Practical help for institutions regarding emergent technologies

Published Tuesday 30 March 2010

Guidance materials are now available to assist institutions tackling the challenges presented by the emergent technologies. Such mobile, flexible and user-focused technologies are often considered to be 'disruptive' and can cause uncertainty and anxiety within an institution.

A substantial output package, including case studies, a landscape report and guidance materials is now available from the Supporting Studies and Synthesis Project. This project, carried out by Netskills, investigated the policies, practices and strategies adopted by institutions when address emergent technologies.

The project was a part of the JISC Institutional Responses to Emergent Technologies (IRET) programme.

The IRET programme manager, Rob Bristow, is confident that the output material will help organisations to formulate their response. He said, "What’s great about this project is that it offers practical guidance, which can be used to promote discussion within an institution, assisting them to identify their holistic response to emergent technologies."

In addition to practical guidance, the project has also contributed at a more theoretical level. Will Allen, Netskills’ Consultant Trainer, led the project. He said:

“We did a lot of thinking about the terminology used in this area and offer some clarification regarding terms used, such as the difference between emerging versus emergent technologies and around the notion of disruptive technologies."

Find out more: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/projects/2008/jisc-iret/