Top concerns - further information 

What is the UCISA Top Concerns Process?

The UCISA Top Concerns Process has been established to:

1. Determine issues of importance to our membership;
2. Determine matters to take forward to appropriate other bodies (such as Funding Councils, JISC, key suppliers etc) on behalf of the membership of UCISA:  we would expect responses from these bodies (even if they were only to politely ignore our members concern) which we would convey back to the membership;
3. Guide which events UCISA (and its groups) organise;
4. Provide input to programme committees for major meetings and conferences.

The benefits of the process are:

1. Takes members concerns into the heart of the UCISA activities
2. Possibly resolve some issues within the UCISA community and through external bodies;
3. Build-up UCISA's reputation as a significant group representing the sector on ICT matters to various external bodies and agencies.

How does the process work?

1. Members will be asked by e-mail to suggest items and issues that they wish to be considered as the top ICT related concerns of our community.  Members will be asked to provide a brief explanation of each concern they put forward. Please note we shall not publish the name(s)  or  insititution(s) of those who submitted each concern.
2. These e-mail responses will be an analysed and collated to produce a list of candidate Top Concerns. Each concern will be given a working title and a short explanation of the issues involved will be written.
3. Using a simple web-based survey, we shall invite the UCISA community  to determine the priorities of the concerns  and further comments on these.  No new concerns will be added  at  this stage)
4. Once the voting has been completed, a web page will be created that contains the UCISA Member Top Concerns in ranked order.

What will happen to the Top Concerns?

1. The UCISA Executive will review the Top Concerns and determine which should be taken forward to appropriate external bodies and agencies on behalf of the membership.   The Executive will press for a resolution (or at least a response) to such concerns and inform the membership of the outcome of their petitioning.  
2. UCISA and its groups will make use of the Top Concerns in its determining the programme for events and the activities of the organisation.