JISC Supporting your institution

How can my institution use open source software to run more efficiently?

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:36:56 GMT

Our guidance, support and advice can help you assess the potential benefits of open source software, make it an appropriate element of your organisation’s policy, manage procurement successfully and ensure its sustainability.

According to our advisory service, OSS Watch, some of the benefits of open source software include the capacity to customise it to your own requirements, fix bugs or flaws directly and choose how much of the development work you want to outsource or do in-house.
74% of universities and 61% of colleges have policies to consider open source when procuring software, according to the latest OSS Watch survey. Your organisation’s policy shouldn’t exclude open source, but neither should it be the preferred option, as each software procurement should be evaluated on its own merits. However, you will need a policy on managing open source engagement. See our advice for strategic IT decision makers.
Open source licences promote wide distribution of software and encourage users to modify source code leading to improved function. Our guide can help you assess the implications.
Open source procurement is different from the standard ITT-based process used for proprietary software. One of the many myths is that open source is cost free. Up-front costs may be low, but you will still need to factor in running costs over the software’s lifetime e.g. training and the cost of any third party support contracts. Since the source code is freely available, organisations can be much more flexible in choosing and changing suppliers because there is no danger of 'vendor lock-in'.
Sustainable open source software is maintained by a community of users and developers.You can increase the chances of community engagement with a well-run community infrastructure and an efficient process for releasing software updates. The Wookie case study outlines how one project engaged with a business to ensure the sustainability of their software.

Increasing the impact and visibility of your research

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:37:20 GMT

Open Access benefits not only researchers and their institutions, but the economy and society at large, as the outputs of publicly-funded research are available for all to use. JISC is a leader in the movement towards making research outputs more openly available.

Our work has shown that Open Access can help institutions achieve more with less as well as increase their impact. According to the JISC-funded Houghton report, the UK higher education sector could benefit from about £80 million a year in efficiency savings and increase its contribution to the UK economy by about £120 million, if all research were published in open access journals (where publication costs are met by authors rather than readers).
Heading for the open road, a report from JISC, the Research Information Network and a number of other organisations, maps the different routes institutions can take to move over to Open Access. Assess the institutional costs and benefits of doing so using our methodology and find out about the open access business models you could adopt from the Knowledge Exchange’s briefing paper.
Houghton showed that the benefits of Open Access would be even greater if journal articles were archived in open access institutional repositories. Over the past ten years, we’ve helped more than 70 UK institutions improve or create repositories. Based on this experience, we’ve developed a large body of information, advice and guidance around repositories and open access publishing.
The digital repositories infoKit will take you through the stages needed to build your own institutional repository. A next step will be to ensure that researchers use it. Our Embedding repositories guide and self-assessment tool will help.
You can also keep abreast of developments to promote Open Access in the UK through the UK Open Access Implementation Group.

Be prepared for change: enable your staff to work more effectively with digital technologies

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:55:30 GMT

We have advice and guidance to help your organisation implement new working practices successfully.

Our research found that human and organisational issues can be as important to the successful introduction of new ways of working as the technical aspects. By working with a number of professional organisations, in particular the Staff and Educational Development Association, we’ve developed a framework to help you take a holistic approach. For example, you’ll need to make sure that the changed practice aligns with your organisation’s strategy, is clearly communicated to staff and that your human resources department is involved in understanding how staff roles and responsibilities are changing.
Our toolkit on embedding technology-enhanced working practices will guide you through the stages of implementing a new practice. First you’ll need to assess its likely impact, then whether your organisation has the right policies and practices in place, and finally how and where to begin building capacity for the new practice.
You may also find some of our guidance on implementing change in general helpful. Our change management infoKit, for example, will take you through similar stages to the toolkit. We’ve also produced a sustaining and embedding innovations good practice guide which tackles similar issues when the change to be implemented has resulted from an innovation project at your institution. We’re supporting software developers, who are key to the success of innovation projects, by funding DevCSI which runs events to enable them to network and share good practice.
The success of a project to introduce new ways of working will, of course, also depend on staff acquiring new digital skills. Almost everything JISC does helps staff in universities and colleges develop their skills and take advantage of the benefits digital technologies can bring. Explore our services at JISC Advance to see some of the advice, guidance, workshops, training, networking opportunities and practical help on offer.

Increase your research competitiveness: collaborate

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:51:08 GMT

We provide much of the digital infrastructure to keep UK institutions competitive in research. This includes the JANET network, which connects researchers globally, and the National Grid Service, which gives them access to far more data, software and computing power than could be available at individual institutions. We’re also supporting the development of online environments specifically for research: these give collaborators anywhere access to the same resources through a common interface.

We’ve found that such environments (virtual research environments or VREs) improve communication especially within international teams. This can lead to new or faster results as one of our projects found when an international team of scholars overthrew a 100-year-old interpretation of a Latin inscription.. We’ve also found that although each VRE must be custom-designed to suit the needs of individual teams, all share key characteristics and benefit from a similar approach to their construction. Our sister organisation in the Netherlands, SURF, with whom we share information on VRE development, has recently produced a starter-kit covering issues such as the functions a VRE should offer and how to go about setting one up.
Research teams spread over sites, or even continents, can hold virtual face- to-face meetings using the video-conferencing service run by JANET. JANET also supports users of the Access Grid, a video-conferencing facility that allows participants to work simultaneously on common tasks, such as the annotation of a document
Some research requires the transfer of vast amounts of data from one site to another. JANET Lightpath does this avoiding disruption to the main JANET network. Connections with similar point-to-point networks in other countries enable UK researchers to work on major international projects
The National Grid Service gives researchers access to pooled computational resources, such as computing power, data and software, from their own desktops. It also joins up with national and international supercomputers and other computing grids.

How can my organisation use technology for work-based learning?

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:11:58 GMT

Successful delivery and outcomes require effective relationship building between providers, employers and learners. Our advice and guidance can help providers make the best use of technology to manage these relationships. It is often produced to meet the needs of a particular sector – higher education, further education or independent work-based learning – but the information contained may be useful to other sectors. You may need to adapt the language and processes described to suit the needs of your organisation.

JISC’s Regional Support Centres offer FE and Skills providers tailored advice and guidance. Most have work-based learning advisers. Listen to our podcast to find out what help they can offer (go here for a definition of work-based learning). The Regional Support Centres are part of JISC Advance which offers support covering access and inclusion, legal issues, strategic management, training, digital resources and procurement/purchasing.
Our Work-Based Learning Maturity Toolkit helps organisations providing higher education assess how well prepared they are to deliver effective work-based learning. Independent work-based learning providers may, however, find it useful as a different perspective on a familiar topic.
If you are engaging with a number of different employers, you may want to manage your relationships systematically. You may find our Guide To Customer Relationship Management useful. Engagement with small and medium-sized enterprises can be particularly difficult. We’ve developed ACUMEN to share tools and experiences developed by projects we’ve funded, for example the Xerte Learning Object Creator for creating interactive, open learning materials which can be shared with businesses.
Lifelong learning and workforce development is a major JISC programme to develop tools and advice to help organisations with different aspects of work-based learning.
- One project, for example, built a toolkit to enable learning providers and employers to develop new courses collaboratively.
- Another used e-portfolios to tailor course material and its delivery to the needs of work-based learners.
- Yet another developed a system to accredit an employee’s prior learning and incorporate it into a learning framework encompassing HE level qualifications.

Procuring efficient new information and communications technology systems

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:52:40 GMT

We’re supporting institutions to meet this challenge by developing best practice for ICT systems procurement, working with suppliers to increase system flexibility, and promoting the development and use of open standards to enable different systems to work together.

Procureweb will guide you through the evolving (and often confusing) legal, financial, cultural and technical issues involved in all stages of the procurement process. (See Impact below for how Procureweb can help you save money). The Higher Education Library - Procurement and Further Education Library - Procurement provide information on procurement strategy, best procurement practice, tendering and legal issues.
When replacing IT systems, you will want to define what you need, initiate procurement and evaluate suppliers. Our Selecting technologies infoKit covers all these stages.
Major suppliers sometimes offer products that do not interact with existing institutional systems. Consequently, institutions can find themselves ‘locked into’ a particular supplier. Our work with institutions and suppliers has concluded that there are no technical reasons why large administrative systems could not be broken into smaller components and offered as services via the cloud. Our infoKit, Working with commercial suppliers, outlines the experiences of several institutions when working with major vendors. Cloud computing is changing the way ICT systems are purchased and licensed. The infoKit’s section on establishing a contract outlines the issues you will need to consider.
It’s often difficult, if not impossible, to predict which technologies will stand the test of time. Our Technology trends infoKit provides some pointers to help with the strategic management and governance of your future technology portfolio.
Through JISC CETIS we promote the development and use of open standards so that different systems can operate together. See our briefing paper on how to make the business case for open standards.
Our advisory service, OSSWatch, provides advice and guidance on the procurement of open source software.

Develop online learning to your institution’s competitive advantage

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:10:17 GMT

Making the transition involves much more than simply moving current courses to an online environment. Our advice and guidance can help you consider how to balance online and face-to-face learning, the effect on students and staff, how your online courses will be designed, delivered and promoted and how resources will be managed.

Many of the Online Learning Task Force’s conclusions and recommendations were taken from research commissioned by JISC. Listen to our radio shows to find out more. Episode 5 discusses how to make the transition to online learning. Episode 2 draws on findings from the research to examine many of the issues around effective online learning.
Effective practice in a digital age provides an introduction to the design and facilitation of learning using technologies, many of them online. Our infoKits can help you use Virtual Learning Environments, incorporate e-Portfolios (online records of individual achievement) into online learning, and specify, design, implement and benefit from a Managed Learning Environment. Watch our video to find out how two universities, Derby and Aston, used Second Life to provide psychology students with a rich learning expereince.
By storing your online learning resources in your institutional digital repository, you enable them to be maintained for future use and to be accessed easily by students and staff. Our Digital repositories infoKit will guide you through the steps needed to set up a repository. It also sets out the benefits and various options for using repositories for learning materials, and the advantages of integrating them with other systems such as Virtual Learning Environments.
Open Educational Resources are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use and repurpose. They can transform learning by making a wealth of material available to staff and students. Institutions have been able to raise their profiles by sharing their resources openly. Our infoKit will take you through the learning and teaching, management, legal and technical issues you will need to consider when planning to make your educational resources openly available.

Developing students’ digital literacy to give them the best chance of success

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:59:27 GMT

We’re working with colleges and universities to embed core digital skills into the curriculum. By digital literacy we mean those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society: for example, the skills to use digital tools to undertake academic research, writing and critical thinking; as part of personal development planning; and as a way of showcasing achievements.

Based on our research into learners’ experiences, knowledge and expectations of technologies, we’ve developed guidance (PDF) to help institutions support students in developing new digital skills for study.
Our work has resulted in a set of recommendations to help you examine your institution’s provision and support for improving digital literacy. These include the need to involve learners in their own development and the need for academics to support learners’ use of technology, as well as to examine how they use technologies in their teaching. Our organisational audit will help you identify current areas of good practise and highlight areas for future development.
We’ve worked with a wide range of universities and colleges to capture examples of best practise which highlight several methods of delivering digital skills including embedding them into the curriculum or offering them as individual modules.
Our case studies show how different universities and colleges are promoting effective learning in a digital age. Each study addresses a different question including how to help learners develop literacies for working life, how to embed digital literacies into the curriculum, and how to develop digital literacy for staff.
Our recent guide, Emerging practice in a digital age, draws on recent case studies and projects to outline how organisations are using technologies to improve digital literacies and they way in which students and staff work. Find out how students can be 'agents of change' by going to the University of Exeter's case study.
Digital literacies feature in our Innovating e-learning conference 2011. Listen to the panel discussion, or go to other sessions and related resources. You may also find some of our podcasts interesting, in particular Dave White on what motivates learners to engage with the web, Emily-Ann Nash on how technology enhanced her own student experience and Shri Footring on meeting learners' expectations.

Anyone with an institutional role in supporting and developing ‘digital’ learners can use our pilot materials to address a range of issues including curriculum design and meeting your institutional agenda.

Cloud computing: cutting costs, not corners

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:49:00 GMT

You will want to understand what the cloud has to offer your institution and the safeguards necessary to operate legally, and protect information and privacy.

Our new infokit on cloud computing, one of the Improving organisational efficiency series, provides an accessible and thorough introduction. It covers definitions, benefits, risks, cloud models and how cloud computing can be funded without extensive capital and can help save costs. It looks at implementing a cloud strategy, and discusses how institutions, familiar with delivering resources to a wide audience through technology, are well positioned to manage the complexities of cloud computing.
Use of the cloud places information for which you are responsible outside your controlled institutional environment. Our ‘Cloud Computing and the Law Toolkit’ offers an overview of the legal aspects of cloud, three user guides, and a guide to terms and conditions usually encountered with external service providers.
Your access and identity management systems should be optimised for safe cloud computing. The Cloud Security Alliance’s document – Guidance for Access and Identity Management – discusses the importance of an honest appraisal of one’s access and identity management systems for an ‘admittedly immature cloud ecosystem’.
Cloud computing involves working with commercial suppliers. See the Working with commercial suppliers infoKit for advice on negotiating modular, flexible solutions, and securing suitable licensing and contract arrangements for cloud environments.
The cloud computing infoKit contains examples of institutions that are using cloud successfully: The Bloomsbury Media Cloud hosts a digital media portal where six colleges collaborate in real time, and publish and share resources; Cumulus has enabled a consortium of universities to work with a major supplier to deliver and share curriculum management in the cloud; Kindura is helping researchers access external, in-house and shared repository-focused services from a ‘cloud like’ front end.
For a general discussion about the use of cloud in further and higher education, see the recent Guardian debate. You may also find the report of a workshop on cloud and shared services in further and higher education useful.

Strategies for agile institutions

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:38:00 GMT

We’re helping institutions to resolve this conundrum by providing guidance on how to develop and implement institutional strategies that support agility and the development of efficient business processes.

Our strategy infoKit will guide you through an approach to building an over-arching institutional strategy, drawing on online tools and techniques to help with tasks such as assessing priorities and planning for change. We’ve added a section on business intelligence to help you access the information you need to plan your strategy.
With your strategy in place, you’ll need tools to plan your ICT deployment. We’ve supported the development of a strategic ICT toolkit to help you measure how well your current ICT is aligned with your institutional strategy and make plans for improvement. Go to a recording of our recent webinar to find out how to use the toolkit.
Taking a holistic approach, a new infoKit in the Improving organisational change series, can help you implement these plans using enterprise architecture, a technique that enables you to understand your current state and develop a blueprint for moving to a future desired state. Enterprise architecture provides a way of representing and understanding different functions and the interrelationships between them. For example, you can describe what your organisation does; the processes and people involved; what data are used and how they flow through the organisation; what and how information technologies are used; and the relationships and dependencies between all of these. The archi modelling tool provides a way of modelling and visualising these relationships.
Scenario planning can also help you plan for change by helping you prepare for alternative views of the future. You explore the likelihood of a particular scenario happening and how well-placed you are to cope if it does. Get started with our scenario Planning infoKit.
As you start implementing change to your business processes, you’ll want to measure its impact. Our impact calculator can help. Find out how 6 institutions fared when they used it to measure the impact of changes to their records management systems.

Greening your campus through environmentally-sustainable digital technologies

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:09 GMT

Our work can help you calculate your ICT-related carbon footprint and plan how to reduce it, procure more environmentally-friendly ICT systems and use ICT to change to more sustainable ways of working.

The ICT energy and carbon footprinting tool, an output from a major study, provides a straightforward and simple means of identifying the major ICT consumers of energy and producers of carbon within your institution. Having identified these, you’ll be well placed to plan their reduction. You may find this saves you money: our research has estimated that UK institutions spent £116 million on ICT-related electricity bills in 2009.
The horizon scanning report, Low carbon computing: A view to 2050 and beyond, includes a roadmap you may find useful as a starting point for long-term planning.
We’ve identified some ‘must consider’ issues when planning how to green your institution’s ICT. These include how to: cool data centres more efficiently; waste less energy in idle desktop computers; reduce paper consumption; and purchase equipment that uses less carbon to produce and run. Our advice and guidance will help you make environmentally sound procurements.
A recent project has achieved an 80% reduction in the energy used for file storage by storing data on disks with different energy consumptions depending on the frequency with which the data is accessed.
ICT accounts for 2% of global carbon emissions now, but estimates suggest that, globally, it could contribute a 15% reduction by 2020 by enabling more efficient working practices across all economic sectors. Our work has piloted a location independent working scheme for academic staff in teaching roles which could save more than £1000 per staff member per year in travel and energy costs

Other ways in which you could reduce your carbon footprint include sharing services with other colleges, universities or suppliers. Outsourcing and cloud computing, using suppliers with good green credentials (for example to run email), can also remove investment costs in expensive hardware and buildings, as well as related energy costs.

Close cooperation between IT, Estates and Finance is vital to delivering your organisation’s sustainable ICT strategy. We’re supporting institutions by brokering collaboration through these groups’ national representative bodies.

Compete on the world stage - develop a future-proof internationalisation strategy

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:09 GMT

Our resources can help your institution use digital technologies to develop and implement your internationalisation strategy. Easier access to online services and resources, virtual research and learning environments, and even social media are all playing an increasingly significant role in greater mobility and education across borders.

JISC’s guide to internationalisation includes links to planning tools that will help you develop your strategy, taking into account political, economic and other factors that will determine the future global landscape.
There’s more to mobility than going somewhere else to study. Web, email and social media can facilitate ‘virtual’ mobility by providing students with remote access to staff, resources and other learners. We’ve published an introduction to mobility, including ‘virtual’ mobility (or place-independent learning). See also how each of Cardiff, Northumbria and Bristol universities uses Twitter and Facebook to support international students.
e-portfolios, digital, transportable collections of a student’s lifelong learning, can also help students apply to study abroad by providing a convenient way of demonstrating their previous experience.
The Bologna Process simplifies comparisons between different national higher education qualifications – initially in Europe but increasingly further afield. We provide an overview of the Bologna Process: the creation of a European Higher Education Area (EHEA).
International research collaboration is important to the UK. Virtual Research Environments (VREs) enable distributed research groups or teams to collaborate online. Similarly, online learning has clear global potential, particularly if considered reciprocally.
Remote learners and international collaborators need safe, secure access to your institution’s services and resources. Go to our interactive brochure to find out how federated access management and single sign-on can help.
Digital technologies are also helping institutions work with global businesses. Our infoKit, online collaborative tools for business and community engagement, can help you get started. Projects at Northumbria University and the University of the Arts showcase the possibilities for international teaching and learning.

How can I afford to digitise my collections and maintain them in future?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:09 GMT

We’ve identified new and emergent business models and successful strategies adopted by colleges and universities for managing digital collections. We also provide advice on how to digitise and plan for the sustainability of digital collections.

Our interactive Digitisation Toolkit will guide you through the steps needed to digitise your content, including initial planning, the digitisation process itself, and how and where to store your digitised content so that it is easily discoverable.
In partnership with a number of key organisations, we’ve examined the business models of 12 digital collections in Europe and North America and have found they combine a variety of techniques to secure funding, share costs and generate revenue. These include research grants, government and institutional funding, organisational partnerships, licensing, consulting fees, and subscriptions. We found that successful projects have a number of factors in common including:
leaders who set and achieve goals and financial targets
a deep understanding of the value of the resource to users
prioritising the digitisation of material based on user-needs
The resources to preserve collections should come from public-private partnerships, according to a study by the Blue Ribbon Task Force, an international initiative part-funded by JISC. The study recommended that institutions base decisions about which material to preserve on long-term strategy, the material’s intrinsic value and how it might be used now and in the future.
JISC Digital Media provides practical advice on sustaining your digital collection, including discussions of the factors you need to consider when planning for sustainability and the options for financing the collection in the long term.
You’ll want to measure how well your digital resources are used to guide future investment decisions. We’ve supported the development of a toolkit, to guide you through the quantitative and qualitative methods available to measure use and impact. The toolkit also provides case studies and invites users to contribute their own.

Successful student recruitment

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:09 GMT

We’ve developed technologies in each of these three areas to support institutions with student recruitment.

A recent JISC-funded study by the 1994 group illustrates best practice in communicating with prospective students. The research indicates that information must be coupled with advice and guidance if it is to drive well-informed decision-making.
We’ve funded individual institutions to develop online guides, student handbooks, and student-created guidance. For example, the University of Central Lancashire created The Alternative Guide (TAG) a ‘warts and all’ guide created by students for applicants and freshers.
Listen to our radio show to find out how digital technologies are helping universities to share reliable and consistent course information and support new students throughout the recruitment process.
Open educational resources (educational materials shared freely online) enable prospective students to preview course content. Our Open educational resources infoKit will guide you through the steps needed to decide whether, and how, to make your educational resources open.
e-Portfolios, learner-created collections of digital items such as ideas, evidence, reflections and feedback , enable learners to draw together prior learning and experience. As they’re particularly useful for capturing informal learning gained through work and life experience, they can help with widening participation and lifelong-learning. To find out more, including how to set up and use e-portfolios, see our infoKit
Student recruitment involves the management and transfer of data between a number of administrative processes such as student records, financial records and course information. We’ve been working to develop a standard, called XCRI (PDF) which facilitates the sharing of course-related information between institutions and to and from organisations such as UCAS.
UCAS Apply now handles 98.5% of applications to UK higher education electronically, yet business processes for admissions are often predicated, or even reliant, on print-outs of data. We have mapped out existing electronic admissions processes across the UK and are now working to identify best practice and provide a blueprint for the future.

Retaining students

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

We've examined how digital technologies can support retention at various stages in the student lifecycle from search and enrolment, to teaching and learning, through to assessment and feedback.

Learners are more likely to prosper if they are suitably matched to their course and institution. You can help students make informed decisions by sharing sample learning materials and lectures freely online through Open educational resources
Online technologies can also help learners develop realistic expectations of study and acclimatise to their new institution. Listen to our radio show to find out how several universities and colleges are using digital technologies to better meet students’ requirements and improve retention.
Many learners enter further and higher education enthusiastic about the use of digital technologies, yet lacking the skills needed to apply them to education. Unchecked, this could result in dissatisfaction, drop-out or failure. We’ve developed new guidance (PDF) to help institutions support students in developing these new learning and digital literacies
Students are more likely to prosper if they have a stake in designing their own learning experiences. Our new guidance, Emerging practice in a digital age, discusses how to work in partnership with students and includes several written and video case studies and podcast interviews.
Effective management information can also help institutions retain students. For example, ‘at risk’ students can be identified by tracking those who fail to log in to key services, such as library systems and virtual learning environments. See our new toolkit to find out how activity data, which records a user’s use of a resource, can help.
Some institutions are supporting student retention through enhancing the first year experience. Our getting started guide Student engagement and retention: easing the transition to HE, puts the experiences of three universities into a wider context. Another guide shows how some institutions are using mobile technologies to enhance the student experience and thus increase retention rates.

How can digital technologies help my institution recruit a wider mix of students?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

Our work can help your institution encourage non-traditional students to apply, support them through the applications process and ensure that you treat all applications fairly. Our extensive work in e-learning and accessibility can help you provide a flexible, inclusive learning environment that can make it easier for all students to complete their studies.

We’ve found that the use of social networking tools, life timelines and e-portfolios can encourage sixth formers who assumed higher education was not for them to reconsider. E-portfolios, online portfolios of a student’s experience and achievements, encouraged these sixth formers to take a more considered view of their future options. Our e-portfolios infoKit has a section on the use of e-portfolios for widening participation.
JISC TechDis provides advice and guidance on how to make all aspects of your institution’s provision inclusive to all students whatever their individual needs. This includes advice on how to market your institution to disabled students and how to help them make the transition from further to higher education or work.
We’ve worked with the university admissions service, UCAS, to explore how technology can support applicants through the admissions process, give feedback to unsuccessful applicants and ensure the process is fair. UCAS is working to implement the outputs of this work.
Providing a supportive learning environment is essential to attracting and retaining students. Virtual Learning Environments can be adapted to make them accessible to all learners including those with disabilities. Mobile technology could also help students with disabilities or those juggling study with family or work commitments. Find out more with our mobile technology toolkit.
Our accessibility self evaluation tool will help you assess how accessible and inclusive your institution is to students whatever their background or needs. See also our specific advice on accessibility for senior managers in colleges and universities.

How can we improve the way students are assessed?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

Based on findings from our research over many years, we’ve produced a range of material to help you find out how technology can enhance and enrich assessment and how you might go about adopting technology-enhanced assessment at your institution.

Our guide, Effective assessment in a digital age (PDF), starts from the principles of effective assessment and feedback to identify the benefits technology can offer, which include:
- improved learner engagement, for example through interactive assessments with feedback
- choice in the timing and location of assessments
- efficient submission, marking, moderation and data storage
- consistent, accurate results with opportunities to combine human and computer marking
- immediate feedback
- innovative approaches based around the use of creative media and online peer and self-assessment
- accurate, timely and accessible evidence on the effectiveness of curriculum design and delivery
A number of case studies illustrate the different approaches taken by institutions when adopting technologies to improve assessment and feedback. These include aligning with an institution-wide vision for teaching and learning, using technologies to ensure quality and consistency in assessment, and using technologies to enable students to reflect and interact with tutors over feedback.
Our video case studies capture the experiences of different institutions with technology-enhanced assessment. One, for example, developed peer assessment using blogs and wikis for student discussion. Another found that the ability to see quickly where students require extra support saved staff time in making appropriate interventions.
You may find our Assessment and feedback planning tool useful when planning your move to technology-enhanced assessment. The list of points to consider will help you make the most of the benefits technology can offer.

To learn more, sign up for one of our workshops on Effective Assessment in a Digital Age to be held early in 2011.

Meet student expectations with mobile learning

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

Mobile learning changes what is possible in education: it allows the learner to communicate with tutors and peers, as well as access learning resources. Our advice and guidance can help you take full advantage of these opportunities.

JISC InfoNet’s Mobile Learning infoKit will guide you through the stages needed to incorporate mobile learning into your organisation’s strategy, keep a clear focus on pedagogy, and put in place a rigorous implementation plan. It includes some quick wins (eg. switching on mobile versions of your online learning environment and using secure text messaging services) and 10 steps to mobile learning adoption. It will also help you work out the cost benefit of your mobile learning strategy. As most students will bring their own mobile devices, your organisation may be able to save costs on the provision of desktop computers and divert some savings to the provision of free technical support to students.
You may wonder how your organisation can support the wide range of mobile devices and platforms students will have. Our briefing paper champions the use of open technologies which enable learners to access networked information irrespective of which platform or devices they are using.
Mobile learning raises concerns around legal issues such as security, privacy and accessibility. Our webcast highlights good legal practice. We also have guidance on accessibility and inclusion to help you maximise the potential of mobile technologies for learners with disabilities.
Although students may be familiar with using mobiles in their everyday lives, they don’t always know how to apply this to learning. Our case studies show how teaching staff have used mobile technologies to engage students successfully. You can also find more case studies in the Mobile Learning infoKit and the Making mobile learning work publication which addresses the use of mobile for science and engineering education.

How can my institution improve employee access to higher education?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

The recent government white paper, Putting students at the heart of higher education, encourages universities to engage with employers to accredit or “kitemark” courses. This requires the development of successful relationships. Our work can help you use digital technologies to manage your relationships with employers and learner/employees effectively, make your course information readily discoverable and deliver courses flexibly.

JISC’s Regional Support Centres can offer tailored advice and guidance to colleges. Most have work-based learning advisers. Universities may also find their generic advice helpful.
We’ve developed a work-based learning maturity toolkit to help institutions providing higher education to assess how well prepared they are to deliver effective work-based learning. You can assess your current performance against 7 criteria, identify the barriers to achieving your vision and develop a plan of action to overcome them.
If you’re engaging with a number of different employers, you may want to manage your relationships systematically. You may find our guide to customer relationship management useful. Engagement with small and medium-sized enterprises can be particularly difficult. We’ve developed ACUMEN to share tools and experiences developed by projects we’ve funded, for example the Xerte Learning Object Creator for creating interactive, open learning materials which can be shared with businesses.
We’ve funded a major programme of work to develop tools and advice to help institutions with different aspects of work-based learning.
- One project, for example, built a toolkit to enable learning providers and employers to develop new courses collaboratively.
- Another used e-portfolios to tailor course material and its delivery to the needs of work-based learners.
- Yet another developed a system to accredit an employee’s prior learning and incorporate it into a learning framework encompassing HE level qualifications.
Businesses and students will find your course information more easily if you use the XCRI standard which facilitates the sharing of course-related information between organisations.

How can I keep the curriculum relevant at a time of rapid change?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

Our advice and guidance can help you use technology during all these stages of the curriculum lifecycle, saving you time and money.

Our research has identified common issues and inefficiencies in curriculum design and highlighted areas where information technology can help. For example:
- market research before course development can help generate new course ideas; technology can enable iterative course review and improvement
- technology can also enable open frameworks to tailor courses to employer and learner needs
- we also found that it’s important to review your existing curriculum design processes before you change them: our Process review infoKit can help
A range of existing and emerging resources around curriculum design and delivery are available at The Design Studio. Drawing on the experiences of projects we’re funding, this free online resource covers a range of issues including: market research; quality assurance and enhancement; employability and responsiveness; assessment and feedback; and course information. For example:
- Our new guide to Transforming curriculum delivery through technology describes how 16 different organisations used technology to address a range of different challenges including increasing student motivation, improving feedback and assessment and facilitating learning during field trips
- you can use Learning design tools to visualise and explore educational concepts, allowing you to communicate aspects of the curriculum to practitioners, students and employers in terms that are meaningful to them. Effective practice in a digital age also discusses learning design principles
- Our new resource, Emerging Practice in a Digital Age, explores how the use of technologies can enhance learning in a climate of economic pressure, changing social circumstances and rapid technological change. A series of videos and podcasts expands on the issues. Hear more about how to design an online curriculum at the Learning in transition JISC On Air Radio Show.

Research integrity: develop your institution’s policy for research data management

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

Research data management is important for institutions as well as researchers. Listen to Professor Kevin Schurer at our Research Integrity conference to hear why - or read the Digital Curation Centre’s briefing paper on Making the case for research data.

Funder policies and legislation are key drivers. All Research Councils now have research data management policies, based on a set of common principles formulated by Research Councils UK which individual councils have interpreted differently. See the Digital Curation Centre’s table for a quick overview.
Researchers and institutions also need to comply appropriately with Freedom of Information legislation. Following recommendations by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, the Information Commissioner's Office has published new guidance on freedom of information legislation and research information. Our Question and Answer document answers the questions a researcher might ask when faced with a FoI request for research data.
To manage research data effectively, many institutions will need a formal policy for support and guidance. The University of Edinburgh’s policy, for example, lays down the key points to which the university aspires. The University of Oxford’s commitment to good research data management requires the deployment of a federated institutional data repository. See the Digital Curation Centre’s list of institutional research data policies.
If you’re planning an institutional policy or strategy, you may find it helpful to attend one of the Digital Curation Centre’s regional roadshows. These three day events consist of sessions aimed at different audiences, including senior managers, researchers and librarians.
The Digital Curation Centre offers a wealth of advice and guidance on all aspects of research data management, much of it developed as a consequence of our work. See how Cambridge, Glasgow and Oxford universities have built on this advice to deliver guidance to their own researchers.
Our work has supported 8 institutions to build their own infrastructures for research data management. We’ve documented the key benefits that these institutions derived, which include potential cost savings, improved data sharing and integrated thinking around research data management.

Manage your research information and be ready for the research excellence framework

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

Research information is often scattered across an institution: grant management in the finance office, a publications database in the research office, a repository in the library. A research information management system integrates these different systems to provide high quality information at reduced cost. We’ve worked with other agencies to define what needs to be done to improve research information management and have developed resources to help you implement a new system and work out the cost savings of adopting the European standard for research information.

Based on the results of our research, we’ve produced an infoKit to take you through the stages of building an integrated research information management system. First you’ll need to develop a business case by identifying the costs associated with the different uses of the data held in your system. As well as the research excellence framework and reporting to other agencies, these could include:

developing and processing grant applications
reporting research outcomes
institutional management of research
database driven web pages
There are internal drivers, too, that you’ll need to take into account, such as helping academics identify funding opportunities, calculating full economic costs for grant applications, and managing funds once awarded.

Our projects found that no single solution or system supports all of these functions. Find out the factors that led some of them to go for custom-built and others for off- the-peg.
Information needs to be provided in a format that can be shared with external agencies, as well as across and within institutions. We recommend the CERIF 2008 (Common European Research Information Format) standard which describes the research domain, including relationships between researchers, funders, institutions, projects and their outputs. Adoption of this standard could save UK institutions 25-30% of the cost of submitting information to external organisations. Use our CERIF savings calculator to estimate the cost savings a CERIF-compliant research information management system could bring to your institution.

Research integrity: make a start with managing your research data

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

Our work has developed advice, guidance, tools and training materials to help institutions address these issues. We’ve also supported work to build discipline specific infrastructures for research data management.

You can assess how well your institution or department is managing its research data at present using the CARDIO self-assessment tool.
You can’t keep all your research data, so how do you decide what to keep? The Digital Curation Centre’s ‘How to guide’, Appraise and select research data for curation, addresses issues such as assigning responsibility for appraisal and how to create an appraisal and selection policy.
Most funders require researchers to submit an outline data management plan with grant applications. The Digital Curation Centre has developed an online data management planning tool to guide researchers through the stages of plan development, from outline plan to operational plan for use during the research process. For an overview see, the ‘How to guide’, Develop a data management and sharing plan
One project built a data management infrastructure for the humanities consisting of training materials for researchers and a pilot ‘Database as a Service‟ (DaaS) enabling researchers to create, edit, search, and potentially open up relational databases of research data. Training materials include factsheets, short courses and course books.
Another project enabled researchers in the life sciences to improve their data management with minimal extra effort. This made it easier to select and submit research data for long term curation to the institutional repository.
Further information on outputs from our projects, including training materials and research data infrastructure developed for different disciplines, is available at JISC Managing Research Data Programme 2009-11 Outputs. We’ve also documented the key benefits derived by the institutions we worked with.
JISC’s Digital Curation Centre runs training courses and regional roadshows for different audiences, including senior managers, researchers and librarians.

See also our recent webinar on Meeting the research data challenge

Increase your competitiveness through research collaboration with business and the community

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:08 GMT

With this engagement strategy in place, our advice and guidance can help you choose the best approach and online tools to manage all aspects of your research collaboration with business and community partners. We can also help you manage the legal aspects of public-private sector working.

Our guidance on how to promote your research expertise online will help you make best use of online channels to communicate information about the expertise of your researchers to potential business and community partners. You can use the self-assessment tool to assess your current provision and identify gaps and areas for improvement.
We’ve supported some institutions to trial collaborative online tools in a number of different contexts. Our infoKit draws on their experiences to guide you through some of the issues to consider when choosing tools for particular purposes.
When working with external partners, you need a way of sharing online resources securely. We’ve extended federated access management to make it easy for you to allow trusted external partners to access the resources they need.
Working with external partners also raises many legal issues, for example around intellectual property rights, data protection and privacy, and the use of public infrastructure by private organisations. JISC Legal has advice and guidance to help.
Open innovation, which allows an organisation to solicit external expertise to solve a problem, can result in new business opportunities and the discovery of unexpected partners. Our research (PDF) has identified that online systems can help:

engender trust between participants in an open network
overcome cultural differences between academia and external organisations
help participants to define problems and find people to solve them.
These key factors also emerged at our conference on the Future of Research

JISC’s open source software advisory service (OSS Watch) has drawn on experience gained with open software development to produce several briefing documents which explore the lessons for research collaboration in general.

Sharing and protecting your intellectual property in an online environment

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:07 GMT

We’ve produced practical guidance and resources on all aspects of intellectual property rights and copyright law. In particular, we’re committed to helping you make your institution’s outputs as open as possible by taking advantage of new and emergent licences for open educational and other digital resources.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England recommends that every institution establish a clear intellectual property rights policy 'including IT guidelines and codes of practice for staff and students'. Licensing forms the bedrock of any such policy. The licence chosen reflects how open or closed a resource can be and who has permission to access and use the licensed materials.
A copyright owner can choose to license materials under a variety of licences, not just one. Our licensing toolkit for senior managers summarises the key-points about licensing and provides guidance to help you deliver content within a clear and open framework. A visualisation tool (PDF) will take you through the key steps and decisions you will need to take when dealing with the intellectual property rights and licensing issues associated with content generation and/or use.

Open content licences, such as Creative Commons, ensure value for money and fairness for open content, while maintaining legal clarity. We’ve put together a briefing paper to explain the benefits. Our overview (PDF) of the ‘openness’ of open content licences provides a useful guide to the various forms of licence currently available.

JISC Legal has a wealth of guidance and information relating to intellectual property rights, including accessible guides to the essentials of intellectual property law and copyright legislation, as well as information about your obligations with regard to intellectual property rights

Marketing your courses in an increasingly competitive environment

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:07 GMT

Our resources can help your organisation use digital technologies to understand your market, showcase your course content, make course information easier for potential students to discover and manage external relationships.

To understand your market, you need good business intelligence. For example, information about prospective students, coupled with retention and attainment data, could help you promote your courses more effectively. A business intelligence system can help you capitalise on data you already collect and repurpose it to inform a variety of business decisions including those about prospective students. Get started with our business intelligence infoKit
Effective communication is central to effective course marketing. JISC Netskills workshops can help you improve skills in writing for the web, podcasting, social media and web design. JISC TechDis has advice on how to make sure your marketing is accessible by all students, whatever their needs.
Enabling people to find your courses is the next challenge. The Online Learning Task-Force study found that online distance learning courses are often particularly difficult to find in websites. We’ve developed an information model, XCRI-CAP, to enable you to publish online prospectus information in a standard format, making it easier for aggregator agencies (such as UCAS, the National Learning Directory or 14-19 Prospectus websites) to collect and share.
Open Educational Resources – course resources shared freely online – provide potential students with a taster of what's on offer. They can increase your visibility online, increase website traffic, attract new audiences and generate media interest. The Open University, for example, significantly boosted their marketing by sharing free educational resources via iTunes U and their free Open Learn service. Our Open Educational Resources infoKit will help you get started.
Our relationship management resources can help you to work through your approach to managing your relationships with stakeholders, including potential students, their schools, colleges or workplaces. Social software can also open up new ways to communicate and collaborate online. JISC InfoNet's Social Software infoKit explains the options.

Improve all aspects of your business - get your identity management systems in shape

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:07 GMT

There may be several reasons for this: institutions may not fully appreciate the benefits of an optimised identity management system, there may be confusion over terminology, uncertainty over how to go about making improvements, or concern over costs. We have advice and guidance to help.

We’ve produced an introduction to Federated Access Management terminology and concepts which points out the subtle but important distinctions between similar sounding terms. Federated access is where there are mutually agreed, trusted policies for sharing user information, resources and services. However, not all access management is federated, as the introduction explains.
We understand that auditing and optimising identity management systems can be daunting. The UK Access Management Federation and our identity management toolkit are helpful starting points. Commercial products exist, but with the right in-house team, open source solutions can be customised to fit your infrastructure and deliver your required outputs at a lower cost.
You may be concerned about the cost of overhauling your identity management systems. However, the return almost always far outweighs the investment. Leeds Metropolitan University used its access and identity management systems to implement a full suite of Google applications for students, delivering a much-needed improved student experience for less than £40k. Developing the same functionality in house would have cost £1 million over four years. If you’re still not sure of the benefits of good access and identity management, take a look at our interactive brochure which includes several inspirational case studies.
Using one username and password to access resources across different platforms, applications and locations is called single sign-on, and is facilitated by middleware such as Shibboleth. Single sign-on has significantly reduced the administration burden on institutions and removed barriers to access. We’ve produced a 5-minute animation on federated access management and single sign-on.

Strategies for engaging with business and the community

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:07 GMT

However, institutions require a strategy for business and community engagement to ensure they play to their strengths, avoid duplication of effort, make use of skills and resources across departments and deploy digital technologies to support these aims. We’ve developed online tools to help you build such a strategy and manage relationships with external partners. We’re also developing tools specifically to help you network and collaborate with business and community partners.

Our research (PDF) has found that senior managers and staff directly involved in external engagement are well-informed about their institution’s strategy, but other staff often are not. We also found that external engagement in applied research tends to follow the interests of the researchers involved rather than the institution’s strategic objectives, even where these had been clearly identified.
Based on these findings, we’ve developed a workbook to help you review your approach to business and community engagement and diagnose your institution’s strengths and weaknesses. Our infoKit will then help you develop a strategy by guiding you through the issues you will need to consider under a number of headings ranging from policy to understanding internal processes to customer perception.
Once you’re engaging with external partners, you’ll need a way of managing relationships so they deliver value. This will be particularly important if you have many partners, or if different people from different parts of your institution are likely to interact with the same partners. Our resources will help you consider your approach to managing customer relations, develop good practice and design the processes involved in managing relationships before choosing a system to deliver what you want.
Our resource, ACUMEN can help you engage with one particularly important group, small and medium-sized enterprises. It provides access to the best online tools to help with tasks such as starting up a business, online marketing and the use of information and communication technologies to increase business efficiency.

For further advice and guidance on developing your engagement strategy go to JISC Advance

Develop business intelligence to improve your strategic planning

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:06 GMT

Our research found that senior managers need a range of information, in particular on finance, costs and students. We’ve developed advice and guidance to help you plan and implement a business intelligence system to provide you with the information you need:

Access to good business intelligence is critical to successful strategic planning, so we’ve launched our business intelligence infoKit as part of our strategy infoKit. A first step when planning a business intelligence system is to determine the questions you want your system to address. To do this, you may need to assess where you are now compared with where you want to be in future, both against your institutional strategy and as a benchmarking exercise using external data
You can use our maturity model to find out how far your institution is along the road towards a mature business intelligence system i.e. one into which data are automatically entered and from which information can be extracted to support evidence-based decision making.
Having specified your requirements and understood your position, you’ll want to build a business case, secure senior management support and scope your system. Five composite case studies illustrate how different institutions have addressed common challenges to meet their individual needs. To find out more about business and intelligence, see our new Pathway to best practice guide.
Your business intelligence system will only be as good as the data held in it, so you will also need to make sure you have in place robust data and information management practices. JISC Infonet’s series of records and information management infoKits has advice and guidance to help.
Activity data, which records a user’s use of a resource, is becoming increasingly important as a source of information for evidence-based decision making. Make a start with our new toolkit, Exploiting activity data in the academic environment.

Making core administrative systems more cost effective

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:00 GMT

Our advice and guidance can help you take a strategic approach to planning new integrated IT systems. We can also help you take measures to improve existing systems, where a total re-design isn’t feasible.

A first step is to identify what you need to change to increase efficiency. Our Taking a holistic approach infoKit takes an ‘enterprise architecture’ approach to help you identify your options. See also Strategies for agile institutions.
When new IT systems are implemented alongside the old, the two often don’t ‘speak the same language’: data becomes impossible to share and staff time is wasted on re-keying data. We’re supporting a service-oriented approach to resolving this problem: data from one system is offered as a service which any other system can consume. We’ve produced an infoKit Getting more from existing investments to help you apply service-oriented and other approaches to your existing systems.
By enabling your systems to work well together, you are providing your organisation with accurate and up-to-date information on which to base decisions. See also Develop business intelligence to improve your strategic planning.
It’s important to look at user needs, not just system constraints, when planning ways of making current systems work better together. We supported the University of Derby to improve the student application and registration process by putting users at the centre of service design and process improvements.
We’ve supported work to improve many different administrative processes. For example, timetabling and resource scheduling depend heavily on accurate information about many other aspects of institutional management such as staff and student records and estates planning. Our work has shown how digital technologies can support process improvements.

Are you getting best value from JISC content and subscriptions?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:00 GMT

A list of all the free and discounted licensed digital resources is available in the JISC Collections catalogue. Resources include databases, archival collections and electronic journals as well as e-books, film and digital teaching materials. Your subscription to a particular resource will depend on your institution’s JISC band.

Some popular resources include the:

Digimap which hosts a growing range of topographic, marine, geological and historical maps. It saves each subscribed institution an estimated £112,000 p.a. on Ordnance Survey data alone over the commercial rate. These case studies illustrate the wide range of subjects in which Digimap is being used.
e-books for FE project which provides all UK college or sixth forms with free access to almost 3,000 e-books until July 2014, ensuring students have access to core e-textbooks at critical times during the academic year.
Newsfilm Online which is currently free to all UK institutions. Covering more than a century of news film footage, it is being used by students across different disciplinary areas.

Access to most content is through the new JISC Content portal

We’ve funded more than 50 projects over the past 5 years to digitise fragile and hard-to-access materials. Four inspirational videos show how digitised content can transform education and research.

We’re also helping to make resources easier to discover by working with publishers to improve their user interfaces, login and search functions. Our research into steps institutions can take to improve discovery and access to digital resources resulted in the following tips:

provide regular training throughout the year on your library catalogue to improve learners’ information literacy skills
embed links into teaching materials so that learners can access digital resources without having to login
procure library management systems with simple interfaces and search functions, which also provide more complex search facilities for experienced users.

Share services to save costs and form strategic partnerships

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:00 GMT

Shared services have become more attractive with the development of technology that facilitates collaboration. JISC is a shared service which itself provides a range of national shared services, such as JANET, the UK’s education and research network, and JISC Advance, which gives advice and guidance to institutions about technology. We’ve also developed resources to help organisations plan and implement their own shared services.

We’ve updated our shared services infoKit as part of the Improving organisational efficiency series of infoKits. This gives the historical and political context of shared services, covers the benefits and risks and some of the steps needed to implement a successful shared service.
A first step is to understand where shared services may offer genuine benefit and strategic advantage. Our Taking a holistic approach infokit can help you make this assessment taking an ‘enterprise architecture’ approach. See also Strategies for agile institutions.
Failure to understand the importance of good process design and good workflow is the main reason why so many shared service initiatives fail to deliver the expected benefits. It’s essential to review and re-engineer your business processes before deciding whether to share or outsource. North Hertfordshire College, for example, managed to reduce the cost of its finance processes by 30% in a six-month period after such a review, removing the need to outsource or develop a shared service.
You will need to know the cost of existing services and the benefits they deliver before deciding whether a shared service or outsourcing represents value for money. Our costing technology and services infoKit can help you with this valuation.
We’ve produced a series of case studies to illustrate how different organisations have approached shared services. The University of Plymouth and Plymouth City Council HELASS Project, for example, developed a useful approach for identifying many possibilities for sharing services and selecting the best two.

Plan for change to improve your organisation’s efficiency

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:00 GMT

Our resources can help you plan what changes you need to make, understand the impact of change on different parts of your organisation and implement a change programme.

Improving organisational efficiency is a good place to start. This suite of resources covers topics such as shared services, cloud computing and how to get more from existing investments.
A first step towards greater efficiency is to assess how well your business processes are helping you to achieve your institution’s strategic objectives. Taking a holistic approach outlines how enterprise architecture can help institutions develop plans for change around services rather than systems. By taking a holistic approach, you are better able to see where and what innovation is needed.
For example, King's College London took an enterprise architecture approach to integrating IT services across its many campuses and sites in central London. Liverpool John Moores University is using it to align ICT with corporate strategic objectives. University College Falmouth is improving administrative processes to monitor student retention and employability. These and other case studies are described in Experiences with EA
‘Start small and build up’ is a key message to emerge from work we’ve supported. You’re more likely to persuade others of the value of enterprise architecture when you have an example of how it has led to success. The Strategic Information Practice Group, will enable you to share experiences with peers in other institutions.
Once you’ve identified where change is needed, you’ll need to take steps to implement it. The Change management infokit can help. Other infokits you may find useful include:
- Risk management
- Process review, a step-by-step guide to improving business processes
- Portfolio management to make sure your organisation makes the right investments; programme management, a means of organizing a range of projects; and project management.

Measure the impact of your digital resources to save costs

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:21:00 GMT

Our work has resulted in a range of guidelines, tools and use cases to help you measure the impact of your digital resources.

Our Journal Usage Statistics Portal can help you base your subscription purchasing on how well your electronic journals are used. The Raptor system will also help you gather usage statistics.
The Toolkit for the Impact of Digitised Scholarly Resources will guide you through qualitative and quantitative methods to measure the impact of your digital resources, for example, how to get user feedback, or how to use analytics to measure the number of visitors to a web page.
One of the case studies discussed in the toolkit, Splashes and Ripples, draws together the findings of studies into the impact of 12 different digital resources on teaching and research. Recommendations include planning ahead to measure impact and developing measurement and analytic tools that can be adapted for use with different sizes of collection.
Understanding your audience is important when planning a resource or deciding whether to take out a subscription. See Guide to Researching Audiences for guidance on how to design and conduct audience analysis and use the results.

The following are examples of how different organisations are using impact data to inform decision making:

The Listening for Impact project enabled the University of Oxford to demonstrate the impact of its podcasts, improve access to them and recommend policy and process changes to monitor impact in future.
British History Online enhanced the tools and features of its online library to satisfy the needs of researchers, teachers and learners.
Revenue, Recession, Reliance concluded that a thorough understanding of users correlated with continued growth and success in projects to manage digital resources.