Can’t believe I’ve been working for so long without appreciating the full scope of JISC and JANET resources available to the community. In fact, I’m fairly sure that I still don’t know about many of the services provided by both organisations.
Today I watched for the first time a JISC Legal webcast about recording lectures. Only spotted this by chance as it appeared a couple of times in my Twitter stream. The theme was ‘Recording Lectures and Screencasts‘. In our organisation, a few of us are using screencasts to document specific processes – mainly using free service from Screenr. We haven’t tried recording lectures yet, but we’ve certainly talked about it a lot! It turned out to be a fantastic session; well presented, professionally delivered (though not too formal), and best of all there was plenty of conversation going on in the parallel Twitter conversation. It never ceases to amaze me how you can connect with professionals so effortlessly through online mediums. This was no exception.
Only recently I had a similar experience at a JANET technical briefing, hearing just how useful the JANET CSIRT team can be in helping technical staff deal with the challenges faced by us in managing our networks. James Davis gave us a fascinating insight into the operations of the CSIRT team. Simple tips are offered – like the fact that relying on anti-virus software as your only ‘defense’ or alert system isn’t very sensible. James also discussed a number of areas where clearly he and his team have much more expertise than I do; I won’t embarass myself by trying to describe these more technical examples! However, there was one specific point that was reiterated several times: the team are there to provide help and advice to you, in addition to ensuring the security of JANET connected organisations. Why not follow them or take a look at their JA.net pages and find out more.
If you aren’t already making the most of the services offered by JISC and JANET, I highly recommend that you investigate. Both offer highly valuable resources to our community – some of those services you might not realise are available without a little investigation. Your Regional Support Centre will be keen to engage with you, and direct you to a wealth of information and useful contacts.
