Photo by Chad Miller
On the 5 March I attended the London launch of the rebranding of ‘TASI’ to ‘JISC Digital Media’. Tables were decked with everything from canapés & wine, to a variety of AV and photographic media on display (on separate tables of course!). Although the former ‘TASI’ was always a JISC-funded venture, it’s now more prominently self-evident in its newly rebranded name.
As of August this year, JISC Digital Media will become part of a consortium of JISC advisory services that aim to provide joined-up solutions for clients. Other aligned services include JISC InfoNet, JISC TechDis, JISC Legal Information, Procureweb and JISC Netskills.
JISC Digital Media’s official brief is “to ensure that digital media resources being created, used and managed within the further and higher education community meet the teaching, learning and research needs of individuals and institutions within the UK.” The recently expanded service now also provides expertise in moving images and sound. (In fact, as I blog, a couple of members of our very own Digitisation team are attending their new training course on Audio Production).
Speakers at the launch touched upon some specific aspirations for the Service, and a few points of interest stood out:
- JISC Digital Media are keen for the HE and FE sector to use the JISC Digital Media blog and share expertise across the sector;
- Would like to adopt more web 2.0 technologies, for example, skype-based e-learning that could support some aspects of practical training;
- Their emphasis will be on helping the HE/FE sector to use images for teaching;
- There is a recognised need that more must be done to help the FE sector.
Of course, with any newly rebranded organisation, comes a new-look website http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/ Nice bold colours and user friendly too! …So farewell dear ‘TASI’ [now a dirty word that incurs a fine if spoken out-loud by its own staff], and ‘hello’ to the new and improved Advisory Service: ‘JISC Digital Media’.
