Joint Information Systems Committee
Encyclopedia
JISC is a United Kingdom
non-departmental public body
whose role is to support post-16 and higher education
and research
by providing leadership in the use of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) in learning, teaching, research and administration. It is funded by all the UK post-16 and higher education funding councils.
, Scotland
and Wales
, inviting them to establish a Joint Committee to deal with networking and specialist information services. JISC was to provide national vision and leadership for the benefit of the entire Higher Education sector. The organisation inherited the functions of the Information Systems Committee (ISC) and the Computer Board, which had served universities. An initial challenge was to support a much larger community of institutions, including the ex-polytechnics
and higher education colleges.
Four sub-committees initially supporting the JISC committee: their remits covered Networking; Awareness, Liaison and Training; Electronic Information and Technology Applications activities.
In 1995, the Department of Education (Northern Ireland)
(DENI) became a full partner in JISC. The organisation expanded again in 1999 when the further education funding bodies became funding partners. This expansion prompted a restructuring and a new set of committees:
The expansion also raised wider concerns about JISC's governance, and Professor Sir Brian Follett
was appointed to carry out an independent enquiry. His report, published in November 2000, concluded that "JISC is perceived as a UK success story, providing a network of world-class standard and a range of excellent services. Importantly, it evolves continuously and is an excellent example of collaboration between the community and the funding bodies". However, Follett made various recommendations for reform, most of which were accepted by the funding bodies.
A new structure was therefore put in place from December 2001, consisting of a JISC Board, advised by a Steering committee made up of senior officers from each funding body. Six sub-committees fell under two main heads: strategy and policy committees, which aim to ensure that the needs of specific communities are met (in the fields of research, learning and teaching, and management); and functional committees, concentrating on specific areas of work (networking, information environment, and content acquisition).
In January 2005, the Freedom of Information Act
came into full effect, giving the public a general right to access all types of recorded information held by public bodies. JISC took an important lead in raising the Act’s profile in the academic community and published its own FOI Publication Scheme.
In the spring of 2005, the Learning and Skills Council
(LSC) announced a reduction in its funding contribution to JISC. The LSC and JISC Executive negotiated a package of services that the LSC would continue to contribute towards in the future.
Also in 2005, a number of strategies and policies for UK Higher and Further Education were published, reaffirming the importance of ICT: JISC was seen as taking an important role in supporting and implementing these strategies.
In the same year, JISC signed agreements with several international partners:
Under the Government Spending Review 2004, JISC was awarded additional funding of £81 million for the period April 2006 to March 2009, and was able to launch a range of new programmes to support the work of the higher education and research community. Funding for SuperJANET5
was provided by all JISC's funding partners. Other activities were funded by the Higher Education Funding Councils for England and Wales.
A review of JISC's work, commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England
under the chairmanship of Professor Sir Alan Wilson, was published in February 2011: among other recommendations, it urged that "services and projects should be rationalised, with a view to significantly reducing their number".
, then recently retired as Vice Chancellor of the University of York
, was appointed Chair of JISC in 2004, and served until 2008. He was succeeded by Professor Sir Timothy O'Shea
, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh
, who was appointed with effect from 1 January 2009.
JISC is an advisory committee to the funding councils, made up of a number of sub-committees, each with a different focus:
Members of the JISC Board and sub-committees are individuals from the education sector who bring a practical knowledge of how ICT is used within institutions, what benefits its innovative use brings, and the issues to be addressed in order to support the future use of ICT. The JISC Executive supports the Board and sub-committees.
Objectives:
Themes:
Three kinds of service are funded:
, and by licencing content from commercial and other publishers. It negotiates consortium packages, enabling the education and research communities to benefit from the latest online resources at cost-effective rates. Some of these resources are subsidised by JISC.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
non-departmental public body
Non-departmental public body
In the United Kingdom, a non-departmental public body —often referred to as a quango—is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive to certain types of public bodies...
whose role is to support post-16 and higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
and research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
by providing leadership in the use of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) in learning, teaching, research and administration. It is funded by all the UK post-16 and higher education funding councils.
History
JISC was established on 1 April 1993 under the terms of letters of guidance from the Secretaries of State to the newly-established Higher Education Funding Councils for EnglandHigher Education Funding Council for England
The Higher Education Funding Council for England is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in the United Kingdom, which has been responsible for the distribution of funding to Universities and Colleges of Higher and Further Education in England since...
, Scotland
Scottish Funding Council
The Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council, more commonly known as the Scottish Funding Council , is the body in Scotland that distributes funding from the Scottish Government to the country's colleges and universities...
and Wales
Higher Education Funding Council for Wales
The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales is an Assembly Government Sponsored Body, and anintermediary body between the Welsh Assembly Government and the higher education sector in Wales.- HEFCW business :...
, inviting them to establish a Joint Committee to deal with networking and specialist information services. JISC was to provide national vision and leadership for the benefit of the entire Higher Education sector. The organisation inherited the functions of the Information Systems Committee (ISC) and the Computer Board, which had served universities. An initial challenge was to support a much larger community of institutions, including the ex-polytechnics
Polytechnic (United Kingdom)
A polytechnic was a type of tertiary education teaching institution in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. After the passage of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 they became universities which meant they could award their own degrees. The comparable institutions in Scotland were...
and higher education colleges.
Four sub-committees initially supporting the JISC committee: their remits covered Networking; Awareness, Liaison and Training; Electronic Information and Technology Applications activities.
In 1995, the Department of Education (Northern Ireland)
Department of Education (Northern Ireland)
The Department of Education is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive...
(DENI) became a full partner in JISC. The organisation expanded again in 1999 when the further education funding bodies became funding partners. This expansion prompted a restructuring and a new set of committees:
- JISC Committee for Authentication and Security (JCAS) November 1999 – January 2002. The work of this committee has now been taken over by JCN2 and JCIE3.
- JISC Committee for Electronic Information (JCEI) November 1999 – January 2002. The work of this committee has now been taken over by JCIE3 and JCCS4.
- JISC Committee for Integrated Environments for Learners (JCIEL) November 1999 – January 2002. The work of this committee has now been taken over by JCLT5.
- JISC Committee for Awareness, Liaison and Training (JCALT) The work of this committee has now been taken over by JOS6.
- JISC Committee on Networking (JCN2).
The expansion also raised wider concerns about JISC's governance, and Professor Sir Brian Follett
Brian Follett
Professor Sir Brian Keith Follett FRS chaired the UK government's Training and Development Agency for Schools from 2003-9. The TDA is responsible for recruiting to the teaching profession Professor Sir Brian Keith Follett FRS (born 22 February 1939) chaired the UK government's Training and...
was appointed to carry out an independent enquiry. His report, published in November 2000, concluded that "JISC is perceived as a UK success story, providing a network of world-class standard and a range of excellent services. Importantly, it evolves continuously and is an excellent example of collaboration between the community and the funding bodies". However, Follett made various recommendations for reform, most of which were accepted by the funding bodies.
A new structure was therefore put in place from December 2001, consisting of a JISC Board, advised by a Steering committee made up of senior officers from each funding body. Six sub-committees fell under two main heads: strategy and policy committees, which aim to ensure that the needs of specific communities are met (in the fields of research, learning and teaching, and management); and functional committees, concentrating on specific areas of work (networking, information environment, and content acquisition).
In January 2005, the Freedom of Information Act
Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level...
came into full effect, giving the public a general right to access all types of recorded information held by public bodies. JISC took an important lead in raising the Act’s profile in the academic community and published its own FOI Publication Scheme.
In the spring of 2005, the Learning and Skills Council
Learning and Skills Council
The Learning and Skills Council was a non-departmental public body jointly sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Children, Schools and Families in England...
(LSC) announced a reduction in its funding contribution to JISC. The LSC and JISC Executive negotiated a package of services that the LSC would continue to contribute towards in the future.
Also in 2005, a number of strategies and policies for UK Higher and Further Education were published, reaffirming the importance of ICT: JISC was seen as taking an important role in supporting and implementing these strategies.
In the same year, JISC signed agreements with several international partners:
- SURFSURFnetSURFnet is both the name for the organisation that develops, implements and maintains the national research and education network of the Netherlands as well as the network it operates. As one of the first networks linked to the Internet outside the USA the organisation has taken the lead in the...
Foundation in the Netherlands, cementing the considerable areas of cooperation between the two organisations; - Australian Department for Education, Science and Training (DEST) supporting the e-Framework initiative which aims to develop a service oriented approach to the development and integration of IT systems;
- Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftDeutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftThe Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is an important German research funding organization and the largest such organization in Europe.-Function:...
(Germany), Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEFF) and SURF to create the Knowledge exchange which aims to increase the return on investment by the individual organisations in ICT infrastructure, services and projects.
Under the Government Spending Review 2004, JISC was awarded additional funding of £81 million for the period April 2006 to March 2009, and was able to launch a range of new programmes to support the work of the higher education and research community. Funding for SuperJANET5
JANET
JANET is a private British government-funded computer network dedicated to education and research. All further- and higher-education organisations in the UK are connected to JANET, as are all the Research Councils; the majority of these sites are connected via 20 metropolitan area networks JANET...
was provided by all JISC's funding partners. Other activities were funded by the Higher Education Funding Councils for England and Wales.
A review of JISC's work, commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England
Higher Education Funding Council for England
The Higher Education Funding Council for England is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in the United Kingdom, which has been responsible for the distribution of funding to Universities and Colleges of Higher and Further Education in England since...
under the chairmanship of Professor Sir Alan Wilson, was published in February 2011: among other recommendations, it urged that "services and projects should be rationalised, with a view to significantly reducing their number".
Structure
Professor Sir Ron CookeRonald Urwick Cooke
Professor Sir Ronald Urwick Cooke, FRGS is a Professor of geography and geomorphology who was Vice-Chancellor of the University of York from 1993 to 2002.-Life:...
, then recently retired as Vice Chancellor of the University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
, was appointed Chair of JISC in 2004, and served until 2008. He was succeeded by Professor Sir Timothy O'Shea
Timothy O'Shea
Sir Timothy Michael Martin O'Shea, FRSE is the current Vice-Chancellor and Principal of The University of Edinburgh.-Biography:...
, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
, who was appointed with effect from 1 January 2009.
JISC is an advisory committee to the funding councils, made up of a number of sub-committees, each with a different focus:
- JISC Organisational Support committee (JOS)
- JISC Infrastructure and Resources committee (JIR)
- JISC Learning and Teaching committee (JLT)
- JISC Support of Research committee (JSR)
Members of the JISC Board and sub-committees are individuals from the education sector who bring a practical knowledge of how ICT is used within institutions, what benefits its innovative use brings, and the issues to be addressed in order to support the future use of ICT. The JISC Executive supports the Board and sub-committees.
Strategy
JISC has six strategic objectives, and eight strategic themes.Objectives:
- Innovative and sustainable ICT infrastructure, services and practice that support institutions in meeting their mission;
- Promoting the development, uptake and effective use of ICT to support learning;
- Promoting the development, uptake and effective use of ICT to support research;
- Promoting the development, uptake and effective use of ICT to support the management of institutions;
- Developing and implementing a programme to support institutions’ engagement with the wider community;
- Continuing to improve its own working practices.
Themes:
- e-Learning — improves the quality of learning
- e-Research — technologies used in research
- e-Resources — digital information and e-content
- e-Administration — improves administrative processes
- Access management — secure authentication and authorisation
- Network — UK research and education network
- Information environment — convenient access to resources
- Business and community engagement — knowledge transfer
Services
JISC promotes the effective use of ICT across non-compulsory education and research. This requires services and guidance to be provided to education institutions, across the range of their activities. As of 2009, most services are now grouped under an umbrella organisation, JISC Advance.Three kinds of service are funded:
- Advisory services to help institutions select the best approach or product where choice and independent advice tailored to the community is important;
- Production services, where a standard infrastructure is required or clear economies of scale and value for money can be maximised;
- Development services to test the validity of novel approaches and applications, especially where this avoids costly repetition.
Innovation
JISC supports the development of innovative uses of ICT helping the education and research communities to exploit the full potential of information technologies. Its activities are focused on areas that individual educational institutions would not be able, through lack of resources, to tackle alone. The aim of funding development projects within institutions is to enable those taking part to engage in "action research", sharing their experiences across the communities.Online resources
JISC aims to deliver a high quality collection of electronic resources, through its own Digitisation ProgrammeJISC Digitisation Programme
The JISC Digitisation Programme is a series of projects to digitise the cultural heritage and scholarly materials in universities, libraries, museums, archives and others cultural memory organisations in the United Kingdom. The programme continues to be managed by the UK's Joint Information Systems...
, and by licencing content from commercial and other publishers. It negotiates consortium packages, enabling the education and research communities to benefit from the latest online resources at cost-effective rates. Some of these resources are subsidised by JISC.
Partnership
JISC works in formal partnership with a range of organisations, both in the UK and internationally, in terms of policy collaboration, development programmes, and the delivery of production and advisory services. In the UK, JISC also seeks opportunities for collaboration beyond these communities, with schools, public libraries, and adult and community learning bodies.See also
- Higher Education Funding Council for EnglandHigher Education Funding Council for EnglandThe Higher Education Funding Council for England is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in the United Kingdom, which has been responsible for the distribution of funding to Universities and Colleges of Higher and Further Education in England since...
- Higher Education Funding Council for WalesHigher Education Funding Council for WalesThe Higher Education Funding Council for Wales is an Assembly Government Sponsored Body, and anintermediary body between the Welsh Assembly Government and the higher education sector in Wales.- HEFCW business :...
- Scottish Funding CouncilScottish Funding CouncilThe Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council, more commonly known as the Scottish Funding Council , is the body in Scotland that distributes funding from the Scottish Government to the country's colleges and universities...
- AccessAppsAccessAppsAccessApps is an initiative supported by the JISC Regional Support Centres and JISC TechDis. It consists of over 50 open source and freeware Microsoft Windows applications, running from a USB stick...
- collection of portable open source software released by JISC RSC Scotland North&south - JISC infoNetJISC infoNetJISC infoNet is a JISC Advance service supporting the strategic planning and deployment of technology within the UK Higher Education and Further Education sectors...
- JISC Digitisation ProgrammeJISC Digitisation ProgrammeThe JISC Digitisation Programme is a series of projects to digitise the cultural heritage and scholarly materials in universities, libraries, museums, archives and others cultural memory organisations in the United Kingdom. The programme continues to be managed by the UK's Joint Information Systems...
External links
- JISC website
- JISC digitisation programme, including the Archival Sound RecordingsArchival Sound RecordingsArchival Sound Recordings is a British Library service providing free online access to a diverse range of spoken word, music and environmental sounds from the British Library Sound Archive. Anyone with web access can use the service to search, browse and listen to 24,000 digitised recordings...
service