Speakers
Description
Jisc, the UK’s National Research and Education Network (NREN), serves the UK’s research and education sector, providing a digital infrastructure that enables teaching, learning and research, nationally and internationally. Jisc is unique in bringing together both the technology (as the operator of the UK’s network, Janet) and digital content to provide technology services, library and data services, and shared services and tools to support the student experience and the management of universities and colleges. Our vision is to support research and education (R&E) globally through best-of-breed technology, services and the provision of trusted advice.
Jisc is at the forefront of edtech, with learner analytics and the learner records warehouse our flagship beta service in the data arena. Thought leadership is provided in key areas such as cyber security, analytics, online learning, digital capabilities and open science, helping to inform policy and drive innovation in the sector and keep our systems and data secure. Our new areas of focus include ‘the intelligent campus’, working on ways to improve the student experience by capturing and analysing the many kinds of data that can be collected across university and college campuses.
We would like to use our experience to make a SMART contribution to Africa. That is, to Share Meaningful, Advanced, Reliable Technology enabling students, staff and researchers to work as efficiently and effectively as possible. We believe this is an opportune time for us to work in collaboration, build partnerships and share experiences between Jisc and African countries.
To initiate such discussions, this presentation will introduce Jisc and the challenges we have encountered in meeting the requirements of UK R&E on a global scale. As universities expand and develop, so do the demands on the services which support them. Fast, reliable connectivity is an essential foundation upon which to build courses and research programmes that are not restricted to a single location. Seamless access to networks and content helps to drive efficiency, both for users and administrators. The availability of such services is increasingly becoming an expectation for participants of R&E, so how can we respond to this demand efficiently and effectively ourselves?
We will share our experiences of responding to the demands of transnational education: global connectivity requirements, and access to digital content to enable and support the mobile student, wherever they may be in the world. We will discuss interoperable access management, such as the UK Access Management Federation and eduroam that interoperate globally through GÉANT and eduGAIN, and how in refining services for our national members we have developed solutions that can be shared worldwide, avoiding the need to invest money and time unnecessarily. Global security, critical to all aspects of delivering edtech, is an area in which we can offer advice and guidance, along with services such as DDOS mitigation and pentesting.
As the landscape of R&E requirements evolves, we aim to fulfil our vision by building services with the capability to benefit NRENs and users globally, and we are excited to share these with the African community.
| Sub-Theme | SMART Universities: Concepts, Characteristics and Technologies |
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