In response to concerns from Universities UK (UUK) members regarding the impact of the Freedom of Information Act on universities it was agreed that JISC and UUK should jointly run a survey of members. The Standing Conference of Principals (SCOP) was also invited to participate in this exercise and the survey was publicised to their members too. Invitations were only sent to UUK & SCOP members in England and Wales as Scottish universities have been compiling their own monthly statistics on FOI since January 2005 through the Scottish Higher Education Information Practitioners' Group (SHEIP). Both SHEIP and Universities Scotland were in agreement with this approach.
The 32 questions included within the survey were devised by Steve Bailey, JISC Records & Information Manager, in conjunction with representatives from UUK, SCOP, SHEIP and the Department for Constitutional Affairs. The survey was hosted online by the JISC infoNet Service between 24th October and 14th November and 76 returns were received (50% of UUK/SCOP members).
Because of the substantial differences in approach between the JISC/UUK/SCOP survey and those carried out by the SHEIP group it has not been possible to incorporate their findings in the main body of the text, instead the key figures from Scotland have been included for comparison purposes as Appendix A.
The results can be viewed both online using the left hand navigation or downloaded as a PDF document.
For further information about this survey or its results please contact:
Steve Bailey, Records & Information Manager, JISC (s.bailey@jisc.ac.uk 07092 302850).
For further information about the SHEIP Group please contact:
Susan Graham, University Records Manager, University of Edinburgh (recordsmanagement@ed.ac.uk 0131 6514 100).
