The Community Service Hub is part of SWITCH’s vision for the collective design and distribution of digital services in the world of higher education. At the SWITCH ICT Focus conference, participants got an insight into the current status of the innovation project.
Today, Swiss universities can access an almost unmanageable number of digital services to assist in their daily work. These services are organised independently of each other and the solutions are distributed across the entire Swiss higher education landscape. This is where the concept of the Community Service Hub comes in. Together with the community, SWITCH is developing a platform for the exchange and distribution of IT services in the academic sector, with the aim of benefiting the entire Swiss teaching and research community.
"We’re stronger together": This was SWITCH’s motto when it launched the Community Service Hub concept at the end of 2016. It is continuing to refine the idea through the currently active proof of concept. Thanks to the committed support of participating universities, SWITCH has been able to create possible business models for the Community Service Hub and test their feasibility. This procedure ensures that universities’ key needs can be fulfilled in a sustainable manner.
The following organisations are taking part in the pilot project as solution providers:
Taking part in the project as solution consumers are:
SWITCH serves as a hub for the collection and exchange of IT services between higher education institutions and the various solution providers, and performs quality assurance for the community. It provides transparency regarding the digital services available and makes them accessible to the largest possible community of users. Enabling end users to use digital solutions securely and conveniently leads to significant economies of scale and increases in efficiency, which ultimately benefit the whole community. True to its motto, SWITCH works with its partners for greater capability, convenience and security in the digital world.