What is the Community Service Hub?
In today’s world, the availability of digital solutions is one key to academic success. The Community Service Hub combines digital solutions for research and teaching with input from the entire university landscape. This allows each institution to share its services with others so that all parties can benefit from the resulting scaling effects throughout the higher education landscape.
The Community Service Hub is in the proof-of-concept phase, meaning that business model scenarios are currently in development and their feasibility is being assessed.
The Community Service Hub is part of our vision for the collective design and open distribution of digital solutions to strengthen teaching and research in Switzerland.
Universities participating in the Community Service Hub will have access to a central marketplace offering relevant academic solutions that were added to the range of services on offer based on needs identified for end users. They also benefit from the integrated range of SWITCH services: the Community Service Hub is operated on the SWITCH network and meets high security standards. Access to the Community Service Hub requires the SWITCH edu-ID. SWITCH also coordinates the collaboration between the various stakeholders and offers comprehensive support in the areas of procurement, legal, marketing, security, and quality assurance.
The higher education community offers the ideal landscape for ambitious partnerships. The Community Service Hub thrives on innovations coming out of a broad-based community in which needs can be identified by tapping into work and interest groups in an optimal way.
Guidelines Board
The core of the business model is the Guidelines Board, whose members have the following two key roles:
- Discussing the relevant needs of academic end users and using these insights for further decision-making.
- Defining, prioritising, and adopting the criteria that must be met by a digital solution in order for it to be offered on the Community Service Hub platform (e.g. service level agreements, legal, security).
SWITCH examines digital solutions to see whether they meet these criteria and takes on a leadership role in the areas of quality assurance and security.
By participating in the Guidelines Board, the partner institutions have an influential role in structuring these offerings, which generates added value for the entire university and research landscape. Within this ecosystem, SWITCH is a neutral operator, a coordinating intermediary, and a consultant in a wide range of areas.
Fact Sheet for Academic Solution Providers
Description of Key Values for Academic Solution Providers (e.g. eScience Teams or IT-Services).
Fact Sheet for Partners
Description of Key Values for Academic Partners (e.g. IT-Services, eScience-Teams, Research Projects or Research Groups).