Over the last few months our small information strategy team has been starting to deliver on the transformational enterprise information strategy and its principles of; being safe with our information, being smarter with our information and using the right tools, policies and processes to deliver on the other two principles. The team has been applying these principles to the information management, compliance and data governance workstreams.
There are three main projects being undertaken in the information management workstream. We have installed the Nintex workflow solution for SharePoint. This is an easy-to-use product which allows us to build online forms and workflows to replace manual routine processes. As an example, we have recently gone live with a new online Jisc-wide performance management review form which has saved a considerable amount of admin time. This is just one of a number of forms and workflows that we have been developing.
The second project focuses on making improvements to the user interface and functionality within SharePoint. We are piloting the Beezy social collaboration tool which brings together Office 365 collaboration functionality in one easy–to-use interface. We are also exploring the new functionality in SharePoint groups which is better integrated into Office 365 functionality. This work will lead to improvements in the way we use Office 365 and SharePoint across Jisc to give a much better user experience and benefits to the business.
The third project is carrying out an information gathering exercise across the company which will produce team information asset registers that will also be rolled up to a Jisc-wide information asset register. This tool will allow us to identify and manage our information assets more effectively particularly in areas such as disaster recovery, business continuity, risk management, information lifecycle management (from creation to destruction); identifying sensitive data, findability (metadata tags and taxonomies) and appropriate accessibility.
The compliance workstream has focussed on getting data protection right at Jisc. We have recently published a new data protection policy with accompanying guidance for staff to replace the existing policies. We will soon be running mandatory online data protection training for all staff. The next steps will be to develop an action plan to deliver the EU General Data Protection Regulations.
The data governance workstream is a new area we have developed this year at Jisc. Its aim is to introduce data governance structure and principles and embed this across the company with a focus on our structured data capture in database systems. We are focussing on improving the consistency and quality of data in our core systems that will, in the first instance, feed the data warehouse but will then cascade this best practice programme across other systems in due course.
David Reeve, Head of Information Strategy at Jisc