Who (What?) is JANET?

In my new role at the AGI, I am enjoying attending a number of meetings of groups concerned with GIS in their sector. On Thursday I went to Glasgow to attend a meeting of JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) . JISC's mission is to provide world-class leadership in the innovative use of Information and Communications Technology to support education and research.

The meeting I was at was one of the regular meetings held by their Geospatial Working Group. This is a group which does a lot of work relating to accessibility of Geographic Data for the academic community. The meeting was really interesting. But as usual the acronyms were impenetrable. In particular was the constant mention of JANET? Who is she? Or what is she? Dr Finlay's Housekeeper? Or something more?

Well it turns out that JANET is the network dedicated to the needs of education and research in the UK. It connects the UK’s education and research organisations to each other, as well as to the rest of the world through links to the global Internet. In addition, JANET includes a separate network that is available to the community for experimental activities in network development.

The JANET network connects UK universities, FE Colleges, Research Councils, Specialist Colleges and Adult and Community Learning providers. It also provides connections between the Regional Broadband Consortia to facilitate the DfES initiative for a national schools’ network. Over 18 million end-users are currently served by the JANET network.The range of activities facilitated by JANET allows individuals and organisations to push back the traditional boundaries of teaching, learning and research methods.

For example, JANET’s videoconferencing and video streaming capabilities are being used to deliver lectures to remote groups of students. For researchers, the high capacity of the JANET backbone allows the linking of large data storage and high performance computing facilities at a national and international level.

This all sound worthy of more investigation. In the meantime, further information plus a video relating to JANET can be found here.