Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

SIG-CIO

Aims to help Chief Information Officers (CIOs) at each member university to develop their leadership skills by providing them with opportunities to share and learn from common issues and best practices through mutual exchange, joint training sessions, and other avenues.

SIG-ITB

Aims to provide data that serve as the criteria based on which each member university draws up their ICT strategies; data collected by conducting a survey and analysis equivalent to the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS) of the present state of the ICT-related budget and ICT services at universities in Japan.

SIG-ITE

Aims to study, research, and develop the content of information ethics education required to ensure network security, as well as to conduct a survey on the state of information education in Japan and compile related data.

SIG-OSS

Aims to provides the skills and knowhow required to gather information on standardization and utilize such information through the use of open-source software (OSS) among member universities.
Also plans and implements joint training seminars and development projects for OSS by facilitating communication among member universities and with other organizations.

SIG-CSD

Aims to promote learning and education at universities in Japan by facilitating the sharing, circulation, reuse, and standardization of academic and education content developed and accumulated by universities and other institutions.

SIG-SL

Aims to gather information on the agreement, management, and use of, and issues concerning software licensing at each member university and share its findings among member universities so as to establish a better contract on software use, while at the same time negotiating with software vendors and jointly developing a software licensing management system.

SIG-AUTH

Aims to involve all the member universities to drastically enhance the authentication infrastructure, which is assuming greater importance in the ICT environment at universities. To achieve this objective, this SIG works to enhance the safety and convenience of authentication by utilizing new technologies and participates in the Academic Access Management Federation in Japan (GakuNin) and other federated identities for user authentication.

SIG-Cloud

Aims to share best practices concerning the use of private clouds possessed by universities, public clouds offered by cloud service providers, and hybrid clouds that combine these two models, jointly develop new cloud services, and discuss and implement the joint operation of community clouds.

SIG-ICT

Aims to elucidate the realities and challenges of the utilization of ICT both in Japan and abroad based on survey/research findings on the utilization of ICT at institutions of higher education, so as to offer guidelines on the utilization of ICT for higher education in Japan.

SIG-EDTech

Aims to promote the use of new technologies and standards at education institutions. To achieve this aim, this SIG offers guidelines on how businesses and universities can come together to jointly develop education methods/techniques that use them and how universities can put such methods/techniques to practical use.

SIG-HQSICT

Aims to align universities’ research outcomes with businesses’ implementation/development technologies and create practical solutions that improve the quality and security of services for member universities, with a view toward utilizing new technologies and standards for realizing quality and secure networks at education institutions.
This SIG organizes retreats for in-depth and free discussions among researchers and organizes individual discussions and/or presentation meetings on the alignment of technologies with relevant business out of consideration for the protection of their intellectual property rights.

SIG-RDM

The SIG-Research Data Management (RDM) deals with issues around the management and utilization of research activities at universities and research institutions.
This SIG aims to develop guidelines on the ICT infrastructure for collecting, creating, using, storing, and sharing data at each stage of the research lifecycle through information sharing and discussions with diverse stakeholders such as the researchers and infrastructure providers at universities, university leadership, funders, and research communities promoting open science.

SIG-RDM Outputs

SIG-ORCID

Aims to expand and spread the utilization of Open Research and Contribution ID (ORCID), which is becoming an international standard for researchers’ IDs.
Also discusses how research and other types of information on institutions should be computerized and distributed so as to promote the sharing of information among member universities.

SIG-UC

Aims to promote the exchange of case studies of “User Communication,” a collective term for the provision of information on ICT services and relevant support that universities, etc. offer to their members, establish “User Communication’s” methodologies, and provide information, etc. on PR/support tools.