My slides introducing Jisc's support for asset sharing, at the 2014 Kit-Catalogue national user group. I talk about the rationale for Jisc becoming involved in supporting equipment sharing and the Jisc Kit-Catalogue pilot, and present some feedback from user group delegates about their experiences of equipment sharing. For more information about this initiative, please see http://www.jisc.ac.uk/research/projects/equipment-sharing

1. Jisc Support for Asset Sharing
Kit-Catalogue National User Group, November 2014
Martin Hamilton martin.hamilton@jisc.ac.uk
Futurist @martin_hamilton
Photo credit: The Lighting Simulator, UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering

2. Jisc Support for Asset Sharing
Kit-Catalogue National User Group, November 2014
1. About Jisc
2. Why Asset Sharing?
3. Kit-Catalogue Pilot
4. Introductions
5. Objective Setting
Martin Hamilton martin.hamilton@jisc.ac.uk
Futurist @martin_hamilton

3. Jisc Support for Asset Sharing
Kit-Catalogue National User Group, November 2014
1. About Jisc
2. Why Asset Sharing?
3. Kit-Catalogue Pilot
4. Introductions
5. Objective Setting
Martin Hamilton martin.hamilton@jisc.ac.uk
Futurist @martin_hamilton

4. :: About Jisc :: What we do
» Registered charity championing the use of digital technologies in
research and education
» Range of shared services for UK Universities and Colleges, e.g.
- Janet, world leading research network
- eduroam global wireless roaming
- Groundbreaking content deals with publishers
- Cloud brokerage with Amazon, Google, Microsoft
» Aiming to complement RCUK and Innovate UK / Catapults
- Open Educational Resources, Open Access and Open Data
- Just launched asset sharing initiative

5. :: About Jisc :: Value proposition
Generating £260m
savings per annum
e.g. KnowledgeBase+
- £4.5m

6. :: About Jisc :: Value proposition
Generating £260m
savings per annum
e.g. DigiMap - £40m

7. Jisc Support for Asset Sharing
Kit-Catalogue National User Group, November 2014
1. About Jisc
2. Why Asset Sharing?
3. Kit-Catalogue Pilot
4. Introductions
5. Objective Setting
Martin Hamilton martin.hamilton@jisc.ac.uk
Futurist @martin_hamilton

8. :: Why Asset Sharing? :: What are we doing?
» Leveraging public investment in the Janet network
– Connecting industry: http://www.ja.net/janet-reach
– Where next - e.g. 10Gbit/s links to Science Parks?
– Testbeds for new technologies, e.g. UHD streaming from Tokyo
Olympics, Surrey 5G testbed, Catapult centres
» Where else can we add value?
– Exploit our cost sharing group (256 institutions, 93% of HEIs)
– Research clusters, e.g. Jisc shared data centre with Sanger, Crick, UCL,
King’s College, QMUL, LSE etc: http://www.ja.net/data-centre
– Anticipating Austerity 2.0 efficiency savings

9. :: Why Asset Sharing? :: HPC use case
» Brokering access to £60m public investment in HPC
Image credit: CC BY-NC-ND HPC Midlands
See http://www.jisc.ac.uk/research/projects/equipment-sharing

10. :: Why Asset Sharing? :: What’s next
» Reducing sharing friction between institutions & with industry
– Sample use case: model 1,000 5G antenna designs via HPC
– Then build first physical prototype and wind tunnel test
– Relies on combination of facilities and expertise
» How can we do this?
– Standardized terms and conditions
– Trialling this approach right now with HPC brokerage
– Equipment sharing database “as a service” to aid matchmaking.
» What would a one stop shop for asset sharing look like?

11. :: Why Asset Sharing? :: Advocacy

12. Jisc Support for Asset Sharing
Kit-Catalogue National User Group, November 2014
1. About Jisc
2. Why Asset Sharing?
3. Kit-Catalogue Pilot
4. Introductions
5. Objective Setting
Martin Hamilton martin.hamilton@jisc.ac.uk
Futurist @martin_hamilton

13. :: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Project team
» Prof Rachel Thomson
Kit-Catalogue Academic Lead
Dean of the School of Aeronautical,
Automotive, Chemical and Materials
Engineering
Loughborough University
» Martin Hamilton
Kit-Catalogue Pilot Sponsor
Futurist, Jisc
Centre for Engineering &
Design Education:
Head of CEDE
» Paul Newman
Lead Developer
» Matt Mould
Junior Developer
» Kate Everest
Project support

14. :: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Our commitment
» Technical:
› Set up a hosted Kit-Catalogue
installation for each institution (latest
version) where required
› Support each pilot in localization e.g.
terminology, logo, API config
› Support your upload of local data
(e.g. via CSV)
› Help you set up Shibboleth
authentication (local usernames and
passwords)
› Back up your data
› Apply code patches and upgrades
› Manage the cloud based server
» Support:
› Host an annual subscriber group
meeting at LU to discuss the roadmap
and usage
› Updates to software project website,
online manuals and documentation
› Provide support to the community via
the Kit-Catalogue mailing list
» Development:
› Undertake 40 days of development
per year
» Advocacy:
› Help to gather use cases and case
studies for the community and Jisc
› Help to promote the use of
Kit-Catalogue

15. :: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Pilot sites
» Members of the pilot will be:
› Committing resource to ensure significant proportion of
high value equipment recorded in Kit-Catalogue
– e.g. items costing £25K or above
› Making all (or a meaningful subset) of catalogue records
available as publicly available information
– For harvesting by the national http://equipment.data.ac.uk portal
› Contributing material towards a case study of their use of
Kit-Catalogue

16. :: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Benefits
» Members of the pilot will be able to:
› Influence product development through the Kit-Catalogue
user group
› Provide feedback on their experiences of Kit-Catalogue
– To help inform a future decision about whether Jisc should offer
Kit-Catalogue as a national service
› Contribute to a wider strategic discussion around facilitating
equipment sharing between institutions and with industry

17. :: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Schedule
» Nov 2014
– User group meeting and Jisc
pilot kick off meeting
» Nov 2014 – Jan 2015
– Begin setting up new hosted
KC’s and liaising with local IT
» Jan 2015 – Jul 2015
– KC development
» Aug 2015
– Release of Kit-Catalogue
v3.0 to all pilots
» ~Nov 2015
– User group meeting and
roadmap prioritisation
» Nov 2015 – May 2016
– KC development
» ~Jun 2016
– Release of Kit-Catalogue
v3.5 to all pilots
» ~Sept 2016
– End of pilot meeting

18. Jisc Support for Asset Sharing
Kit-Catalogue National User Group, November 2014
1. About Jisc
2. Why Asset Sharing?
3. Kit-Catalogue Pilot
4. Introductions
5. Objective Setting
Martin Hamilton martin.hamilton@jisc.ac.uk
Futurist @martin_hamilton

19. :: Introductions :: Delegate survey

20. :: Introductions :: Delegate survey

21. :: Introductions :: Delegate survey

22. :: Introductions :: Delegate survey

23. :: Introductions :: Delegate survey

24. :: Introductions :: Blockers part 1
» “Time”
» “The sense the equipment is
'owned' by a research group is
still present. This is reducing
with new equipment, but
current/old equipment is still
seen as 'mine’”
» “No transparent system to see
the availability/capacity of
equipment”
» “Researchers (understandably)
choose the easiest option - so
they use the equipment which
is closest to them, as opposed
to most appropriate for their
experiment”
» “A lack of staff willing to
support initiatives like Kit-
Catalogue & overall staffing
levels”
» “No central resource
committed towards facilitating
this initiative”

25. :: Introductions :: Blockers part 2
» “Equipment sharing is still
viewed with certain amount
of cynicism”
» “Hard to evidence the
benefits”
» “Staff unwilling to travel or
sometimes walk to other
instruments that may be
available”
» “Nature of the applications
used”
» “Lack of time available to
help help with this”
» “Historical attitudes”

26. :: Introductions :: Enablers part 1
» “Senior management were
very supportive of Kit Cat”
» “We pushed this along for a
number of reasons; location of
researchers/building scattered
between four locations,
equipment asset register,
sharing of
equipment/resources, PAT test
register”
» “Communication and
awareness raising is always a
challenge in an institution
with large research staff
turnover. However we have a
good comms strategy”
» “We are also working hard to
align requirements for data
capture to existing admin
processes so there is no
additional burden on staff”

27. :: Introductions :: Enablers part 2
» “There are a number of key
academics who are bought into
equipment sharing”
» “With greater staff resource
I'm sure we could move the
project more quickly”
» “In general, there is buy-in, but
the practicalities of making it
work are very complex and
need full-time attention, which
we aren't currently resourced
for”
» “Integrated programme of
justify, purchase,
operate/maintain,
upgrade/replace”
» “School budgets are limited for
this so a proposal to increase
sharing/partnerships and
consultancy would enable the
programme to become reality”

28. :: Introductions :: Let’s hear from you

29. Jisc Support for Asset Sharing
Kit-Catalogue National User Group, November 2014
1. About Jisc
2. Why Asset Sharing?
3. Kit-Catalogue Pilot
4. Introductions
5. Objective Setting
Martin Hamilton martin.hamilton@jisc.ac.uk
Futurist @martin_hamilton

30. :: Objective Setting :: 3 Big Questions
»10mins to discuss each + 5mins to summarise:
› Evidencing the benefits
– How do we best demonstrate the benefits of equipment
sharing to institutions and individual researchers?
› Community of practice
– What would this look like for equipment sharing?
› Sticks and carrots
– What should institutions and funders do to promote
equipment sharing?