Back on the UCISA Exec...

Last Thursday I was in Oxford for a meeting of the UCISA Executive Committee. After 3 years absence, it was good to be back :-)

We kicked off with a good session about our relationship with JISC, how we might work with them in the future, and what projects we will be involved in. It was an interesting discussion, and covered many areas. JISC has been restructured in the light of the Wilson Report, and funding arrangements have also changed. All Universities now have to pay a subscription for JISC services which is mandatory for three years. After that Universities will be able to decide what they subscribe to. Lots of discussion about the business model, and how services will be costed.  The major part of the discussion was about JISC's innovation funding which is now all being channeled through the co-design process. I've blogged before about the pilot which took place and the workshops which happened recently to come up with themes for the next round of co-design projects. The JISC Baord have now agreed which of these will be funded, but I'm not sure I can release details yet - will let you know as soon as I can.

Another major discussion was the changes being made to the structure and governance UCISA, which involves setting up a separate trading company, UCISA Services Ltd (USL), and changing the charitable status of UCISA from a charitable trust to a charitable company limited by guarantee (CCLG). All very complicated, but it will allow us to expand our range of services we can offer to members.

New projects coming up for the future include a revamp of the Security Information Toolkit, a Learning Space Toolkit, a Social Media toolkit, and possibly, a Staff Summer of Ideas, similar to the Student Summer of Innovation.