This report outlines some technology trends and issues of interest and relevance to CETIS. It should be seen as a set of un-processed perceptions rather than the product of a formal process; a great deal of ground is not scanned in this paper and it should be understood that no formal prioritisation process was undertaken. The CETIS Horizon Scan should be seen as a set of potentially-idiosyncratic “takes”, material on which discourse and disputation may occur to make possible futures more clear.

The trends identified are

1. Mobile as web first citizen
2. Devices: form factors proliferating, capabilities converging
3. Motion capture controllers for gestural interfaces
4. Cross-platform applications
5. Machine learning on the web
6. Educational informatics
7. Content management and application framework convergence
8. Development of better tools for using, embedding and discovering open licences
9. Public sector data
10. Mobile applications
11. eTextbooks

[pdf http://publications.cetis.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/JISC_CETIS_Informal_Horizon_Scan_2011.pdf]

This report is a summary of technology themes extracted from the major technology forecasting publications from business and other sectors that could conceivably be relevant to the UK higher education system. We do not attempt to make evaluative comments concerning these trends, and specifically we do not attempt to speculate on the importance of the technologies identified for education.

The work leading to publication comprised three stages: selection of sources, scanning these sources to extract specific emerging technologies and grouping these technologies into themes.

Around thirty “horizon scanning” publications describing emerging technologies predicted to be important to domains other than education, were suggested by members of JISC’s two Innovation Support Centres, CETIS and UKOLN. These are listed on the delicious website. These were read and technologies they identify summarised in a Google Doc. These technologies were then grouped into themes for discussion in this report.

For each theme, we provide a brief introductory definition, a short snapshot of relevant technologies and applications in business and the wider world, and its implications to an organisation’s IT and business strategies. We have used ‘Google Insights for Search’ to visualise the trend of interest on each theme or relevant technologies over time (2004 – present); this is for illustrative purposes only. The themes are presented in no particular order.

[word http://publications.cetis.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/LiteratureScan_Formatted.doc]

This report outlines some technology trends and issues of interest and relevance to CETIS. It should be seen as a set of un-processed perceptions rather than the product of a formal process; a great deal of ground is not scanned in this paper and it should be understood that no formal prioritisation process was undertaken. We hope it will stimulate discussion and recognise that this kind of material is by its nature contestable.

The trends identified are:

1. Current Trends and the Here-and-Now
1. Linked Data and the Low -fibre Semantic Web
2. Learning Platform Architectures
3. Competence and learning outcomes
4. Mobile Platforms Converging
5. Augmented Reality Going Mobile and Mainstream
6. Sharepoint
7. e-Textbooks
8. Image Analysis and Semantic Query
9. Rising interest in “Business Intelligence”
2. Almost here
1. HTML 5 and next-gen browsers
2. Open Data and the need for a new information literacy
3. More Speculative Developments and Interesting Outliers
1. Non-relational Databases
2. Real-time services
3. Declarative Workflow
4. Dynamical Modelling of the Enterprise

[pdf http://publications.cetis.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/JISC_CETIS_Informal_Horizon_Scan_2010.pdf]