Highlights from the JISC Innovation Forum

Other than the opportunity to meet the other projects funded by the e-Administration programme, the Innovation Forum two weeks ago was a chance for me to learn more about the JISC and the kinds of people and projects working with it.

Interesting links:

• Web2Rights - info on copyright in the Web2.0 world
  
• UKFederation.org.uk - access and identity management for the UK HE sector
  
• OSSWatch - open source software advisory service
  
• OMII.ac.uk - open source software for research
  

Interesting topics:

• The challenges, or perhaps near-impossibility (?) of having a system of open data whilst still having a sustainable business model
  
• Tricky copyright issues and domains and contracts - such as when blog posts are assembled into a book, with a publishing contract stating content cannot be placed online
  
• The "golden age" - a decade of generous funding for the JISC and other HE technology projects - coming to an abrupt end with today's economic challenges (this from HEFCE)
  
• Open source is not the answer to sustainability of projects past their funding period. Remember: open source is "free" as in "free puppy" - you need to clean up after it, it's a lifetime cost of vet bills and food, and lots of owners abandon theirs. A "community" is not always the answer either - they need to be motivated and have the ability to help out on the tasks that need doing.
  
• Remember innovation is a socio-technical system - the people aspects are if anything the most important
  
  

Talks.cam / EGRET kick off meeting

Last week, to coincide with the launch of the latest version of Cambridge's VLE/VRE (CamTools), CARET hosted an initial meeting between EGRET people and the "owners" of Talks.cam. Out of the group of owners/managers listed here, Alan, David and Duncan were present.

We discussed a wide range of future features and business models for Talks, as well as the draft plan for EGRET work on Talks. The next step is a technical meeting to handover the next level of technological know-how to CARET, and then to get started with the EGRET work (both development and support training).

Welcome

EGRET is a JISC-funded project at the University of Cambridge. It is being carried out at CARET.

There's a lovely video clip of me talking about the project at the JISC Innovation Forum here.

Hopefully, more information coming soon!