But what about environmental sustainability?  Do we know as the creators, users and preservers of digital resources what impact digitisation has on the environment? 

A new article released today by JISC Digital Media looks at these very questions in "Digitisation and the environment".

Photo Credit: JISC

The article examines the literature and research already available  on the subject of Green ICT to establish just exactly what the environmental implications are for those involved in digitisation.  It looks at Government policy on carbon reductions; the scope for digitisation to reduce emissions by lessening our dependence on carbon intensive products and activities like travel and use of paper; and goes on to assess the green implications of an ever increasing quantity of digital data created for learning, teaching and research.

The article argues that as digitisers we have a responsibility to involve Green issues in our discourse and to adapt our digitisation methods, processes and workflows to maximise the possibility of an environmentally sustainable future for digitisation.

The article was launched at the first ever national webinar on Green issues, hosted by the JISC RSC  London on the 5^th of December 2011.  A download of the conference, where you can hear the paper being introduced, will be available from their website shortly.

Read "Digitisation and the Environment".

Clinical images, videos and other recordings are vital to good teaching and learning within the health care professions. Increasingly these are originated outside the institution that wishes to use them. This raises a number of legal, ethical and other issues relating to their re-use and this new online guide has been created to ensure that guidance on good practice is easily accessible in the community.

The materials have been created by a collaboration of cross-sector organisations and individuals, including the General Medical Council (GMC), Wellcome Trust, Institute for Medical Illustrators, University of Bristol and  Newcastle University.

The materials aim to help users of clinical healthcare recordings to:

• Understand how to deal with consent issues in using recordings of patients in learning and teaching resources;
• Understand the difference between copyright ownership and licencing and how to use resources shared under licence;
• Demonstrate best practice in ‘digital professionalism’ and manage risks when creating sustainable teaching resources;
• Be better placed to share resources with colleagues.

The guidance is aimed primarily at students, teachers or doctors who wish to use a patient recording for learning and teaching.  It will also be of interest and use to other clinical and healthcare workers as well as to university staff where patient recordings are being made available for learning and teaching.   

The new advice and guidance materials were launched at a workshop in London at the Wellcome Trust, which will be followed by a free lecture from Sir Donald Irvine on the importance of patient centred medical education.

The advice and guidance materials will be available online from today, visit Making and Using Clinical and Healthcare Recordings for Learning and Teaching.

The first in the series is The Little Guide to Finding Digital Media Resources (PDF). 

The second in the series is The Little Guide to Copyright (PDF).

The third in the series is The Little Guide to Cloud Computing (PDF).

The fourth in the series is The Little Guide to Podcasting (PDF).

The fifth in the series is The Little Guide to Screencasting (PDF).

We hope you like it and if you would like to suggest a 'Little Guide' subject area, or have a query, please contact us via the comments below, our Helpdesk Service or call 0117 331 4447.

Our first case study looks at how we assisted the University of Bristol's Education Support Unit (ESU) to create a set of screencast user guides and FAQs which would help orientate users to a new version of Blackboard the University's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), and supplement their existing written guides and Helpdesk service.

Photo credit: Zak and Tim during the live web session

Earlier today we ran a 30min web session to introduce EdMediaShare, a new JISC Digital Media web service:

• View videos that are linked to pedagogic use and subject
• Allows the community to share videos
• Chosen by educators for you
• Collects videos from around the web such as YouTube and vimeo

The recording from the session will be made available later this week.

So please head over to EdMediaShare and give it a try - feedback is very much encouraged to either myself or Tim.

If you use video under specific contexts please consider using the 'SHARE' feature so others can also use the videos.

The British Library will be making some 250,000 out of copyright works available free of charge via the Library and Google websites. Google will cover the costs of digitisation.

Dame Lynne Brindley, British Library chief executive, regards the project as an expansion of the Library’s role in providing access to knowledge. She says ‘Our aim is to provide perpetual access to this historical material, and we hope that our collections coupled with Google’s know-how will enable us to achieve this aim.'

Does this signal the end of the Bristish Library Reading Room? Well, probably not for the foreseeable future. While a quarter of a million works will be made available let us not forget that the British Library collection totals more than 150 million items.

Next week on Weds the 15th of June the JISC Regional Support Centre for the South-West is putting on a free event in Bristol featuring lightning talks on a whole host of subjects relating to Technology Enhanced Learning (T.E.L.) - Turbo T.E.L.

I'll be giving two turbo talks - 6 minute infobarfs on Screencasting (6 minutes - 6 Quick Wins), and USB microphones, with the chance to discover what they do, how they work, discuss relative merits and get your hands on a couple of different mics. There should be the opportunity over the day to discuss many different aspects of technology in teaching and learning with a range of practitioners, enthusiasts and experts.

All sessions are free, and you can go to whichever take your fancy on the day, though you do need to book a place at the event itself (also free!) - but best be quick about it, last call for bookings just went out. Hopefully will see some of you there...

The 3,500 pieces of educational content haven't disappeared for good, however.  The Department of Education has decided that anyone in or out of the UK will be able to use them provided they are willing to stream them for free. 

But what of the typical teacher who would like to make use of these resources?  Salvation is at hand.  A group of teachers was able to download the entire set of videos before they disappeared and is making them available within the terms of the Creative Archive licence.  They have set up a database on Google Docs which anyone can use to get copies of the videos.

Photo credit: Tombstones / tamra hays / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

There are a number of possible reasons why Cisco may have taken this decision, but one can't help but wonder if it has to do with the projected sales of Flip cameras.  Certainly, Flip seems to have squandered whatever lead it had over other pocket camcorder manufacturers.  Their cameras have progressed very little in the 4 years or so since its introduction: other cameras such as the Kodak Zi8 provide higher resolution video, longer record times, bigger viewscreens, bigger digital zoom, a macro lens and, most valuable of all, an external microphone socket, all at a lower cost than the Flip.

The Flip has had some improvements -- videos are finally being recorder in MP4 format, for example -- but its makers seem content to coast along on its (deserved) reputation for ease of use and its high visibility: "Flip" has practically become a generic term for pocket camcorder.

But perhaps Cisco is taking a long-term view of the Flip's viability.  As the quality of video and still images on mobile phones improves, should we not expect that the market for discrete devices for these applications will shrink?  I for one tend only to use my mobile as a camera in instances where I've forgotten my 'real' camera (and I admit that the idea of discrete devices for discrete purposes still appeals to me) but the convenience of having, in a few years' time, a single pocket device that allows the user to make phone calls and video calls, listen to music or watch films, take pictures or video or record sounds, all at as good a quality as a discrete device can provide -- surely this convenience must inevitably result in the virtual disappearance of bottom end camcorders like the Flip and possibly more sophisticated devices as well.

In summary, our session suggested that the use of digital media really can enhance teaching, but also poses the risk of only passively engaging the learner.  No single individual or even institution in isolation could possibly ‘keep up’. Only by pooling knowledge and sharing stories of what works and what doesn’t can we use successfully integrate digital media into our teaching and learning.

Read the full review Using digital media to improve teaching and learning.