December 2009 will see the launch of JISC’s next three-year strategy and the organisation is seeking feedback on its first draft. Professor Sir Tim O’Shea, chair of JISC’s Board says, “Our core activity of supporting colleges and universities in delivering their missions through the effective use of digital technologies remains unchanged. “However, in light of […]
Month: July 2009
14-15 September 2009 Holiday Inn, Belfast, Northern Ireland http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/capacity-building-belfast-2009 The Joint Systems Information Committee (JISC) and the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) in co-operation with the Strategic Content Alliance (SCA), the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) are delighted to announce that we will deliver a joint two-day workshop […]
Following University College London’s very successful conference on 3D Colour Laser Scanning in March 2008 we are planning a 2-day workshop exploring the life-cycle of a digital object. The workshop is funded by JISC through the Arts and Humanities e-Science Support Centre (AHeSSC). Who is invited? The workshop is aimed at anyone interested in user […]
If you missed the JISC Digital Content Conference, which took place on 30 June-1 July, or simply would like to go back to some of the presentations and issues discussed, you can now access and download all video, audio and most of the speakers’ presentations from the conference web pages. For a summary of the […]
There has been quite a lot of information flying around since a Wikipedia user downloaded and then stitched together high-resolution images from the National Portrait Gallery, before putting them up as a single files on Wikipedia. The statement from the National Portrait Gallery clears up a lot of confusion and seems quite even handed. The […]
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Digitisation Workshops
JISC has recently funded a number of workshops to investigate and explore the challenges and achievements in digitisation and e-content. The workshops will be looking at a broad range of areas associated with Digitisation, including: Optical Character recognition (OCR), Collaboartive editing, Large scale digitisation, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Digitising and Mathematics. A list of […]
To celebrate the completion of the In the Bygynning project and the launch of the Manchester Middle English Digital Library, the John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester is hosting a major academic conference on 17-18 September 2009. The Manchester Middle English Manuscripts Conference will consider the Rylands collection within the wider context of other […]
“Many, if not all, of the Pre-Raphaelites had their own ideal of beauty“, as the recently launched Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource illustrates through beautiful images of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and sketches in its Learning resources section. The Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource gives free access to over 3000 images related to the works of artists belonging to one of […]
The JISC-funded A Vision of Britain Through Time website launches today, giving e-access, often for the first time, to over two centuries’ worth of facts, figures, surveys, maps, election results and travel writing showing how 15,000 UK places have changed. The changing story of Britain’s towns and villages can be explored in new depth online, […]
This month sees the launch of the first phase of the Virtual Manuscript Room(VMR), as part of the Mingana Day at the University of Birmingham on 8 July. The presentation of the collection online is a crucial part of JISC’s £1.8 million Enriching Digital Resources programme, a set of 25 projects which enhances the use […]
As Phase 2 of the JISC Digitisation Programme draws to a close, we continue to get plenty of calls asking when Phase 3 will be starting, with great enthusiasm for more of the same. At present, JISC has no funds for a third phase of work on the scale of the previous two phases (totalling […]
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JDCC09: Stuart Lee: Content is king
Stuart Lee took as his theme “Content is king, but we are in a republic”. After raising several laughs with his Star Trek ‘library of the future’ (where apparently there will be no enforced retirement age for librarians), he went on to call for a move towards community digitisation.
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JDCC09: Sarah Porter: Fostering knowledge
This session saw Sarah Porter put JISC’s work in context (encompassing everything from bourbon biscuits to global infrastructure). Quoting Nick Poole, she told us it was “time to stop thinking and get on and do”.
The last parallel session in the User Engagement strand looked at the topic of business and community engagement, and enhancing access/removing barriers to institutional resources. The speakers encouraged us to look beyond the library walls and embrace the challenges of community engagement, pointing out the multiple benefits and exploring some practical case studies of community […]
Session 2 of the User Engagement strand looked at what makes a well-used resource, and how you go about measuring the impact your resource is having on its users using qualitative and quantitative metrics. Claire Davies from Curtis and Cartwright focused on the benefits of audience research, and Eric Meyer from their Oxford Internet Institute […]
Open Educational Resources (OERs) are learning materials that are specifically designed to be shared, with learners and teachers in mind. The ways in which JISC is helping to make it easier to create and share OERs and how the Open University is leading the way in the use of OERs was the focus of this […]
This is a pivotal moment for film and sound in education. Digital Britain was the last gasp of an ancien regime. We need Robespierres not Bourbons to do this future mapping. For the students of the future, multimedia will be their way of working. We will not distract them from Facebook unless we can offer […]
This last session in the ‘Looking into the future’ strand was a mix of three very different approaches to delivering and accessing digital content. David Flanders’ talk was a glimpse into the world of efficient technology design and implementation. Matthew White talked about his experience in marketing, and Shelley Hales and Nic Earle spoke of […]
In a global academic culture of sharing resources and expertise, collaboration is an essential part of many higher education projects. Each of the 3 speakers had vastly different experiences, but there were a few common threads that ran through all the talks: The importance of clear and frequent communication A need for mutual respect and […]
In a session in which approximately 70% of delegates were librarians (according to a quick show of hands) we discussed the role and nature of libraries in the future, and watched a fascinating video produced by JISC (available to view below). Key points raised in the session: We need to rethink our attitudes towards what […]