WHELF has a new logo

Anyone who has visited our website recently will see we have a new logo. Goodbye at last to the old map of Wales!

HE Assistive Technology update

Another useful post from Lis Parcell. If you are in HE and interested in the use of technology for inclusion, then you’ve probably heard of the HEAT (“HE Assistive Technology”) scheme which funded a massive range of projects in universities across the UK. JISC Techdis, which managed the projects, have upgraded the information available about the projects on their website.

More from: http://blogs.rsc-wales.ac.uk/he/2009/12/14/he-assistive-technology-update/

A reminder that JISC Techdis have a dedicated page for HE information here. And if you would like to order or download JISC Techdis publications for staff development events or meetings there are a number of guides specifically for HE here.

Engaging business and the community – new resource

An interesting blog post from Lis Parcell, who attended the event to launch the new free online toolkit from JISC InfoNet – Embedding Business and Community Engagement

It’s designed to help Higher and Further Education institutions work more effectively on all aspects of partnership management. It aims to do this by enabling staff to focus on the internal communications needed to embed ‘BCE’, in order that such activity is supported by core institutional systems rather than being a peripheral activity. The University of Glamorgan ran one of the pilot projects.

http://blogs.rsc-wales.ac.uk/he/2009/12/14/engaging-business-and-the-community-new-resource/

JISC reviews its Intute service

JISC regularly reviews the services that it funds, to ensure they deliver value for money, quality products and to test their sustainability for the future. A services portfolio review takes place annually and in May 2009 the future funding of JISC services, including Intute, was considered in order to identify the funding priorities for the academic year 2010/11. As a result it has now been decided that funding to the Intute service will cease in its current form from 1 August 2010.

JISC and Intute are considering whether limited aspects of the current content could be sustained through different routes perhaps using social networking channels.

For further information on future arrangements please visit: www.intute.ac.uk

WHELF e-book exchange of experience

14 January 2010

The purpose of the event is to share good practice and to consider potential developments in relation to e-books. Attendance is free with as many attendees welcome as possible. The event will be held at UWIC in the Conference Rooms on the Cyncoed Campus, Cardiff. For directions please see here

If you would like to reserve a place please contact Claire Dutfield, cldutfield@uwic.ac.uk, 029 2041 6240. Please state if you have any dietary requirements and if you require a car parking space.

PROGRAMME
10:00  Arrival and Coffee

10:30  Welcome – Paul Riley

 10:40  E Books at Swansea University – Ian Glen      

11:00  E Books at UWIC – Julie Neenan/Helen Blockwell

11:20 E Books at Cardiff University – Stephen Ratcliffe

11:40  Discussion & Questions

12:30  Lunch          

1:15    E book readers/FE JISC project – Karl Drinkwater

2:00    Review of NetLibrary agreement/other possible consortium deals – Sue Mace

2:45    Round up – Paul Riley

3:00    Finish

Wales gets £44m supercomputing institute

The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) has announced a new £44m high-performance computing (HPC) institute for Wales.

Called HPC Wales, the project will be co-funded with £10m from BIS’s strategic investment fund (SIF), which was bumped up by £200m to £950m, as announced by chancellor Alistair Darling in the government’s pre-Budget report.

The Welsh secretary Peter Hain pointed out the need to give industries real help to aid recovery and long-term growth. “This means creating the right conditions for enterprise and maintaining the UK’s position as one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business,” he added.

Hain continued, “HPC Wales will give firms access to supercomputing resources and also offer consultancy services and tailored training packages to enhance workforce skills.”

A statement from BIS said the additional contributions to make up the extra £34m will come from European funds, higher education in Wales and the private sector.

According to a BIS spokesperson, HPC Wales will be split across Cardiff and Swansea Universities with no centralised site.

Wales HPC will offer skills-development activities ranging from individual workshops to Masters-level courses. Short-term internships will also support two-way knowledge transfer and create stronger links between HPC Wales and the industrial community.

The Universities of Cardiff and Swansea will deliver HPC Wales, providing the technology and skills base to support research and development projects.

BIS expects HPC Wales to create more than 400 new jobs across the digital, low-carbon, health, bio-science, engineering and advanced manufacturing sectors, with the majority in highly skilled technical and scientific fields such as image processing, animation, 3D visualisation, data mining and simulations.

http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2254751/wales-44-million-supercomputing

New Minister for Children, Education and Lifelong Learning

First Minister Carwyn Jones has announced his new Cabinet within hours of being sworn in to his new role.

Two new Ministers join the Cabinet – former Chief Whip Carl Sargeant becomes Minister for Social Justice and Local Government while former Deputy Regeneration Minister Leighton Andrews becomes Minister for Children, Education and Lifelong Learning.  Jane Hutt moves to a new portfolio as Minister for Business and Budget.

Two new Deputy Ministers have been appointed following portfolio changes creating two new portfolios.  Lesley Griffiths becomes Deputy Minister for Skills, Innovation and Science while Huw Lewis will lead a newly created portfolio as Deputy Minister for Children.  Details of the new Cabinet are as follows:
http://wales.gov.uk/news/latest/091210cabinet/?skip=1&lang=en

An Information Literacy Framework for Wales

Our first event to investigate a cross-sectoral information literacy framework for Wales took place this week on Monday and Tuesday at Gregynog. Delegates came from HE, FE, public and school library services, and included other interested stakeholders such as DCELLS and CyMAL.

The conference was a great success - thanks to the excellent speakers and hard work from all the delegates!

To read a good report of the event, and a summary of the presentations, have a look at Karl’s blog post for RSC Wales: http://blogs.rsc-wales.ac.uk/lr/2009/12/01/an-information-literacy-framework-for-wales/

Much more information to follow – and, if you work in a library anywhere in Wales, you will have a chance to be involved!

Pictured left is Huw Evans, Head of Advice and Support at CyMAL, delivering the opening presentation of the event.

Pictured right is John Crawford, sharing experiences of the Scottish Information Literacy Project.