28-06-06 RDN's Internet Detective - back on the case

Internet Detective, a free online tutorial designed to help students develop the critical thinking required for their Internet research, was re-launched today.

Developed by the RDN (Resource Discovery Network) Virtual Training Suite, the tutorial offers practical advice on evaluating the quality of websites and highlights the need for care when selecting online information sources to inform university or college work.

http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/

05-05-06 11th Annual Conference of the Association of Colleges, 21 - 23 November 2006, Sponsorship Options

Last year's AoC Annual Conference was the largest yet with over 1300 attendees representing over 300 colleges. With a programme of high profile speakers that tackled key sector issues, the media profile of the conference was the highest ever with 400 articles and bulletins.

This year is looking to build on the success of last year's Annual Conference, and the AoC will again return on the 21 to 23 November to the ICC in Birmingham for its 11th Annual Conference. The programme is in the process of being developed and will be looking to offer an assortment of topical, challenging, informative and entertaining keynote and seminar contributions from a host of high profile education, academic and business speakers.

A number of sponsorship opportunities are offered, ranging in scale from main conference headline sponsorship through to inserts into the delegate pack, and in variety from exhibition packages to sponsored social events hosted by a high profile celebrity. For main sponsors there is the opportunity to attend the conference focus group meetings, thus helping to develop and shape the programme.

Following feedback from last year exhibition space will be allocated on a first come, first served basis only. Bookings will be accepted by fax, email, and post.

05-05-06 JISC/CNI 2006 Meeting, 6 - 7 July 2006

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) are proud to announce:

The Sixth JISC/CNI Meeting to be held at the Park Inn York (formerly known as York Moat House Hotel), York, UK on 6-7 July 2006

The meeting will bring together experts from the United States and the United Kingdom. Parallel sessions will explore and contrast major developments on both sides of the Atlantic. It will be of interest to all senior management in information systems in the education community and those responsible for delivering digital services and resources for learning, teaching and research.

Keynote speakers include:

Reg Carr, Director of University Library Services & Bodley's Librarian, The Bodleian Library Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President, OCLC Professor Derek Law, University of Strathclyde Clifford Lynch, Executive Director, CNI

Further information about the meeting, including a full programme and registration details, is available at:

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/jisc-cni-2006/

If you have any questions regarding the meeting please contact the Events Team at:

Tel: +44 (0) 1225 386256; Fax: +44 (0) 1225 386838

Email: events@ukoln.ac.uk

10-10-05 Plagiarism Conference 2006 - 21 June 2006

Following the success of the first International Plagiarism Conference last year, the JISC Plagiarism Advisory Service are holding their second International Conference between 19th and 21st June 2006 at The Sage Gateshead, the UK's new international home for music and world class centre for excellence, which is located on Gateshead's quayside.

Building on the success of the 2004 conference, the 2nd International Plagiarism Conference 2006 aims to continue to provide a balanced view around the complex areas surrounding plagiarism, set in a context of developing good academic practice in institutions, which is the underpinning ethos behind the Plagiarism Advisory Service (PAS).

Conference Themes

• Managing change in institutional plagiarism practice and policy
• Embedding plagiarism detection software into practice and policies
• Addressing plagiarism in academic practice
• Plagiarism and institutional risk management
• Ethics in teaching learning and assessment

Further information can be found here

10-04-06 2nd Scottish Accessibility e-Olympics

The two Scottish JISC Regional Support Centres in conjunction with the BRITE Centre and TechDis, (the JISC Advisory Service on Accessibility) were proud to present the 2nd Scottish Accessibility e-Olympics event on 30th and 31st March 2006 at the Boyd Orr Building, University of Glasgow.

This event open to all FE staff in Scotland, was designed to lead delegates through the complex process of creating an online learning sequence from the design stage to a working prototype.

At this two day event, the focus was firmly on the important area of embedding accessibility and inclusivity in the design of learning resources. The delegates used the simple tools at their disposal and learned about some key design guidelines to make sure that their learning materials were accessible to the greatest possible number of students!

The two days comprised a careful mix of expert presentations and serious workshop sessions. Delegates rated it an overwhelming success. Here is what they had to say:

"Much appreciated opportunity to have hands-on experience of online resources. The practicality of the 2 days has been a real highlight"

"Absolutely fabulous! Enjoyed the session and can't wait to start putting this into practice!"

"I found this event extremely useful, with speakers from a good range of organisations. It was interactive and fun and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to my colleagues"

"This has been the most enjoyable and beneficial training course that I have attended in a very long time"

07-04-06 JISC Capital Programme: Town Meetings

The JISC Capital Programme, funded by HEFCE and HEFCW from April 2006 - March 2009, consists of six areas of development: Network; Digitisation; Repositories; e-Learning; e-Infrastructure; and User Environments.

A roadmap indicating the expected calls and when they will be released is now available on the JISC website. (Please note that the e-infrastructure strand of the April call is subject to committee approval).

JISC will be holding the following town meetings for those interested in learning about the funding opportunities available through the Capital Programme.

Digitisation Programme: Town Meeting in London on 21 April 2006.

Other Development Programmes: Town Meeting in Birmingham on 10 May 2006. JISC will be issuing a Call for Proposals on 28 April. The Town Meeting is for those interested in submitting proposals in response to the call for the following three development areas - Digital Repositories, e-Learning and e-Infrastructure. The Town Meeting will consist of presentations, parallel workshops on different programme areas and the opportunity to ask questions on the call for proposals. Please note that due to the funding streams available for this programme, HEIs and FEIs in Scotland are NOT eligible to bid, BUT may be involved as partners to other projects. The lead partner must be funded directly by HEFCE or HEFCW and funds can only be allocated through the lead partner.

22-03-06 JISC Records Retention In Further Education Resource

JISC and JISC InfoNet are pleased to announce the launch of an important new resource for supporting the development of effective records management within the FE sector.

Following on from the Revised Study of the Records Lifecycle and HE Records Retention Schedule launched by JISC in 2003 this new release produces a generic records retention schedule to be adopted and used by institutions in the Further Education Sector.

This new resource adopts the same functional approach as its HE predecessor, making it applicable to the full range of FE institutions. Enhancements to this version include:

Improved layout
• Cross references to the HE Records Retention Schedule
• Cross references to relevant entries in both the UK and Scottish Model Publication Schemes

An internal search engine

A downloadable version of the database's contents in Excel format for repurposing within an institution The Records Retention in Further Education Resource is available from http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/projects/records-retention-fe/index_html

17-03-2006 JISC Legal Copyright and e-Learning webcast - 22 March 2006

JISC Legal are delivering a webcast on 22 March 2006 between 1-4pm. It is intended to be a drop-in, drop-out Copyright and e-Learning induction for UK FE and HE staff. The webcast will consist of a mixture of presentations, interviews and question and answer sessions. It will deal directly with the issues of copyright which arise in the development and delivery of e-learning materials and online content.

See the JISC legal website for further information.

24-02-2006 Guidance on open source software

JISC today issued a briefing paper to all colleges and universities in the UK to raise awareness of the issue of open source software. With almost every further and higher education institution in the UK making using of open source software, and with the European Commission and the UK Government giving their support to its development and deployment, it has become a central issue for institutional management of IT systems and services in education.

The new briefing paper comes after guidelines issued last year by JISC for its projects and follow from the Government's published policy which, in 2004, set out guidance for the exploitation of publicly funded software development. In its latest guidelines, JISC - supported by its advisory service OSS Watch - advocates the use of open source as the default for software development as well as providing guidelines on copyright, licensing, trademarks, patents and development practice.

See the JISC website publications page for further information, and to access the new guidelines, and the OSS Watch site for the background on open source software.

23-02-2006 JISC/UUK/SCOP One-day Conference on Compliance Issues in Higher Education - 31 March 2006

This conference has been prompted by the importance that HE institutions attach to compliance issues, particularly as demonstrated through the recent JISC/UUK/SCOP survey of the impact of the Freedom of Information Acts on the higher education sector and the wider context of regulation, accountability and good corporate governance.

The conference will address the issues facing the sector: what institutions need to do to comply; the obstacles to compliance; the business and other benefits; and the impact of the media, which in the case of Freedom of Information has been significant. We hope the conference will assist us in taking a more strategic approach to compliance issues and identify practical ways of helping institutions.

The conference takes place on Friday 31 March at Woburn House Conference Centre, London and.will be of interest to Vice-Chancellors, Principals, Pro Vice-Chancellors, Academic Registrars, Information and Records Managers, senior managers and decision makers in HEIs.

See the Universities UK website for further information.

08-02-2006 JISC Online Conference - Innovating e-Learning 2006: Transforming Learning Experiences - 27-31 March 2006

An online conference based around the work of the e-Learning and Pedagogy and Innovation strands of the JISC e-Learning Programme will be held on 27 to 31 March 2006.

The programme is divided into three themes and a plenary, each with its own keynote speaker:

27/28 March: Designing for Learning, introduced by Professor Diana Laurillard, Chair of Learning with Digital Technologies at the London Knowledge Lab.

28/29 March: Learner Experiences of e-Learning, introduced by John Stone, Chief Executive, Learning and Skills Network (LSN).

30/31 March: Innovating e-Learning Practice, introduced by Professor Stephen Heppell, Learn3K Research Centre, National College of Ireland.

31 March: Plenary Chris Yapp, Head of Public Sector Innovation at Microsoft, will close the conference with a discussion on how to take forward a vision for transforming learner experiences.

Although the conference extends over 5 days, each theme will run over 2 days. You may wish to select the theme that most closely matches your interests - but it is recommended that you are available to participate throughout those days. The conference opens the week prior to 27 March, so that delegates can view presentations in advance, and will be available for reading only up to two weeks after the close.

Registration fee: £50 per delegate

20-01-2006 JISC Conference 2006 - 14 March 2006

The JISC Conference 2006 is being held on Tuesday 14 March 2006 at the International Convention Centre, Birmingham. The conference programme will be built on the theme of Supporting Education and Research. Dr Liz Beaty, Director of Learning and Teaching, HEFCE and Clifford Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information will be the conference keynote speakers. The conference will reflect the breadth of JISC activities in providing guidance, advice and opportunities for the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in education and research.

For further information, to view the draft conference programme and book your place please visit the JISC Conference 2006 website.

28-11-2005 Guidlines on Information Safety

On 23rd November 2005 new guidelines on information security and safety were issued to all colleges and universities in the UK. The guidelines, issued by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and UCISA (Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association), are aimed at helping educational institutions reap the benefits of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) while protecting themselves, their staff and students from online threats.

22-10-04 Virtual Subject Advisory Groups

The Collections Team is currently recruiting members for virtual subject advisory groups to help make sure the resources they licence are the ones that institutions want and need. The Groups will be made up of subject experts and will be asked to provide advice on specific resources the collections team are considering. They will also be asked to comment on gaps in coverage and issues such as pricing, licensing and functionality and to help build a rounded picture of the issues that the Collections Team should bring to publishers attention. The Groups will be informal in nature and it is the intention that they will not require a major investment of time on the part of the Group members.

The Virtual Subject Advisory Groups will be composed according to the 8 broad subject areas used by the Resource Discovery Network:

• Arts and Creative Industries
• Engineering, mathematics and computing
• Geography and Environment
• Health, Medicine and Life Sciences
• Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism
• Humanities
• Physical Sciences
• Social Science, Business and Law

If you would like to take part in any of the advisory groups please get in touch with Fionnuala or Joan at the RSC

20-10-05 Study on how innovative technologies are influencing the design of physical learning spaces in the post-16 sector

The University of Birmingham received JISC funding under the JISC e-Learning Programme to report upon the ways in which learning technologies are influencing the design of physical learning spaces in further and higher education institutions.

The project report covers a range of topics of significant interest to managers based in colleges involved in, or contemplating a new build.

21-11-2005 Moodle Awareness Event: No salesman will call

The JISC Regional Support Centres for Scotland are running a joint Moodle Awareness event at the West of Scotland Science Park in Glasgow on December 12th. The purpose of the event is to bring together educators in Scotland who want to know more about Moodle, an Open Source Virtual Learning Environment or VLE.

16-11-05 Funding Available for provision of an Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards and Specifications Service

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) invites proposals from institutions for the provision of an Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards and Specifications Service for UK Further and Higher Education. JISC has a duty to review its requirements for the services it funds and to ensure it is getting value for money for its community and from time to time has to re-tender. The grant to the current service provider ends on 31 July 2006 hence this circular.

As a guide £750,000 per annum is available to develop and maintain the core work and functions of the Service. Additional costed enhancements will be considered up to a further £100,000. The deadline for receipt of proposals is no later than 1.00 pm on Friday 27 January 2006. The service should start on 01 August 2006. Funding will be available for five years in the first instance with an option to review and break point at three years. The full text of the circular can be found here.

05-08-05 New Plans for the Plagiarism Advisory Service

The JISC Plagiarism Advisory Service has announced new plans for 2005-2006, which include the launch of course materials for students and academics.

The new developments have come as a result of gaining feedback from higher and further education institutions on how the issue of plagiarism is perceived, how it's being dealt with and the effectiveness of institutional policies and procedures in tackling it.

The new resources which will be available over the next academic year include:

• Institutional plagiarism audits
• National awareness seminars
• Plagiarism course materials for Students, Academics & Researchers