Knock on the digital door

March 24th, 2009: Over 800 education and research
professionals at JISC’s annual conference in Edinburgh
will discuss how opening up resources, adopting a greener
approach to IT and how small changes can have a large
impact in making teaching, learning and research accessible
to all.
In his first speaking opportunity as JISC Chair,
Professor Sir Tim O’Shea, will be putting forward his vision
of how JISC can help colleges and universities achieve their
missions, achieve value for money and support their research
base.
Opening digital doors and giving accessibility to teaching and
learning materials is one aspect JISC will be showcasing. One
of its funded-services the British Universities Film and Video
Council (BUFVC) will be launching BoB – Box of Broadcast.
Similar to the BBC’s iPlayer, it will make broadcast and video
content available indefinitely to thousands of students and
researchers for the first time.
It allows users to record forthcoming programmes or missed
programmes in the last week. However, unlike iPlayer, these
programmes do not expire and are available indefinitely,
making it invaluable for lecturers and students requiring
constant access.
The conference’s opening keynote speech will be delivered
by Professor Lizbeth Goodman, Chair of Creative Technology
Innovation at the University of East London, where she also
directs the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute and the MAGIC
Multimedia and Games Innovation Centre and Gamelab.

The closing keynote speech will be delivered by Ewan McIntosh,
Scotland and Ireland Digital Commissioner for 4iP, Channel 4’s
Innovation for the Public Fund which helps people understand
how emerging technologies such as social media, mobile ubiquitous
computers and gaming can help them learn better, work better
and live better.

For those delegates not able to attend the conference in person, it will be
live streamed and session blogs will be posted throughout the day.

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