Well done Jisc for putting on a mini-event in Stirling, as an alternative to the longer trip to Birmingham for Scottish Universities and Colleges. Though it was another scary snowbound driving day - a final highland fling from the Beast from the East ( a wintry front hitting the UK currently) and that probably impacted the number of Universities and Colleges in attendance.
The proceedings included a number of the keynotes streamed live and an opportunity to ask some questions to Paul Feldman Jisc CEO on stage in Birmingham.
The local agenda was a useful update on Jisc services and some brain storming around what services Universities and Colleges in Scotland will need in the future.
If you hunt down the #digifest jisc youtube channel you will find the rest of the sessions and the streaming sessions due tomorrow. All the presentations are available here
https://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/digifest-06-mar-2018/programme
Here are my notes / probably shaped by my own selective attention.
1. There is a new free to FE service being launched from Jisc procured through Airbus Geospatial, as a service The new collection gives better and deeper access to mapping tools in the FE collection . The new collection includes as standard access to nautical maps. Can see some staff development needs emerging around new service. There is so much scope to bring maps with layers of other services into so many more areas of the curriculum. I can't find authoritative link for this.
2. Jisc is about to roll out a new set of learning and teaching resources aimed at supporting Health and Social Care courses in FE across the UK . Fifty centres are already piloting the content and it is getting very positive feedback . This is Jisc's first foray into paid for content and service charges will be announced shortly . I am hoping we can get a preview of the materials soon.
3. Jisc is expanding the
bibliographic knowledge base ( NBK) in expectation that every HE library will eventually be a member . ( begs question what about HE in FE ? )
4. Gratifying to spot in one of the beamed in sessions that Jisc is adopting and supporting the further roll out of
Citizen Maths well done Jisc !
5. In Scotland - the Scottish Government has agreed that all relevant buildings should now be broadcasting wifi access to both Eduroam and Govroam - this is good news , I can't find an authoritative source for this - but it makes great sense. Providing seamless access for those in education and or working for Scottish government as we move between public buildings. I'll ask if this has been implemented at City of Glasgow College.
6. Jisc has greatly expanded its network security training portfolio for Universities and Colleges. New services are available through the
Cyber-security Portal including a DDOS mitigation service . A new X-Ray network security service in about to arrive along with CISO Services (chief information security officer) , an intrusion detection service and a cyber threat intelligence feed.
7. Jisc is now offering more
services around cloud migration strategies for centres that are ready for this . Services are via Express Route , Amazon direct connect and a range of other services. It is simply more cost effective than having local server racks and rooms.
We discussed a range of other services , live projects and support from Jisc
Jisc Financial X-Ray for analysing a centres IT spend
Learning Analytics - still on-boarding centres
Student Digital Experience Tracker - a useful tool for supporting learners
Staff Digital Capability Toolkit - being piloted with one hundred centres across the UK currently
Kit Catalogue - a means of sharing real and virtual kit across institutions
Safe Share - for managing the secure sharing of sensitive research data sets
Other useful shares from the day -
In England, FE Colleges are to start paying an annual subscription charge on a banded basis for Jisc services . SFC in agreement with Colleges Scotland are continuing to pay a national fee for Jisc services in Scotland. But might be shape of things to come .
Some chat about sharing best practice around systems and support , in Scotland we have lots of agencies and gang huts but perhaps not enough cross sectoral work - one for HEIDS UCISA etc
Have to confess UCISA fees are more reasonable than I thought they once were.
Colleges and Universities in Scotland would like more access to the resources of
The National Cybersecurity Centre , specifically the webcheck, mailcheck and DNS checking tools.
Advantages and challenges around changing market for plagiarism software.
Some chat among College folk of benefits of staying of leaving the Copy Right Licencing Agency agreements currently in place.
And we duly gave Jisc lots of ideas for new services and projects
And home in time for parents evening.
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