Late last year we kicked off a consultation to identify what big new ideas Jisc should focus on once we have completed our current R&D projects. That consultation focused on 6 possible challenges:

• What does the imminent arrival of the intelligent campus mean for universities and colleges?
• What should the next generation of digital learning environments do?
• What should a next-generation research environment look like?
• Which skills do people need to prepare for research practice now and in the future?
• What would truly digital apprenticeships look like?
• How can we use data to improve teaching and learning?

Thanks to all the interesting discussion around these challenges we have come up with ideas for how Jisc could help with five of them. We now need help from Jisc members and other experts to decide which of those ideas would be most valuable for us to pursue. So we are asking people to express support for any of the ideas they particularly like. Please visit our co-design 2016-17 page to find out more. If you have any feedback or suggestions that don’t fit in our feedback form then please contact the relevant challenge lead or Andy McGregor as we are keen to hear all types of feedback. The feedback period closes on 30th January and we will announce the ideas we are exploring in early February.

Three ideas came out of the discussion in relation to the Intelligent Campus.

I didn’t know I needed to ask…

Arriving at a new institution is a disorientating experience. As students walk around the university or college campus they are faced with problems that need to be resolved in order to help them settle, provide a satisfying experience and even help them on their learning journey.

There are the known problems, such as where is my next lesson? What books would be useful for this topic? When is my tutor free for a quick chat on assignment? Even simple questions could result in a complicated route to multiple online systems. Imagine asking the question, where and when is my next lecture, what resources are available and are there any relevant books in the library on this subject?

There are also the unknown problems, these are the kinds of problems that learners don’t even know they have and haven’t thought to ask? Could the university or college push information and notifications to learners based on where the learner is on campus, when the learner is on campus, and how far the learner is on their learning journey?

Could Jisc help build the tools and practices an institution would need to use to gather, organise and push this data to student’s smartphones as well as exploring novel user interfaces such as chatbots?

If the walls could talk

If the spaces we use for teaching and learning could speak to us, what would they say?

The spaces across colleges and universities are core to teaching and learning. Are we using them effectively to enhance and enrich the learning journey? Does the environment in which we learn have any or a significant impact on that journey?

There is an institutional memory within those walls that is inaccessible and lost every time the learners leave the room. The room doesn’t remember what worked well or what could have been better. The spaces, if they could store experiences and feedback, would know what was the ideal environment for different learning activities.

Could we use data gathered from teachers and students, as well as space usage, to inform and improve teaching and learning?

Could Jisc help build the tools required to make the gathering and analysis of that data easier as well as exploring how to best act upon the insights produced to make changes?

Looking for the narrative

As we start to use a range of tracking technologies, smart cards, beacons, sensors we are facing a deluge of data in the use of buildings, spaces and equipment across a college or university campus. We are faced with a breadth and depth of data which can be challenging to use effectively and have greatest impact.

Interpreting the data is fraught with challenges and difficulties, as well as potential ethical and legal issues. However this wealth of data does offer the potential to deliver more satisfying experiences for students and staff as well as ensuring the campus is used as effectively as possible.

Is there any benefit in Jisc providing a platform to help gather this data from a range of systems in a standard format that makes it easier to analyse and act upon? Would it be useful to have a national view over this data? Would that enable us to find new patterns that could help us discover the story behind the data, to make appropriate interventions and improve the use of our campuses, buildings and rooms?

Could this be also an experimental platform for any interested researchers or developers. A combination of thingful.net and data.gov.uk but with UK HE and FE data perhaps?

Next steps

We are asking people to express support for any of the ideas they particularly like.

If you like any of these ideas, please register your support using our form. All expressions of support will be publicly visible. The form will be open until 30 January 2017.

Fill in the form.

See a spreadsheet of the results so far.

Please visit our co-design 2016-17 page to find out more. The feedback period closes on 30th January and we will announce the ideas we are exploring in early February.