Do universities need digital strategies? As cuts in UK higher education start to bite, it has become clear that all universities should act strategically in deploying digital technologies. Jisc’s Framework for digital transformation in higher education, offers a comprehensive approach to managing the dramatic change which is taking place in all our lives now that […]
Jisc has been at the forefront of supporting digital transformation in UK higher education through our digital transformation framework and toolkit. We are starting a new phase of this work to design library pathways into the framework so that libraries can use it to amplify and enhance their role and impact in digital transformation within their […]
Chose your own future: resilient communities and sustainable solutions is the theme of next year’s Discovering Collections Discovering Communities (DCDC) conference. As always, the conference will bring together communities across the heritage and academic sectors to discuss all things collections, share experiences and do plenty of networking. Call for papers Organisations face escalating costs, changing […]
Taking bold steps A recent THE article by Sorin Adam Matei proposes that academia could invest in building its own LLMs to consume data from verifiable sources. I’m wondering if the UK university community thinks this is something we should invest in to ensure we feel confident that this valuable technology fulfills sector requirements. Governments […]
Since 2017, the digital archival collections group purchasing scheme has been helping Jisc members to purchase primary source content for use in learning, teaching and research in an affordable and transparent way. Participating organizations have collectively saved over £1 million since the scheme began. It removes the need to negotiate with publishers as members can […]
Back in November we were joined by about 180 people to discuss how the Higher Education library community might be bolder in providing machine ready collections, in support of research, and to feel more confident with the impending introduction of AI into the community. You can see a recording with transcript of that session, but […]
As reported in a previous post A couple of weeks ago we were pleased to be joined by 180 people for our Getting Your Collections AI Ready webinar. The focus of the session was on how academic libraries can get their collections online in forms consumable by people and machines. Though AI was in […]
Recent podcast draws the crowds Last Wednesday we were pleased to be joined by 180 people for our Making Your Collections AI Ready webinar. The focus of the session was on how academic libraries can get their collections online in forms consumable by people and machines. We heard from Ines Byrne of the National […]
Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities, is a mini-series that is part of the Jisc Research Talk podcasts. There’s been an outburst of AI talk over the last year, but it’s not often that we hear about what it means to engage with AI in the context of the humanities. Over six episodes, […]
Map data and developing a critical gaze I was pleased to talk with Prof Leif Isaksen, Professor in Digital Humanities at the University of Exeter, about computational approaches to research and some of the potential impacts of AI on Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS). The research talk podcast forms part of a miniseries […]
The fear of AI The focus of this post is the fears we have of AI technologies and what we might do about them. Having spoken to lots of librarians about AI, it is clear that many are concerned about the technologies but do not have time to address their fears in practical ways. Policy […]
“Artificial Intelligence: Where does it fit into your library strategy?” Back in April five UK library sector leaders debated this topic. The debate was followed by a workshop at which participants proposed nine potential strategic actions to address skills and knowledge gaps for librarians to help prepare the sector for AI. Following on from the […]
Tobias Blanke, Professor of Humanities and AI at the University of Amsterdam, suggests that everyone can benefit from learning to code. As digital skills are becoming ever more vital, we worked with the Programming Historian (PH) and The National Archives to develop tutorial articles focused on computational skills for digital collections. A partnership to support computational […]
This post forms part of our signposting series for collections as data, AI and computational approaches to Arts and Humanities for libraries and archives. Nice clear AI information Here’s a nice simple guide to AI from the BBC and you can also try our very own Explore AI site to try your hand at some […]
Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities is a new podcast mini-series that is part of the Jisc Research Talk podcasts. There’s been an outburst of AI-talk in the last few months, but it’s not often that we hear about what it means to engage with AI in the context of the humanities. Over six episodes, […]
Why are we only talking about ChatGPT? This post is part of a series about approaches academic libraries in the UK might take in response to the emergence of AI. Their purpose is to signpost to relevant initiatives and to encourage debate about the way ahead. As ChatGPT is not the only Large Language […]
Some tips for academic librarians wanting to make sense of AI This the first in a series of posts about Collections as Data, AI, computational approaches to Arts and Humanities, signposting to resources, networks, reports and events How should academic libraries respond to the maturing of Artificial Intelligence? Analysis of recent interviews with five librarians […]
The first podcast in our new mini-series, Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities, is out! First episode In The highs and lows of artificial intelligence, Melissa Terras, Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh, talks to me about the critical issues around the use of AI in humanities scholarship. Melissa […]
Outcomes of task and finish group investigations into the preparation of datasets for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Recently we established a short-form task and finish group, made up of senior academics and librarians to explore the question: Are universities sufficiently prepared to support the development of datasets and computational methods for data driven research in the […]
The National Archives and Jisc are delighted to welcome the British Library as a new partner in the delivery and organisation of the interdisciplinary Discovering Collections: Discovering Communities (DCDC) conference series. The series is one of the largest cross cultural sector conferences in the UK and sees archivists, librarians, heritage professionals, and academics exploring ways […]