This blog has been contributed by Lilian Joy, University of York and Jenny Hughes, University of Sheffield. Our Jisc accessible maths community started in September 2021 with 6 members from 5 universities. It grew over time as we each invited other people to the group so that there are now about 33 regular members from […]
Advocacy is a vital part of scholarly communication. It helps researchers and institutions get their message out to the wider world and engage with the communities that matter to them. But creating effective advocacy materials can be a challenge, especially when you’re trying to create something that’s useful to a wide range of institutions. The […]
The right platform can make or break a community. For many education and research communities, Microsoft Teams is a common choice. It allows users to collaborate internally and externally, chat, host events, share documents, and create engaging pages to share information. No platform is perfect, but Microsoft has been improving the functionality and capabilities within […]
Our trusted communities help members to learn together, provide peer-to-peer support, and empower them to make informed decisions. It’s important that we keep providing a safe space to convene community conversations and for you to share resources. To maintain these community spaces, we have decided to enable multifactor authentication (MFA) for all shared Teams spaces […]
I work in the Content and Discovery area of Jisc. For the past year we have been working in partnership with a group of academics to add learning and teaching resources to the Historical Texts platform. How we got started I’d love to take credit for the start of this project, but like some of […]
I was recently asked to run a workshop for community facilitators to help with fresh thinking about facilitating online meetups. These are people who regular facilitate meetings of our members, and want to keep improving what they do. They are looking to avoid those ‘tumbleweed moments’ and maximise engagement. When writing the session, I turned […]
This month, I attended my first community (un)conference to connect with like-minded community managers from different industries, share ideas and learn about other community groups. Hosted by James Cattell and supporting community enthusiasts the community (un)conference lets attendees collaboratively build the agenda on the day with lots of discussions on hot topics. Here is what […]
UKRI launched their new open access (OA) policy in April 2022, and Jisc committed to work with UKRI and the research sector, including a diversity of research organisations, researchers, research support and management offices, and representative bodies, to develop an understanding of the challenges around open access, to share and develop best practice, and […]
Jisc’s annual conference, Digifest is a splendid celebration of innovation in teaching, learning and research. I was there hosting a group of community champions, people who actively share learning outside of their institutions. The champions facilitate communities of practice, they share their knowledge and experience with peers, or they support projects that bring together multiple […]
Anyone who has tried to build an online community knows that it’s far from ‘build it and they will come’. That idea is a myth. Behind every successful online space there are people working hard to create the energy needed for engagement to thrive, particularly in the early days. But I promise you it’s worth […]