At the town meeting to discuss JISC Circular 5/99
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pub99/c05_99.html) on 16.12.99, it was agreed that
notes from the meeting and copies of the presentations would be circulated.
It is intended that this information should be mounted on the JISC
website. In the meantime this email contains notes from the meeting,
particularly relating to the question and answer session which followed the
main presentations. These represent only one person's notes, therefore any
corrections or requests for further clarification are welcome.
Elizabeth Graham
**Notes from a town meeting on JISC Circular 5/99, held at the Policy
Studies Institute, London on 16th December 1999**
Programme
=========
- Presentation on Circular 5/99 and the DNER (Chris Rusbridge)
- Presentation on the JCIEL Circular 7/99
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pub99/c07_99.html -Tom Franklin)
- Questions and answers
DNER
=====
The money available for this programme will be between £12-£15 million.
There are no guidelines on how big a proposal should be (eLib projects
ranged from about £18,000 to £1 million)
The programme size will be 60-70 projects at most, which means that the
average size of projects will be about £200,000. Some proposals will be
required to show institutional matching. It is advised that bidders should
be explicit about this and emphasise monetary contributions, not just
overheads.
The funding available is currently £9 million from HEFCE. HEFCW and DENI
are planning to join, SHEFC may also become involved. The amounts
available will be approximately:
£9 million HEFCE
£1 million other councils
£2.5 million moving images
£2.5 million DNER
The DNER will be national scale, managed and integrated. Access will be
through entry points tailored to the needs of specific communities. Other
features will be the ability to cross-search, the provision of value-added
services and the fact that it is cross-domain.
Learning and teaching
================
Bids must:
- be clearly and specifically for learning and teaching
- be consistent with JISC strategy.
- avoid conflict with other learning and teaching areas.
Evaluation
========
- is critical for the development of the DNER
- is required by HEFCS for learning and teaching proposals.
JCIEL
====
What are Managed Learning Environments?
- Integrated environments for learners
- Integration of learning systems with management systems - student centred
view across the institution
- Integration between collaborating institutions (there will be a call out
next year to include FE)
Other areas
- Plagiarism (1 project)
- Computer Assisted Assessment (1 project)
- IMS (up to 3 projects)
- Flashlight and Roundtables (1 project)
Questions and answers
==================
**What will the role of FE be?**
The lead institution must be an HEI. This funding circular predates FE
joining the JISC. Therefore, partnerships with FE would be regarded as
external and would need to show that HE gets good value for money. Non-HE
partners can ask for overheads, but this may impact on the value of the
project. Joint bids are generally encouraged by JISC in the interests of
increasing take-up. True consortia making logical sense will be funded,
not ones that are badly-constructed or accidental.
**How will proposals that bridge more than one heading be regarded?**
This would be seen as a good thing if the proposal makes sense.
**If a bidder is interested in submitting a proposal on learning
environments or learning and teaching should they bid under 5/99 or wait
for 7/99?**
This is up to the bidder to decide for themselves after looking at the
constraints and funding available under both circulars. It is possible
that bids received under the DNER Circular could be referred to the later
JCIEL call. A joint decision may be made on all plagiarism bids.
**How will minority subjects be dealt with under this circular?**
The Chief Executive Officer of HEFCE is worried about declining student
numbers in some subject areas leading to them becoming possibly
unsustainable. The aim behind targeting minority subjects is to bring
communication mechanisms and support materials to help a sparse and
distributed community (e.g. groupware-type activities).
**Is the University of the Highlands and Islands project eligible to bid?**
Anyone concerned about eligibility to bid is advised to make a formal
request (e.g. by email to Chris Rusbridge - [log in to unmask]).
**Will projects have to do much evaluation?**
Projects will need a self-evaluation element. The money specifically set
aside for evaluation is for programme level evaluation.
**How will the money be broken down between areas A, B and C?**
This will depend to some extent on the quality of bids however we suggest
the following as a guide:
A DNER - £1 to 2.5M
B Services / content / digital libraries - £10M
Moving images - £1 to 2M?
C Evaluation - £0.5M?
**What is the difference between the two evaluation projects proposed in
the Circular?**
The concept of the DNER has grown and expanded over the years. It is not
known how this idea will translate into practice, therefore significant
evaluation is needed alongside the programme which will be integral and
iterative leading to continuous improvements. The learning and teaching
programme requires separate evaluation. The evaluations could be
components of the same project but they have different foci and motivations.
**How is a still image defined?**
Broadly 2D and 3D images of objects including manuscripts.
**Is the emphasis in content creation on quantity or quality?**
Resources should be high quality but JISC also wants to attain critical
mass in some areas and to reach new areas. As JISC is more about
development than research, projects don't have to be fantastically
innovative. Bidders should refer to the collections policy for further
details http://www.jisc.ac.uk/cei/dner_colpol.html
**Can anyone bid to enhance JISC services?**
EDINA commented that they encourage proposals from external bidders. In
general, any bids should not be totally independent of the data centre,
since in most cases the cooperation and participation of the service will
be needed.
**How do portals fit into the RDN hubs?**
Subject oriented bids have to fit in with the relevant RDN hub. The set of
portals must fit the gateways closely. Gateways are clustered around hubs
therefore the portals will be related to hubs. Proposals for additional
gateways (as opposed to portals) will probably not be acceptable as content.
**What about dealing with IPR?**
JISC are aware that work needs to be done in this area. The ability to
track information objects (as opposed to site licences) will be important.
Projects exploring rights metadata and ecommerce will be looked on
favourably. Projects could aim to develop outputs from the 'indecs'
project http://www.indecs.org/ UKOLN are planning a project with indecs
deploying the indecs model in HE context - contact Lorcan Dempsey for more
information ([log in to unmask]).
**Could you offer any advice on authentication?**
Most JISC services are available for subscribers within UK HE only. At the
moment ATHENS is the preferred mechanism for authentication and will
continue to be for the period of this circular. JISC is not looking for
bids to run alongside ATHENS. However, a pilot service could use its own
authentication system, but will need to consider ATHENS at some point if it
intends to scale up in the future.
**What are the copyright issues?**
Projects must have copyright clearance to digitise resources for use within
learning and teaching and to make these widely available. Projects don't
have to have everyone signed up in advance but do need to have the
appropriate mechanisms in place. There is a difference between content
(more resource-specific) and development projects.
**When will the proposed rights negotiation agency for moving pictures and
sound be set up?**
This will have to be tendered for as a service. It's hoped that it will be
in place for next September or October.
NB there is a JISC/PA working group looking at permissions for web-based
teaching.
**What about security issues in learning and teaching? Lecturers would not
want all exercises and answers to be available to students.**
This is an area being addressed by the new committee. Policies are not yet
in place but this would be achievable - bidders are advised to contact
Norman Wiseman for more information ([log in to unmask]).
**Will projects needing large bandwidth i.e. with a high impact on
SuperJanet 4 be funded? Would involvement with Internet2 be encouraged?**
SJ4 - if the project would have a significant impact it would be advisable
to let the advisory committee know.
Internet2 - contact Norman Wiseman for advice.
**Circular 7/99 refers to IMS. Are other such systems out of scope?**
Possibly. JISC signed up to IMS not to the other systems, although there
may be increasing alignment. Projects wishing to use these systems should
take advice from Tom Franklin ([log in to unmask]).
**Can non-open source brokers be funded?**
Yes, given suitable bids. This point relates to the difficulties in
finding exit strategies for systems development. The aim is to create
sustainable, rather than non-proprietary systems.
**What will the timescale be?**
The earliest any approvals could be made is the May JCEI meeting. More
meetings will probably be needed to get through the whole process. Grant
letters and milestones will have to be negotiated for recruitment to start.
It will be difficult to start on 1st August 2000 unless staff can be
seconded. It is not in a project's best interests to start before they get
the resources.
Money is paid as a monthly grant to cover recurrent costs. Substantial
equipment costs (if over £10K) need to be claimed for.
95% of equipment cost is included in the grant, 5% is claim based within
the same academic year.
Elizabeth Graham
Development Co-ordinator: eLib Programme Office
University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL
Tel: 01203 572521 Fax: 01203 524981
email: [log in to unmask] http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/
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