouldn’t

want to let the whole world know about them – I want to get the most from them so that I can push the data to its limits for my own purposes and this applies especially to the purer forms of science.

If data was shared through a social networking style site, and all outputs travelled outside the department immediately, there would also be less impetus to finish work on time. Project leaders therefore seek to ascertain control of data to retain control of the project processes and schedule.

At the end of the day a researcher is not going to be a successful academic if they give up the rights to all their data through sharing. Reputation is everything, meaning that all too often academic staff refrain from sharing data even with colleagues in their own departments. If we want people to share their data more openly, then we will have to find different ways to measure career success and track it in ways other than the authorship of papers dependent on original data.

Debate: Should rese archers share data? NO

YES: Paul Fisher is working towards a PhD in bioinformatics at the University of Manchester. For more information on myExperiment, go to www.myexperiment.org

NO: Dr James Vicary is a research associate in nanophysics at the University of Bristol.

People / Guy Lambert

20

G uy Lambert is no stranger to change. Recent head of a Foreign Commonwealth Office transition

programme, he has a passion for using technology to make things happen.

Institution-wide cost savings, enhancements to learning and teaching, improved administration: these can all come about through effective use of technology, Guy believes.

Now he is at the helm of JISC Advance, leading eight of JISC’s established services help institutions help themselves to get ahead through ICT.

JISC Advance will coordinate JISC Digital Media, JISC infoNet, JISC Legal, JISCMail, JISC Netskills, JISC Procureweb, JISC TechDis and the JISC Regional Support Centres.

Guy believes that bringing the services together will have an impact on those using them in universities, colleges and the skills sector by providing a one stop shop for everything from advice on using digital media, to designing email lists for an institution’s marketing.

He explains: ‘One of the first priorities for JISC Advance and the team of service managers is to talk to educational organisations, as well as individual universities and colleges, to better understand their needs. There will also be scope for looking at any gaps in the support offered. I want to focus these complementary services in a way that means people out there can understand the full breadth of services JISC can deliver, and that the services we offer actually address the things that they need help with.’

Guy, who joined JISC in January 2009, is already enjoying the role, admitting that the ‘quality and attitude of the people who work in the services makes the day-to-day particularly rewarding’. He added: ‘All of the services are extremely well-respected for what they do at the moment and are doing an exceptional job. The feedback we’ve received from people using the services is excellent.’

Guy’s professional background is all about technology – first of all, back in the days of mainframes for bulk data processing, he worked for a mainframe manufacturer, and then latterly with a services company where he dealt with outsourcing and

systems integration and other services. Educated at Sedbergh School and later the University of East London, Guy worked for more than 25 years within the ICT services industry for Honeywell, Bull and Steria at UK board level.

’I’ve seen how parts of the public sector have used ICT to improve, in particular, their

business operations and I know that JISC Advance can bring

similar benefits to education.’

Guy’s experience in providing software development, integration, managed services and consultancy to clients is already proving invaluable. He explains his vision: ‘I’ve seen how parts of the public sector have used ICT to improve, in particular, their business operations and I know that JISC Advance can help education derive similar benefits.’

But Guy admits that it’s no easy task. Between the regional support centres and the advisory services, there are twenty different institutions involved in delivering the services that now fall under JISC Advance. He said: ‘These organisations are geographically spread. I aim, personally, to try and help them to cohere and provide a joined-up service.’

In a year’s time, Guy aims for JISC Advance to be a familiar name across UK further and higher education. ‘By engaging more and more with clients in universities and colleges, I hope that we’ll be able to demonstrate that we’re being very responsive to what it is they need done, and that there is more to JISC Advance than the sum of the advisory services and the RSCs,’ he concluded.

What do they do?JISC Advance coordinates the following services:

■■ JISC Digital Media – provides advice and guidance on the practical use of ICT in higher and further education www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk

■■ JISC infoNet – advises educational managers on effective strategic planning, implementation and management of information and learning technology www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk

■■ JISC Legal – legal guidance for ICT use in education www.jisclegal.ac.uk

■■ JISCMail – the national academic mailing list service www.jiscmail.ac.uk

■■ JISC Netskills – helps organisations make the most of web technology www.netskills.ac.uk

■■ JISC Procureweb – gives information and support to anyone involved in the procurement process www.procureweb.ac.uk

■■ JISC TechDis – aims to enhance access for those with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, to learning and teaching, research and administration www.techdis.ac.uk

■■ JISC Regional Support Centres UK – hands-on support in the use of technology for further education colleges, based in their own institutions. See page 10 for more information. www.jisc.ac.uk/rsc

Guy Lambert

www.jiscadvance.ac.uk

JISC Advance interview with Guy LambertAs managing director of JISC Advance, Guy Lambert explains his vision for the new JISC service management company.

To listen to the full interview, visit Inform Plus:

www.jisc.ac.uk/inform

21

T he logbooks are being digitised as part of a JISC project which will use these records for research

into climate change. Scientists at the University of Sunderland, the Met Office Hadley Centre and the British Atmospheric Data Centre are examining logbooks from famous voyages including the Beagle, Cook’s expedition in HMS Discovery and Parry’s polar exploration in HMS Hecla.

’if you’re interested in genealogy, and your granddad

claimed one of your family served with Captain Cook, you can go online and look at the muster roll and find out for

sure in a matter of minutes.’

Team leader Dr Dennis Wheeler from the University of Sunderland said: ‘This has never, ever been available before. It is a fantastic resource for teachers, historians, and the general public. There are even crew lists, so if you’re interested in genealogy, and your granddad claimed one of your family served with Captain Cook, you can go online and look at the muster roll and find out for sure in a matter of minutes. It’s free, you don’t have to register, you don’t have to enrol, and everyone can use it free of charge.’

But as Dr Wheeler explained, as fascinating as the data is, it has more than just curiosity value – this data has an impact on how we predict future weather patterns.

He said: ‘What this data does is to provide us with tools with which we can test modern computer simulations. We can ask – what do you think the weather was like on 1 October

1800? – and then we can look at these logbooks and find out. So we can fine tune and adjust the models, and then send the simulations forward through time.

‘What happens in the oceans controls what happens in the atmosphere – so we absolutely need to comprehend the oceans to understand future weather patterns,’ he added.

The UK Colonial Registers and Royal Navy Logbooks (CORRAL) project has digitised around 35,000 pages from ships’ logbooks dating back to the 1760s in order that the weather information they contain can be used to reconstruct early nineteenth century climate for the first time.

The project is one of 25 in JISC’s digitisation programme, which has invested £1.8 million in developing the range and quality of digital resources available to students and researchers in colleges and universities. The programme

is digitising collections and enhancing existing resources for use in learning, teaching and research.

Ben Showers, JISC digitisation programme officer, said: ‘There is a lack of high-quality digital material for those studying historic weather data. By making these logbooks and lighthouse records available online, from the National Archives and the Met Office respectively, JISC aims to help researchers address the challenges of

climate change and open up this historic resource to everyone via the website.’

Oliver Morley, director of customer and business development at the National Archives, agrees: ‘The logbooks have long been of interest to historians and naval enthusiasts but it’s wonderful that they are now being used for scientific research. It’s a great example of how archival information created for one purpose can be reused for something entirely different’.

Ships’ logbooks are the main resource used to monitor the climate in the oceans; the other is ship surgeons’ logbooks. Officers on these ships kept careful records of the daily, and sometimes hourly, weather conditions, so modern researchers are increasingly able to find out what the weather was like over much of the world on each day, back into the Little Ice Age.

Dr Wheeler won the Royal Meteorological Society’s 2009 Jehudi Neumann prize for his international reputation in historical climate research. He explained why the data is so precious: ‘The observations from the logbooks on wind force and weather are astonishingly good and often better than modern logbooks. Of course the sailors had to be conscientious – the thought that you could hit a reef was a great incentive to get your observations absolutely right!’

A fully searchable version of the logbooks will be available on the National Archives’ website in 2010.

JISC is also involved in putting Charles Darwin’s annotated library online. For more information, see page 4.

From the Beagle to the Bounty

Content / Logbooks

How did Captain Bligh explain his part in the mutiny on the Bounty? Or how did Captain Cook feel when he discovered Australia? For the first time JISC funding has allowed historical ships’ logbooks to be made available online to the general public – giving a unique insight into the history of exploration, written by the explorers themselves. Dr Dennis Wheeler, team leader, in Sunderland.

Logbook for HMS Beagle.

www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/enrichingdigi

CORRAL project website: www.corral.org.uk See the logbook images: http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/corral

To hear Dr Dennis Wheeler talk about the project:

www.jisc.ac.uk/podcast90denniswheeler

meeting with key stakeholders from the university mission groups and from other key stakeholder groups, in further as well as higher education. The second priority is the appropriate allocation of resources in order to deliver on the key strategic objectives at a time when, as we’re all well aware, finances are going to be quite tight.

What else should be on the committee’s agenda?I think we need, as part of the join-up process, to be very clear about how JISC markets itself, in the sense of identifying what the markets are, what products they want, what we have got to offer them, and what’s the best match between the two. And I think that is something where we need to do a lot more. It’s about join up.

What will the committees be funding?There’s always a tension between what you’re currently providing, in terms of services, content, infrastructure, and what needs to be provided in the future. The really difficult decision is how much you invest in research and development (R&D), which may or may not come to fruition. And it seems to me that there has to be a baseline amount that you shouldn’t fall below in terms of R&D work. The other thing that JISC needs, as always, to focus on is services that are going to be of real benefit to the community, but perhaps with particular emphasis on those services, content, and infrastructure that wouldn’t exist if JISC didn’t provide them.

What difference will JISC be making to universities and colleges in the future?We’ll be doing a number of things. One will be ensuring that higher education, learning, teaching, and research, is done in the most innovative, exciting and high quality way. That has to be very much geared towards ensuring that the UK higher education system maintains its world-class role. We’ve got to make sure we’re still pretty near the top of the premier division. And the other thing I think, if we get it right, is that we allow universities to do more for less.

How will this help students?We are making sure that we really allow students to make the most of the technology in ways that will most benefit them, but are most akin to what

they’re doing anyway – so, starting from where they are, rather than we are, or where we want them to be.

What are you most looking forward to about your role?All of it! I’m looking forward to working with some fantastic colleagues. I think we’ve already built up a real spirit within the Chairs Committee. We’re all very committed to the organisation and think it has a great role to play. The second point is helping to finalise and then begin to implement the next strategy, which is going to be challenging but exciting, in the sense that technology moves on and who knows what’s over the horizon.

What will be challenging?It will be challenging in the sense of financial constraints. But I think that may make solutions ever more inventive. There are going to be some difficult decisions to take in terms of JISC’s priorities. For me, that has to be about consulting with the key stakeholders and finding out how much they value JISC, but also what they want of it, which isn’t necessarily what they’ve had in the past.

How does your international experience help you contribute to JISC’s work?Well, I’d like to think that it gives me a number of things. One, I’ve been Principal of a university college which has been heavily involved internationally. So I have some idea of what institutions want from an organisation like JISC in terms of international markets. Secondly, I’ve seen things from the other side of the counter in South East Asia, in Europe, in Africa, and I’d like to think I can see at least some of the potential for international collaboration.

What next?Something that perhaps we should spend time looking at is: does JISC have a role, possibly an altruistic role, in third world development when it comes to ICT applications?

Interview / David Baker

What’s your job title?I’m deputy chair of JISC and lead JISC’s Chairs Committee.

How often do you meet?We meet six times a year and are created from JISC sub-committees.

What are the aims of the new committee?To ensure, on the one hand, that we’re joined up and integrated across all the workings of JISC. The other is to aid the development and implementation of strategy and the allocation of resources in the most effective and targeted way possible.

What interests you about JISC’s work?JISC does so much to maintain and develop the UK’s higher education’s world-class reputation, particularly with regards to ICT application. But not just the technology; it’s also about the content and the services, which are of particular interest to me.

How does the new committee fit into JISC’s structure?You don’t just have the JISC Board pointing downwards to the committees and back upwards. You have the committees pointing at each other. Because everything is so interrelated, whether it’s the network, content or services, they can’t run and be developed independently of each other; they’ve got to interact. So that’s one of the reasons the Chairs Committee was set up.

What are the committee’s main priorities over the next twelve months?To be involved in finalising new strategy and helping in a number of ways. It involves

5-MINUTE INTERVIEWProfessor David Baker chair of JISC’s Chairs Committee

22

To listen to the full interview with Professor David Baker:

www.jisc.ac.uk/podcast92davidbaker

What’s happening / Autumn 2009

Recent publications…

Communicating knowledge: How and why UK researchers publish and disseminate their findings

Getting Started with Second Life guide

Impact of the economic downturn on university library and IT services briefing paper

Understanding global activity in higher education and research

JISC dates for your diary…

23

To access these and other publications online, please visit www.jisc.ac.uk/publications

For details of all JISC events, please visit the blog on http://events.jiscinvolve.org For details of JISC Regional Support Centre events (RSCs), visit their individual homepages

UK Access Management Event – Federating the Next GenerationWhen: 23-24 November 2009Where: Park Plaza, CardiffWebsite: www.jisc.ac.uk/eventsFree for delegates from further and higher education institutions, the conference explores developments in federated access such as user-managed access management, group management and extending access to solve library focused issues.

Innovating E-Learning Online Conference

When: 24-27 November 2009

Where: Online

Website: www.jisc.ac.uk/events

The fourth international online

conference reflecting the challenges

facing further and higher education

in the 21st century and exploring

the increased options offered

by technology for meeting those

challenges.

UK eScience All Hands meeting 09

When: 7-9 December 2009Where: Oxford UniversityWebsite: www.allhands.org.uk

Annual event for computational scientists and technologists to share, discuss and advance the exciting research that has grown out of the e-Science programme.

Guardian Higher Education Summit sponsored by JISC

When: 1-2 February 2010Website: www.jisc.ac.uk/events

One of the UK’s largest discussion and networking events for university leaders and senior managers.

JISC Conference 2010When: 12-13 April 2010Where: QEII Conference Centre, LondonWebsite: www.jisc.ac.uk/eventsThe conference theme Technology: at the heart of education and research confirms JISC’s view that universities and colleges must integrate technology into their strategic planning to ensure their survival. Please see back cover for further details.

JISC receives funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Scottish Funding Council, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, the Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills (Wales) and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland. JISC works in partnership with the Learning and Skills Council and the Research Councils.

This document is available in alternative formats. For more information please visit: www.jisc.ac.uk/publications

Further information about JISC: Web: www.jisc.ac.uk Email: info@jisc.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)117 331 0789

JISC Inform, Issue 26, Autumn 2009 ISSN 1476-7619 Document No: 657

JISC Inform is printed using vegetable oil-based inks on Greencoat 55, which contains 55% recovered paper waste and 45% virgin fibre from FSC-certified well managed forests.

We are striving to reduce the environmental impact of all our printed products by increasing our use of recycled paper and working with printers who offer more environmentally friendly printing methods.

How can universities and colleges use technology for education and research? Senior managers, staff, teachers, researchers and students will engage with answers to this question at JISC’s 2010 conference. With live blogging, online interactivity, podcasts and pre-event networking opportunities, this free event is open to delegates from colleges and universities.

Keynote speakers: Martin Bean (Vice chancellor, Open University) and Bill St Arnaud (Senior research officer, CANARIE Inc., Canada’s advanced internet development organization).

Register online from 11 January 2010 at: www.jisc.ac.uk/jisc10

Subscribe to the JISC events web feed at:www.jisc.ac.uk/events

Visit the JISC events blog on:http://events.jiscinvolve.org/

Save the date! JISC Conference 2010Technology: at the heart of education and research Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Westminster, London12-13 April 2010