Empowering communities: a celebration of bringing people together in 2022/23

Empowering communities is a vital strand of the Jisc strategy for 2022-25. Over the past year Jisc’s community managers have supported more than 40 communities and thousands of individuals, actively encouraging each group’s interests and unique ways of gathering and communicating.

Solving common problems

Colleagues working across the education sector face a variety of challenges, one of the most significant being the threat of a cyber security attack.

Jisc works hard to protect institutions and the whole sector through campaigns such as ‘defend as one’, while also supporting individual practitioners on a day-to-day basis.

In March 2023, Jisc’s cyber community group welcomed its 1000th member. Run through a Microsoft Teams site, the community is designed to provide members with helpful peer-to-peer support and meaningful content. In a relaxed and welcoming environment, members can create and join discussions, share cyber security challenges and learn about best practice.

Exclusive events and workshops providing specific advice on current threats - and measures to mitigate them – have become particularly popular, regularly attracting several hundred attendees.

David Batho, Jisc’s head of security, said:

“With connectivity and digital technology now underpinning nearly all aspects of running a university, college or research centre, cyber security has never been more important.

“As a result, we’re finding that IT and cyber security staff are, quite rightly, paying more attention to threats and keen to learn about current risks and how to combat them. The community group is providing a popular and valuable support platform for that.”

Scanning the horizon

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a hot topic over the last 12 months since the introduction of Open AI’s ChatGPT3 in November 2022.

Jisc’s national centre for AI (NCAI), founded in 2021, supports members to use this fast evolving technology effectively, and, 2022/23 has seen huge growth in this area.

Events, training sessions, blogs and reports have been commonplace throughout the year, with topics ranging from generative AI, getting started with ChatGPT and the route to using AI responsibly and ethically.

Jisc’s community managers have provided opportunities for members to get involved with pilots for exciting AI products such as an assisted marking tool, a chatbot for student queries and a virtual reality interview simulator.

This is all part of being proactive when looking ahead, offering guidance and support to make sure Jisc’s members are best placed for what’s to come.

Convening customers and communities

The FE library and learning resources centre community has been a shining example of bringing people together this year. Advisors have helped practitioners to feel less isolated, providing practical solutions they can use and creating a safe space to share learning resources.

The community is fast-approaching 500 members and its first annual survey, completed at the end of 2022, saw an overall satisfaction score of 93%.

One member said:

“It is a safe space to express thoughts and ideas, and regardless of the challenges we face, this helps to keep that motivation – to keep pushing the boundaries to enable future developments.”

Another thriving group is the UK XR (extended reality) community, which launched earlier this year.

In addition to a successful kick-off event in March, both online and face-to-face sessions took place in June, focussing on topics such as making XR more accessible for students with disabilities and encouraging staff adoption of AR (augmented reality).

Since launching, the community has grown to include 254 members – with a further 113 in the XR Wales group. Immersive technologies (such as augmented, mixed and virtual reality – known collectively as XR) are transforming the sector, offering new and innovative ways to engage learners.

Established in 2020, Jisc’s community champion programme celebrates those who have gone above and beyond, bringing together extraordinary individuals and unsung heroes.

2023 saw fifteen champions and seven finalists chosen from across UK education and research communities.

The champions meet bi-monthly to share their work and have supported each other at events such as the EdTech summit and ALT Conference.

Natasha Veenendaal, head of community engagement at Jisc, said:

“Celebrating the community champions is the highlight of my year. Many of our champions do not realise how much they are appreciated, and being able to share that news is a privilege.

“The champions, finalists and nominees promote shared learning, collaborative problem-solving and a sense of togetherness; the value of which should not be underestimated.”