CETIS Wiki

This is a Wiki provided by JISC CETIS; it supports the JISC CETIS web site by providing a home for resources.

About the JISC CETIS Service
JISC CETIS stands for the JISC Centre For Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards, and is a JISC service.

Our mission is:

Through active engagement with the JISC Community, develop, and facilitate effective implementations and use of, the open standards needed to: implement flexible and adaptive learning environments, learning services and learning resources; increase the choice of available systems and software by helping to maintain a healthy open market; and support the development of the capabilities and good practices within community member institutions needed to:


 * Implement and adapt learning environments to meet their strategic goals
 * Support their approaches to learning


 * Improve the quality of their learning processes and the outcomes for learners


 * Reduce their costs over the longer term through the effective use of open standards.

Strategic Aims
JISC-CETIS will deliver its mission through:


 * 1) Establishing interoperability specifications, standards and application profiles that meet the needs of the JISC community.
 * 2) Promoting and supporting the understanding, implementation, effective use and adoption of open learning technology specifications and standards.
 * 3) Cooperating with others nationally and internationally to ensure that the above aims are, as far as possible, realised in a common way, and to contribute to the tasks involved in establishing interoperability and general adoption by working in partnership with others.
 * 4) Working closely with the JISC, providing input to and supporting the successful realisation of its strategies, programmes and activities with respect to all aspects of standards-based learning technology, and ensure that JISC and CETIS strategies and activities are aligned for maximum effectiveness.
 * 5) Developing and maintaining effective and efficient working practices.

These aims will be achieved through our key objectives:

Key Objectives
Aim 1: To establish interoperability specifications, standards and application profiles that meet the needs of the JISC community.


 * Identify the interoperability needs of the F/HE sectors and any other sectors that may join the JISC community.
 * Work with international standards bodies to ensure as far as possible that the Specifications and Standards they produce will meet those needs.
 * Work with the community, and with implementers of systems for the community, to agree Application Profiles that tailor existing specifications to meet community specific needs.

Aim 2: To promote and support the understanding, implementation, effective use and adoption of open learning technology specifications and standards.


 * Disseminate information about specifications, standards and application profiles to the community and its suppliers, supported by information about the tasks and changes involved and the costs of adopting and using them, with comparisons, where possible, of the costs of not using them.
 * Develop a consensus among stakeholders (the JISC Community, the JISC and its immediate funders, the DfES/eGov, other bodies & sectors, as appropriate) on what should be adopted.
 * Work with implementers, including commercial vendors, open source developers and those engaged in JISC programmes, through advice, plugfests and conformance testing (when available), to ensure implementations are consistent and achieve working interoperability.
 * Support, mainly through the SIGs, the UK FE and HE community in building the knowledge and capacity, and in developing the good practices needed to:
 * Install and integrate open standards-based services & systems
 * Develop and share processes that support their effective use
 * Develop standards based learning activities and content
 * Innovatively develop and use the technology in pedagogically effective ways
 * Understand the related organisational changes that are needed to effectively embed learning technologies.

This is to be done directly and also indirectly by working with other organisations that also support the FE and HE communities.

Aim 3: Cooperate with others nationally and internationally to ensure that the above aims are, as far as possible, realised in a common way, and to contribute to the tasks involved in establishing interoperability and general adoption by working in partnership with others.


 * Negotiate with others to identify common needs and to then work to produce specifications and standards to meet those needs in a common way, possibly working across several specification and standards bodies.
 * Where the specifications and standards produced do not meet the community’s needs, work with others that have similar unmet needs to produce common application profiles to reduce, as far as possible, unnecessary variations of specifications and standards for similar purposes.
 * Identify bodies, both in the UK and internationally, whose needs & tasks overlap with those of JISC- CETIS, the JISC and the wider community and develop co-operation, either through sharing the effort or through funding one body to carry out a task on behalf of others (e.g. DfES, HEA, BECTa, AoC-NILTA, QAA, NHS, DEST Australia, Industry Canada, EC Framework programmes and projects, SURF, etc.).
 * Participate in government advisory and other groups as appropriate.

Aim 4: Work closely with the JISC, providing input to and supporting the successful realisation of its strategies, programmes and activities with respect to all aspects of standards-based learning technology, and ensure that JISC and JISC-CETIS strategies and activities are aligned for maximum effectiveness.


 * Lead in recommending to the JISC appropriate policies and strategies relating to all aspects of the specification/standards lifecycle (through the JISC Development Group and other appropriate working groups). This includes needs analysis; research and development; specification, standards and application profile development, implementation, and revision; plugfests; conformance testing; evaluation and feedback; embedding and support.
 * Define frameworks, architectures and standards for learning environments and contribute these to the creation and implementation of the JISC’s development strategy. Keep a watching brief on other relevant initiatives in Europe, the US and elsewhere.
 * Reflect on current new/emerging areas and highlight these to JISC Development Group and to the JISC-CETIS Steering Group for possible inclusion in strategies and workplans.
 * Work with the JISC Development Group to clarify and plan ahead for the JISC’s support needs in standards and specifications.
 * Conceptualise what will be needed in 10 years to support effective learning, and advise JISC and the community about how to get there.
 * Provide support for JISC Programmes and other development activities, including producing text for call document, bid marking, attending programme meetings, and advising and supporting projects Where needed, facilitate the development of application profiles and prototype new specifications in JISC development programmes.
 * Collaborate closely with other JISC services to ensure coordinated dissemination and other activities.

Aim 5: Develop and maintain effective and efficient working practices


 * Develop an appropriate organisational (team) structure that reflects the aims and objectives of the service, staff needs and working practices
 * Manage the resources made available to each area of operation to meet the overall needs of the service
 * Provide a sound framework to achieve good interworking between teams and appropriate processes, mechanisms and technologies to achieve this
 * Monitor the effectiveness of the service delivery, and make management interventions where needed
 * Provide the means by which the service strategy can be reflected on and developed in light of environmental changes, and ensure no conflict with operational priorities
 * Ensure excellent communication with the JISC development team in the development of priorities and mutual strategic planning and operational control.

Resources
JISC CETIS Working Groups

JISC CETIS Programme Support

JISC CETIS Publication Policy

Interoperability and Standards

JISC CETIS Conference

CETIS Applications

CETIS Privacy Policy

CETIS Cookie Policy

Using the Wiki

 * Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.
 * MediaWiki FAQ
 * Watching Pages - how to get notifications of changes