Intute funding reduction and refocused service

Intute would like your views

Posted on behalf of Intute

Online survey http://feedback.intute.ac.uk/proposal (available until 9th September)

You may be aware that Intute is expecting a reduction in funding and consequently is planning a significant change to the service. This is intended to provide some background and bring you up to date with our plans for the next few months. I appreciate that you may have concerns about what this means for your users, however I hope that I can provide some reassurance.

Following the JISC review of spending priorities for the academic year 2010-11, the decision was made to significantly reduce the current funding to Intute in the context of an expectation that JISC will be required to find real term funding savings. JISC will continue to support some aspects of Intute (to be confirmed in mid October 2009), and especially its Internet research skills activities, but they have recommended that we refocus as an organisation and look at our current business model. In the current economic climate we expect that this will just be one of many difficult public funding decisions.

Intute employs a number of people and contributors through agreements with many UK higher education institutions and key bodies in the sector. We are currently in a period of consultation with those most affected by this announcement, in particular in relation to the impact on staff employed on Intute activity, and are developing a proposal for a scaled down Intute service to run 2010-2013 which will be considered at the JISC Infrastructure and Resources Committee meeting in October.

We are acutely aware of the impact of any reduction of service on our users and especially those organisations which integrate Intute into their websites, library catalogues and virtual learning environments. For the 2009-10 academic year it is likely that it will be business as usual and the current Intute, Virtual Training Suite and Informs will be available until at least 31st July 2010.

In the meantime we will be gathering information about the impact of the funding reduction and will develop transition plans. We expect to be in a position to give out further information towards the end of this calendar year. In order to inform these plans for the future and support our impact analysis we would welcome your feedback on what you value most about Intute and how you use it in your work and in support of teaching and learning. Also, we are looking for volunteers to participate in focus group events, and to complete a short online survey http://feedback.intute.ac.uk/proposal (available until 9th September).

To keep up to date with Intute news and get involved with developing Intute please join our mailing list (Intute-announce@jiscmail.ac.uk) and/or check our website.

Thank you for your continued interest in and support of Intute.

Caroline Williams

Executive Director of Intute

Email: caroline.williams@manchester.ac.uk