Scenario Sets
In 2007, JISC contracted CIBIT to develop a scenario toolkit based on their existing work across European business, adding an education and more specifically IT perspective to their generic scenarios by running a series of pilot workshops and synthesising participants' contributions.
The outputs from this pilot work have been further synthesised and are presented here to download and use. In addition, JISC infoNet ran their own event to provide a final detailed layer in narrative/story format which further detailed thoughts on the wider learning landscape (as opposed to just considering Higher Education) and what services might look like in each of the four futures. The various collated 'scenario sets' are available to download here, as are packs for each quadrant (covering all levels) (packs comprise zip files containing PDF format documents).
You can take whichever level of detail you want as a starting point, depending on the scope and scale of the problem you're looking to address. We recommend you use the 'Level 0' set as a basic starting point for you to refine your own detail. If you want a 'quick start' then use Level 3 which already includes some sector-specific detail from previous iterations of the process - these are explained below.
The Scenario Sets
- Level 0 | Four Futures For EuropeGeneric scenarios compiled from a 2004 European scenario study
- Level 1 | HE Scenario SkeletonSynthesis from the JISC pilot workshops
- Level 2 | IT in the HE ScenariosFurther exploration of the role and nature of IT in the HE scenarios
- Level 3 | The Tanfield ScenariosNarrative outputs encompassing the wider role of learning providers and the nature of lifelong learning
You can also download the resources by quadrant and you can even view them as animations!
The 'Level 0' outputs are derived from the material collated by CIBIT from a range of European business, and these form the generic foundations of the other scenario sets - levels 1,2 and 3 are further iterations or 'fine-tuning' of the foundation set. Level 1 synthesises thoughts from the JISC pilot workshops on the characteristics of the Higher Education environment in each of the generic scenarios, and Level 2 further drills down to consider the nature of IT in each of these HE worlds. Level 3: 'The Tanfield Scenarios' documents the output of the JISC infoNet event, which was held in June 2007 on the world's oldest railway at Tanfield in County Durham.
You can download a pack of summary slides providing a high-level overview of each quadrant at each of the four levels.
By way of example as to the further use of these scenario 'beds', JISC infoNet subsequently used the Tanfield outputs as the basis for a workshop at the European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, using the technique to consider the strategic implications of emerging technologies and pedagogic approaches for the library community.
However you use these materials, or even if creating your own scenarios from scratch, bear in mind these outputs are not forecasts but simply a sketch of a possible future, the intention being to get you to 'think outside the box' and consider the fit of your strategy into these future possibilities. As with any future-gazing, factors in the present can radically change future possibilities - so make sure you keep reappraised of your trend analysis to verify the plausibility of your scenarios.
