Independent consultancy to Higher and Further Education and Research

What we have done

 

Work since August 2006 has been carried out under the auspices of Duke and Jordan Ltd.  Before then Andy Jordan and Jon Duke worked together as cooperating sole traders.

 

Our principal pieces of work have been:
 

· A study of academic social networking sites and their role in Scholarly Communications 2011
This study was undertaken for the Centre for Research Communications at the University of Nottingham and identified a number of issues and opportunities presented to the HE community by these sites.  It collected information on the current use of these sites and the impact that they may have on the development of Open Access publishing and to the behaviour of individual researchers.  In particular, the study sought to examine the extent to which these sites may be usurping the role of Open Access repositories and the degree to which they were likely to impact scholarly communications processes and the scholarly communication system as a whole.  The final report is available here.
 

· JISC Flexible Service Delivery Programme 2009 to 2011
In conjunction with Chris Cartledge we were contracted to this programme to provide strategic and specialist support.  In addition Jon Duke and Andy Jordan were members of its Steering Group.

 

· JISC study of shared services in UK further and higher education 2008 and contract extension to April 2009
This was a large study, carried out in four parts: the description of the landscape, identification and characterisation of the market place for administrative systems, provision of advice and guidance to management in institutions about shared services and to inform future JISC and funding Council work in supporting and assisting shared services.  The work was carried out in conjunction with AlphaPlus Ltd, Mary Auckland, Chris Cartledge, Simon Marsden and Bob Powell.  
Four reports were produced:

o The current landscape of shared systems implementation and planning for administrative systems in UK FE and HE

o The software currently in use for administrative systems in UK FE and HE

o The potential for shared service models for the delivery of administrative systems in UK FE and HE

o A final report for the JISC, making recommendations to assist its further work in this area.

 

Click here to access the JISC web page that gives access to these reports.


The study showed that most institutions needed to undertake preparatory work if they wished to attain a position to give serious consideration to shared services.  The main area concerned gaining a more detailed understanding of their business processes and service costs (baselining).  It was seen that this activity could of itself produce efficiency improvements and economies as well as improving institutional agility.  Integration technologies were seen as an issue requiring further investigation and the problem of unrecoverable VAT was reported as a difficulty arising if service sharing consortia were to provide services five separate legal entities.  The contract extension to this piece of work led to the design of the JISC's Flexible Service Delivery programme.

 

· Review of the Nordbib consortium 2009
This review assessed the Nordbib programme, the aim of which is to create a joint Nordic approach to open access and to the distribution of research outputs, its member being the National Librarians of the five Nordic countries.  The report, available here, made recommendations for its continuation and development.

 

· A study for the JISC into the integration of technology into institutional strategies 2008
This was commissioned by JISC in collaboration with the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (LFHE) to assess current awareness, practice and issues relating to the integration of technology into institutional strategies in UK higher education.  The work was carried out by Duke and Jordan Ltd in conjunction with Bob Powell.  We concluded that managers who combine a deep understanding of technology with senior management experience were uncommon.  We found that most institutions rely upon collaborations between different individuals with complementary skills to deliver effective insight into the actual and potential contribution of technology to the overall strategic aims of the organisation.  The report, available here, found two models of corporate strategy development relating to ICT strategy development, an integrated approach and a disjointed one.  The latter was found to be most common.

 

· Review of the Knowledge Exchange initiative 2010
The Knowledge Exchange Initiative is a collaboration between DEFF, Denmark’s Electronic Research Library, DFG, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the JISC of the UK and the SURF Foundation of the Netherlands. After discussions with stakeholders in all four countries, the report, available here, provided recommendations on the Initiative’s future to its Board.

 

· Review of the data network of the University of Hull, 2010
this was a brief study of the campus network infrastructure at the University carried out in collaboration with Chris Cartledge.

 

· Evaluation of the Knowledge Exchange initiative 2007
The Knowledge Exchange Initiative is a collaboration between DEFF, Denmark’s Electronic Research Library, DFG, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the JISC of the UK and the SURF Foundation of the Netherlands. After discussions with stakeholders in all four countries, the report, available here, provided recommendations on the Initiative’s future to its Board.

 

· Review for UWE 2007
We provided the University of the West of England in Bristol with recommendations for its future management information systems strategy

 

· Impact analysis of the JISC funded eLib programme 2006
This impact analysis examined the lessons and outcomes of the JISC’s eLib programme and their effects upon libraries and related provision in Higher Education. We compared library provision before eLib with the situation today. We interviewed a wide range of experts from HE and libraires from inside and outside the UK to reach our conclusions. The report is available on the JISC website, together with a summary of our conclusions.  Click here to view the summary.  Click here to view the report.

 

· Scoping study on information required by administrators for system implementation 2006
In this study we looked at what work the JISC should undertake to provide more support for managers in administrative departments who are taking responsibility for sizeable IT projects.  We looked at the information needs of managers, at communications within and around projects and at estimating the resources required by projects.

 

· A review for the JISC of network provision for research needs 2005
In this study we investigated how well the network provision to 5* (internationally rated) UK research departments meets their research needs. The study was conducted in the context of the forthcoming commissioning of SuperJANET5. The final report can be found at this web page.

 

· A review for the JISC of the UK-wide Regional Support Centre (RSC) initiative 2005
The principal purpose of this was study to provide proposals for the future of the RSC initiative as it approached its third round of funding.  It involved close contact with all the RSC's and their principal contacts within educational institutions.  The study involved several web surveys.

 

· For UKERNA (now JANET(UK)) on the reliability of organisational networks 2005

This piece of work contacted a wide range of Higher Education and Further Education institutions (Janet connected organisations) in the UK regarding the provisions they had made and their approach towards ensuring that their campus network infrastructure had a high reliability.  The report provided advice to institutions on good practice in this area.

 

· A review of dissemination by JISC development projects 2004
This examined the ways that JISC-funded projects disseminate their results and the effectiveness of the processes they use and made proposals for change.

 

· Work to develop the JISC’s Technical Standards advisory documentation 2004
This activity has many contributing stakeholders. Our review delivered an updated technical standards advisory document along with proposals for its maintenance and alignment both with guidance from other sources and with standards used in parallel sectors. The project involved achieving widespread collaboration amongst experts on technical standards in the JISC community.

 

· A review of the Jisc Plagiarism Service 2004
This was a brief review of the service.

 

· A review of the JISC’s Monitoring and Evaluation activities 2003
This was a substantial piece of work that examined both the way that the JISC monitored its services and the way it handled formative and summative reviews of its projects and programmes.

 

· A review of CETIS 2002
This was a review of the Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards, a JISC-funded project which supplied expertise in educational technology to the UK FE and HE community. Following our report, the project has become a JISC funded service.

 

· A review of TechLearn 2002
This was a JISC-funded service which has since been closed by the JISC.

 

 

We have also assisted with organisational recruitment processes.