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Using students to help stop students dropping out

Who better to ask about why students drop out than students themselves? Jamie Rawsthorne was in his first year at the University of West of England when he met with vice chancellor Steve West to see how he could help prevent students leaving before the end of their courses. The result was the start of his company Unique Insights. Jamie explains why and how he took on the retention challenge.
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New toolkit aims to reduce data duplication

The Higher Education Data & Information Improvement Programme (HEDIIP) has published a data capability toolkit, which aims to help higher education professionals improve the foundational aspects of data management and governance. The toolkit allows institutions to develop an improvement plan with anticipated benefits including the reduction of data duplication.
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Welcome to the intelligent campus

As 'smart homes' become more and more sophisticated, universities are harnessing technology to improve the campus or classroom experience for students. Now institutions are planning on taking it to the next level, by using data from sensors, tracking and the internet, combined with information from other sources, as Jisc's James Clay describes in this blog.

Giving students power over their learning data

Universities are investing time and money in creating learning analytics systems, but Ed Foster of Nottingham Trent Universities says these systems are only as good to the support given to staff and students who use them.

HESA launches bid to remove barriers to the reuse of its datasets

A five year plan to open up higher education data was unveiled on Thursday by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Rosie Niven reports on the agency’s key recommendations.

Meet Heidi Plus, HESA’s new business intelligence service 

A new business intelligence service has been launched by Jisc and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) to support university staff in making the most of the data available to them. HESA's Jonathan Waller explains how it will benefit the sector.

data.ac.uk – next steps…

One of the problems with doing "data stuff" is finding the data. The data.ac.uk service seeks to simplify the discovery of data published across...
We call it data students call it life

We call it data – students call it life

Big data will back up the new breed of personal tutors in universities. But Brian Hipkin worries that relying on statistics without a meaningful human context will create a support system that will ultimately fail students.
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UK research secures new national data centre

A new Jisc shared data centre housing the data of six leading UK scientific and academic organisations will enable the sharing of high volumes of data. The facility represents a significant example of asset sharing in the sector with the potential to deliver cost savings and reduce the procurement needs of institutions.

Jisc selects pilots for new shared service

Jisc has selected 13 institutions to pilot its research data management shared service and also announced an accompanying network to engage with interested institutions who are not part of the pilot.