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‘Learning First’: Information Technology Strategy 2011-2014

© The University of West London 2011. Not to be circulated or reproduced without the University’s permission

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1 Vision

1.1 This Strategy sets down the direction of travel for Information Technology at the University of West London for the next three years (2011-14). At its core is a clear vision which will underpin the achievement of the University’s strategic objectives and new ‘Value Proposition’. The Strategy addresses the technologies, how they are to be applied, and a range of resource and governance issues. The vision builds on the objectives outlined in the Strategic Plan 2008-2013, the Learning and Teaching Strategy, and various other sub-strategies that define the University’s strategic direction.

1.2 In 2008 the Learning and Teaching strategy stated that:

1.3 The learner is at the heart of the University. We aim to create an environment that integrates student learning and personal and career development into a fully-rounded educational experience across all levels and courses.

1.4 In 2010, the up-dated Strategic Plan ‘Education that works 2008 – 2013’ further affirmed that the University would:

1.5 Enable and encourage student engagement through the development and implementation of flexible and personalised modes of delivery. We will provide a rich mix of learning opportunities through a University-wide virtual learning environment coupled with the use of a range of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools. Continued infrastructure developments will enable us to offer increased opportunities to use resources remotely and for mobile learning.

1.6 In the same year, the up-dated Learning and Teaching strategy committed the University to providing flexible and blended modes of delivery by recognising that:

1.7 Learning, teaching and assessment are inextricably linked processes, which take place in a range of environments and can be delivered through increasingly flexible modes of study, appropriate to the disciplines and the type of learner. A number of successful flexible and open learning programmes already operate in the University and e-learning will provide an additional enhancement to these courses.

1.8 Building on these strategic statements and the explicit intent of the University’s recent value proposition, the following vision for the IT strategy has been adopted. This will provide the coherence and structure to the strategy as well as driving its aims and actions.

1.9 At the core of the IT strategy is a desire to support a personalised experience seamlessly bringing together all academic, administrative and social IT systems so that teaching and learning can be tailored to meet the needs of each individual student.

1.10 This IT vision has three core strands:


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• To deliver high quality IT to all academic courses and programmes

• To provide an exceptional administrative and support structure that is resilient, robust and flexible

• To integrate with social learning systems

1.11 The strategy has been constructed from an interaction of the following processes: a careful consideration of the sector wide drivers and technological trends; an internal analysis of student, staff and stakeholder need built from scenario driven focus groups; a thorough mapping of these requirements onto the University’s Strategic Plan; and a setting out of a set of strategic deliverables distilled from the scenarios. The strategy is further supported by an operational plan designed to ensure the aims and actions outlined in the strategy are completed. For the purposes of this document, this has been condensed into a clear time driven matrix with milestones, deliverables and cost profile. The paper starts, however, with a section on context which highlights a range of sector wide influences that will drive change in the years to come.

2 Sector wide drivers

2.1 This strategy seeks to respond positively to the key trends within the IT industry and across the Higher Education sector. The most significant of these are:

3 Increasing technological mobility

3.1 There continues to be a revolution in mobile computing and with it a growing expectation that one should be able to access IT systems and information from anywhere and at any time. The move towards greater flexibility of engagement, fewer constraints on location and the increasing desire to work in more flexible ways has been in part driven by the rise of mobile and supple technologies.

4 Changing expectations and expertise of students

4.1 The student intake will now inevitably have a large number of what Prensky (2001) terms ‘digital natives’: young people who have grown up with IT as ubiquitous communication and information-searching tools. Their expectations are that their diverse computing equipment will interact seamlessly and that computing tools will be available to supplement both social and learning interactions. This will become even more evident as the burden of cost shifts to the student after 2012-13 creating a powerful ‘assertive consensus’ amongst student cohorts.

5 Edgeless communities of staff and students


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5.1 Academics work within communities that span organisational and national borders. The ability to communicate and share information internationally is increasingly important. Students’ own social networks, particularly as our international student intake increases, also need to be facilitated.

6 Alternative models/platforms for delivering software applications

6.1 Increasingly, new software systems are being hosted from the Internet, such as the ‘Cloud’, rather than from internal IT departments. This brings opportunities in terms of speed of deployment and economies of scale while posing challenges in terms of the flexibility and the different skills required to manage these services. Outsourcing is increasingly the means by which some services are delivered. The role of a central IT department is increasingly becoming one of management of third parties and integration of third party systems.

7 Constraining and challenging fiscal environment

7.1 The financial environment will become ever more difficult in the years ahead as the impact of the new fees regime, the continued austerity programme and the impact of private providers changes the HE landscape. Such funding pressures are likely to have a tangible effect on the ability of the sector to carry out their core tasks and meet public and student aspirations. IT will be one of the key levers by which institutions can transform and maintain their role as world class institutions of learning.

8 Storage demands are increasing exponentially

8.1 As information becomes increasingly rich in sound, images and videos the demand for storage of this data is increasing exponentially while the cost of storage is reducing.

9 Scenario defined focus groups

9.1 In addition to the sector-wide IT strategic drivers highlighted above, a series of workshops with students, academic and administrative staff was undertaken to understand the key enablers that would support staff and student aspirations in terms of IT provision over the next three years. These were based on scenario induced ‘vision’ letters as to how UWL’s IT facilities might be perceived in the future (Appendix 2). The comments were analysed and the following needs and requirements were formulated:

10 Students

• Need to have much improved information about the facilities which are available in UWL and the ability for self-service – in a similar fashion to gaining access to Skype, Facebook, Amazon or other services. They also wish to be able to use whatever device a student owns and for UWL to provide sufficient campus-based devices.


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• Want a single Student Portal as a jumping off point to whatever services are required. Including a single sign-on and ‘Apps’ to enable messages to be sent to students in a format the student wishes to receive them (SMS, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter etc.)

• Desire a variety of new applications including on-line submission of work electronically and ever-more self-service to avoid unnecessary visits to campus. They also want more collaborative tools to enable them to work in teams, as appropriate (e.g. Google+, Office365 etc.)

• Want more out-of-hours support (service desk) and easier access to applications from off-campus, better use of IT technologies (e.g. personal video-conferencing) to communicate with academics, student welfare, and accommodation services etc.

11 Academics

• Need to find ways to raise the minimum levels of understanding of ICT amongst ALL academic staff – whilst also supporting pioneering uses of ICT in specific areas. Possibly IT should facilitate ‘master classes’ or produce videos to encourage academics to learn how to use new technologies as well as standard UWL facilities.

• Want ‘IT Account Managers’ to spend more time working with academic departments to take their requirements back into IT. Also, for staff in IT begin to educate the workforce about available IT facilities and new developments. The latter includes being more visible and sympathetic to demands.

• Would like IT to be made easier for academics, visitors etc. to access the UWL (wireless) network and systems – literally within minutes. They also want more ‘self-service’ to reduce/eliminate paper form-filling and a pilot of ‘electronic submissions’.

• Would prefer access to collaborative tools, an ‘academic portal’ as a jumping off point into whatever systems are required and ‘single sign-on’ in to most systems.

• Want to see a major investment in classroom technologies. They complained that it takes too long to power-up some classroom systems, especially in heavily timetabled rooms. Furthermore, they want to track students, but without the burden of ‘class registers’; and to improve retention, they want systems to enable them to identify students who may require more personal assistance. The possibility of some lectures being recorded and made available on-line was also discussed.

12 Administrators


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• Believe that the core administrative systems work reasonably well and that basic data is accurate and reasonably consistent. But felt that there needs to be continual improvement in the timeliness of the data and that reporting of business Intelligence and management information needs to be improved.

• Felt that IT should increase awareness of what facilities are available and advise administrative staff how to make better use of existing systems

• Want comprehensive document management systems, the reduction of stored paper archives via scanning, the elimination of paper forms and collaborative tools to work on documents and workflows.

• Want administrators in Academic Schools to be able to deal more rapidly and accurately with potential student applicants and to increase the ratio of those applying to those enrolling. Also, they expressed a preference for tracking attendance and other indicators to monitor students’ engagement and progress via class registers taken on mobile ID card scanners.

13 Themes, aims and actions

13.1 The needs and requirements emerging out of the scenario driven focus groups give rise to a series of strategic themes, aims and actions. The five themes dovetail with the University’s Strategic Plan.

13.1.1 Theme 1: Student engagement

Aim: to develop a Web-based Student Portal enabling personalisation of the on-line learning experience. This will involve the creation of a web facing single and seamless point of secure access for all internal and external UWL student-related IT systems, facilities and services.

Actions: Integrate key learning systems such as the Portal, QuestionMark Computer-

Based Assessment, Coursework Submission, Plagiarism Detection, e-Journals, etc.

Prepare on-line module information, option selection, module and programme feedback, transcripts, timetables etc.

Put in place student email, groupware, calendaring and messaging service and provide personalised links through to appropriate sections of social networking Web sites, e.g. Facebook

Support University based blended learning (through Blackboard and other systems) which is adaptable to flexible and distance learning contexts

Provide robust and efficient systems that are well supported Produce an in-house student record system highly tailored to local needs and

contexts


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Aim: to provide more flexibly delivered, open access systems in order to bring UWL’s students per open access workstation to benchmark and better (current ratio is 9.6 and the sector ratio is 8.0).

Actions: Extend the range of PC and Mac hardware and core software, allowing students

to gain transferable skills on the latest platforms Grow the number of Macs allowing industry-standard experience and learning

on specialist multimedia packages (London College of Music and Ealing School of Art, Design and Media)

24x7 IT access provided to meet emerging need after 2012-13. This will include awareness of facilities and 24/7 support both in terms of support of the use of the IT facilities and in interacting with the Institution.

Adequate information and induction as to the University IT services to be made available alongside the availability of a 24/7 contact service so that issues with UWL’s IT systems can be raised for response.

Provide a new service to deliver teaching and support via the Internet which is accessible at any time, at any point (remote desktop), and overseas

Aim: to create a ‘joined-up’ support and services function for student-owned

laptops and phones. Actions: Put in place a pervasive wireless network, and plug-and-go facilities across all

University locations to meet student demand Advise Schools on the setting up of bursary schemes etc. to allow eligible

students to more easily fund their own PCs etc. Embrace Web2.0 technologies such as social networking Web sites, mash-ups

and virtual worlds, and investigate how these might link and integrate via the Student Portal to enhance the student experience

Create a regular Web 2.0 briefing for managerial and support staff in order to track the University’s presence on social networking sites such as Facebook, virtual worlds such as Second Life, etc.

13.1.2 Theme 2: Academic staff engagement

Aim: to provide a secure, robust and efficient system of in-classroom and blended forms of teaching and learning.

Actions:

Work with the Head of e-Learning and other key stakeholders to champion

good practice and assist delivery of eLearning Strategy Facilitate access by academics to a flexible set of IT tools and environments

that can be integrated with central systems for a seamless student experience, including social networking Web sites etc.

Participate in and scaling up of projects developing new modes and channels of blended University learning, including student phones and other portable devices


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Develop resources allowing lecturers to record and stream video of their own lectures and presentations

Enable a wide dissemination of ‘good practice’ across the University by supporting the ‘champions’ of innovative practice to expand their thinking and engage and lead innovation

Teaching rooms to be set up for presentation, practice and group work etc. with high quality networked access, interactive smart boards, and projection systems

Provide sophisticated data to aid the academic planning and recording (student attendance) process linked to the Access Control system.

Aim: to develop e-submission and e-assessment capabilities and enhance course/module feedback arrangements.

Actions: Continue the deployment of e-pdp (personal development planning) and e-

portfolio services and increase the capability to access material remotely from a variety of devices.

Review and investment in Classroom technologies, in line with the Technology-Enhanced Learning strategy and feedback from the focus groups, to ensure required facilities and usability are provided, including, where necessary, the ability to record lectures for later review or wider presentation.

Provide easier ways to use wireless network connectivity, including for guests and visiting colleagues.

Ensure intranet and extranet collaborative working tools are available to all staff.

Have in place a single staff, academic portal giving consistent and integrated access to systems and facilities

Provide the capability for all administrators to track student attendance, monitor their wider engagement/progress and identify any areas of concern that may need addressing.

Aim: to develop an effective and measurable training and staff development

process to ensure the strategy can succeed and not be hindered by issues of competence and resistance

Actions:

Raise staff IT skills across the institution, ensuring maximum return on University IT investment

Work with Human Resources, to develop a new wave of training formats to address varying levels of competence

Develop ‘bite-sized’, self-paced and on-line flexible training packages for those who prefer that approach

Provide indirect support for student IT skills, via document packs which may be taken and customised by academic and other staff in Schools and Central Service Departments


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13.1.3 Theme 3: Research, scholarship and enterprise engagement

Aim: to provide a Staff Portal enabling seamless access to the institutional repository, publications database, student attendance tracking system

Actions: Merge the current publications database and repository to ensure maximum

on-line impact and exposure for UWL research, with the aim of creating a positive effect on the REF

Link this to a new on-line Personal Research Plan (PRP) tracking system, to provide comprehensive information on grant applications and awards, referencing these to personal output targets of research active staff

Develop associated staff training activities and support networks Provide data analysis tools on the desktop Put in place a collaborative virtual research environment (VRE) via the new

Staff Portal

13.1.4 Theme 4: Becoming ‘fit-for-purpose’ Aim: to ensure that the delivery of all future IT needs is built on a solid

infrastructure which is available, resilient, secure and accessible by all staff, students and partners from off- and on-campus, and through a variety of devices.

Actions: Ensure all IT availability, disaster recovery and business continuity measures,

appropriate to the needs of the University, are in place. Ensure that the management and delivery of IT services support, the delivery

of enhanced systems, and remote support technology is of a high quality. Standardise and reduce the variety of systems and technology in use and to

base new IT system requirements on ‘Cloud’-based solutions. Migrate existing systems to the ‘Cloud’ over a planned timescale. Contribute towards the University’s carbon reduction and sustainability targets

by reducing space, power and cooling requirements of on-site IT systems, through use of system virtualisation at several levels; and the rationalisation of printing facilities.

Complete the full installation of IP Telephony implementation and data/voice integration.

Aim: to improve the University’s IT governance structure to ensure accountability

and visibility of investment and decision making.

Actions

The Business Processes and IT Strategy Committee should allocate priorities for investment and projects, but should also monitor/support IT activities to improve the relevant dialogues and IT skill-base of staff and students across the Institution.

IT to be responsible for the provision and contract management of all IT


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services up to the application code/system level, to required, agreed business service levels

System users to be responsible for application usage, internal configuration, data management and permissions.

IT ‘account management’ for Departments and Schools and, where required, Service Level Agreements for both internally and externally provided services.

14 Deliverables, milestones and cost Profile

14.1 Our present IT provision provides adequate services to the range of activities that the University engages in. However, future sector change combined with a new value proposition and direction of travel means that greater consistency, resilience and standardisation must occur. In addition, given the nature of the new ‘student as customer’ concept, provision must also be flexible, up-to-date and pliable. The strategy outlined in this document will enhance that provision and is described for monitoring purposes within four implementation themes. In order to bring these to fruition, each will require significant time and investment and, where a more complex solution is required, reviews will take place at the outset in order to define the scope and outcomes of the project.

14.2 The matrix below provides a high level indication of the deliverables, the actions and milestones and indicative investment patterns.


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Theme Aim Action Target Date

Initial Cost

Theme 1: Student engagement

To develop a Web-based Student Portal enabling personalisation of the on-line learning experience. This will involve the creation of a web facing single and seamless point of secure access for all internal and external UWL student-related IT systems, facilities and services.

Integrate key learning systems such as the Portal, QuestionMark Computer-Based Assessment, Coursework Submission, Plagiarism Detection, e-Journals, etc. (Acquire & implement Portal, align processes, application integration)

Sep 2012 £150k

Prepare on-line module information, option selection, module and programme feedback, transcripts, timetables etc.

Sep 2013 £50k

Put in place student email, groupware, calendaring and messaging service and provide personalised links through to appropriate sections of social networking Web sites, e.g. Facebook

Sep 2012 £20k

Support University based blended learning (through Blackboard and other systems) which is adaptable to flexible and distance learning contexts

Ongoing (unless VLE changed)

Business as usual (BAU) (No additional cost)

Provide robust and efficient systems that are well supported

Ongoing See Theme 4

Produce an in-house student record system highly tailored to local needs and contexts, and its’ interfaces to many other UWL systems

Sep 2014 £500k

To provide more flexibly delivered, open access systems in order to bring UWL’s students per open access workstation to benchmark (current ratio is 9.6 and the sector ratio is 8.0).

Extend the range of PC and Mac hardware and core software, allowing students to gain transferable skills on the latest platforms (at least 300 additional workstations needed, @ ~£600 per workstation)

Sep 2012 £200k

Grow the number of Macs allowing industry-standard experience and learning on specialist multimedia

Sep 2012 £100k (~60


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Initial Cost

packages (London College of Music and Ealing School of Art, Design and Media) @ ~£1,500 per Mac

Macs)

24x7 IT access provided to meet emerging need after 2012-13. This will include awareness of facilities and 24/7 support both in terms of support of the use of the IT facilities and in interacting with the Institution.

Feb 2012 £30k/ year

Adequate information and induction as to the University IT services to be made available alongside the availability of a 24/7 contact service so that issues with UWL’s IT systems can be raised for response.

Mar 2012 BAU

Provide a new service to deliver teaching and support via the Internet which is accessible at any time, at any point (remote desktop), and overseas

Mar 2012 BAU

To create a ‘joined-up’ support and services function for student-owned laptops and phones.

Put in place a pervasive wireless network, and plug-and-go facilities across all University locations to meet student demand

Sep 2012 See Theme 4

Advise Schools on the setting up of bursary schemes etc. to allow eligible students to more easily fund their own PCs etc.

Jan 2012 BAU

Embrace Web2.0 technologies such as social networking Web sites, mash-ups and virtual worlds, and investigate how these might link and integrate via the Student Portal to enhance the student experience

Ongoing BAU

Create a regular Web 2.0 briefing for managerial and support staff in order to track the University’s presence on social networking sites such as Facebook, virtual worlds such as Second Life, etc. (with Marketing)

Jan 2012 BAU


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Initial Cost

Theme 2: Academic staff engagement

To provide a secure, robust and efficient system of in-classroom and blended forms of teaching and learning

Work with the Head of e-Learning and other key stakeholders to champion good practice and assist delivery of eLearning Strategy

Ongoing BAU

Facilitate access by academics to a flexible set of IT tools and environments that can be integrated with central systems for a seamless student experience, including social networking Web sites etc.

Sep 2012 £100k

Participate in and scaling up of projects developing new modes and channels of blended University learning, including student phones and other portable devices

Includedwork

in other

Develop resources allowing lecturers to record and stream video of their own lectures and presentations

Pilot for Sep 2012

£50k

Enable a wide dissemination of ‘good practice’ across the University by supporting the ‘champions’ of innovative practice to expand their thinking and engage and lead innovation

Pilot for Feb 2013

£50k

Teaching rooms to be set up for presentation, practice and group work etc. with high quality networked access, interactive smart boards, and projection systems, as required, @ ~£10k per room (SMR – 55, PH – 41 timetabled general teaching rooms and PC labs)

20 rooms per year (up to Sep 2016)

£200k/ year

Provide sophisticated data to aid the academic planning and recording(student attendance) process linked to the Access Control system, including 50 handheld ID card scanners @ £1k each + software development

Pilot for Sep 2012

£100k


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Initial Cost

To develop e-submission and e-assessment capabilities and enhance course/module feedback arrangements.

Continue the deployment of e-pdp (personal development planning) and e-portfolio services and increase the capability to access material remotely from a variety of devices.

Ongoing BAU

Review and investment in Classroom technologies, in line with the Technology-Enhanced Learning strategy and feedback from the focus groups, to ensure required facilities and usability are provided, including, where necessary, the ability to record lectures for later review or wider presentation.

Includedwork

in above

Provide easier ways to use wireless network connectivity, including for guests and visiting colleagues.

Sep 2012 See Theme 4

Ensure intranet and extranet collaborative working tools are available to all staff., + training & support

Sep 2012 £75k (resource)

Have in place a single staff, academic portal giving consistent and integrated access to systems and facilities

Jan 2013 £100k

Student Analytics to provide the capability for all administrators to track student attendance, monitor their wider engagement/progress and identify any areas of concern that may need addressing.

Sep 2012 £75k (resource)

To develop an effective and measurable training and staff development process to ensure the strategy can succeed and not be hindered by issues of competence and resistance

Raise staff IT skills across the institution, ensuring maximum return on University IT investment.

Ongoing £100k (resources and materials)

Work with Human Resources, to develop a new wave of training formats to address varying levels of competence.

Ongoing Costs with HR/Staff Dev.

Develop ‘bite-sized’, self-paced and on-line flexible training packages for those who prefer that approach.

April2010 in above


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Initial Cost

Provide indirect support for student IT skills, via document packs which may be taken and customised by academic and other staff in Schools and Central Service Departments.

Sept 2012

in above

Theme 3: Research, scholarship and enterprise engagement

To provide a Staff Portal enabling seamless access to the institutional repository, publications database, student attendance tracking system

Merge the current publications database and repository to ensure maximum on-line impact and exposure for UWL research, with the aim of creating a positive effect on the REF. (Tracking and usage of HEFCE’s RMAS programme and collaborations)

Sep 2013 For REF

£100k

Link this to a new on-line Personal Research Plan (PRP) tracking system, to provide comprehensive information on grant applications and awards, referencing these to personal output targets of research active staff.

April 2012

in above

Develop associated staff training activities and support networks

Ongoing Costs with HR/Staff Dev.

Provide data analysis tools on the desktop (eg SPSS, NVIVO etc.)

Ongoing £50k for general licences, or project-specific costs

Put in place a collaborative virtual research environment (VRE) via the new Staff Portal

Includedwork

in above

Theme 4: Becoming ‘fit-for-purpose’

To ensure that the delivery of all future IT needs is built on a solid infrastructure which is available, resilient, secure and accessible by all staff, students and partners from off- and on-campus, and through a variety of devices.

Ensure all IT availability, disaster recovery and business continuity measures, appropriate to the needs of the University, are in place. (See Appendix 1 for cost and activity breakdown)

By Apr 2013

£754k


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Initial Cost

Ensure that the management and delivery of IT services support, the delivery of enhanced systems, and remote support technology is of a high quality.

Ongoing BAU

Standardise and reduce the variety of systems and technology in use and to base new IT system requirements on ‘Cloud’-based solutions.

Review by April 2012

£100k (for Review)

Migrate existing systems to the ‘Cloud’ over a planned timescale.

Sep 2013

tba, depending on Review

Contribute towards the University’s carbon reduction and sustainability targets by reducing space, power and cooling requirements of on-site IT systems, through use of system virtualisation at several levels; and the rationalisation of printing facilities.

Includedwork

in other

Complete the full installation of IP Telephony implementation and data/voice integration.

Feb 2012 (Already paid for)

To improve the University’s IT governance structure to ensure accountability and visibility of investment and decision making.

The Business Processes and IT Strategy Committee should allocate priorities for investment and projects, but should also monitor/support IT activities to improve the relevant dialogues and IT skill-base of staff and students across the Institution.

April 2012

BAU

IT to be responsible for the provision and contract management of all IT services up to the application code/system level, to required, agreed business service levels

Ongoing BAU

System users to be responsible for application usage, internal configuration, data management and permissions.

Ongoing BAU

IT ‘account management’ for Departments and Schools and, where required, Service Level Agreements for both internally and externally provided services.

Sep 2012 £75k (additional resource)


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Appendix 1 – Core Infrastructure Project Costs The separate components which are required to provide the resilient core infrastructure outlined in theme 4 are :

Item Cost (Indicative) Comment 2nd Janet Connection at Paragon House

£70,000 Includes Installation / Router and Potential Managed Service (Rental pa for Circuit is £20k + £3k Managed Service)

Upgrade/New provision for SMR-PH Leased circuit. Circuit capacity increase from 100Mb to 1Gb

£22,000 5 Year term (Revenue - for Circuit £14k pa) (There will also be a reduction from revenue of existing 100Mb leased circuit of approximately £6k pa)

Physical Virtual Host Servers

£250,000 Estimated 25 host servers

Increased Storage Capacity

£122,000

Virtualisation Software (VMware)

£35,000

SMR Server Room refurbishment

£100,000 Additional completion of rack capacity required to move C042 into TC256

Paragon House Server refurbishment

£125,000 Changes to facilities: virtualised environment, upgrade to UPS and consolidation of services. Possibly expansion

Wireless Upgrade (Rec 1.3)

£30,000 Upgrade to 802.1x authentication

Total: £754,000


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Appendix 2 – Focus Group “Vision Letters” A Vision of the Student Experience at UWL in 2014/15

Email:- From John Smith to his sister Jean Smith.

Jean,

It was great to see you at Mum’s birthday party last weekend and to swap stories about our first term’s experiences at our Universities.

UWL is brilliant – I’ve made loads of friends already and am settling in to the course – but dreading the results of my Assessments next week! Freshers’ Week was brilliant because I met the lecturers and new students who were enrolling on to my course or applying to my Hall of Residence that I had been chatting to for several months via Facebook and Blackboard.

There are lots of different ways in which I can chat to other students, find out what is happening etc. They have some brilliant apps that you can download to your mobile to help you find out what facilities are available and how to use them. There are also lots of external systems which support the students with details of buses/tube problems and other information. Have you looked at West London Guru on Facebook yet? It’s really interesting... also, UWL now have several different ‘live chat’ areas if you have welfare, housing or other problems and need to get support or advice quickly. It’s an on-line, one-stop shop which saves me having to go on campus and stand in a queue...

I can even choose how I want the University (or academics) to contact me – either by email, SMS, Facebook or by telephone. This has saved me several wasted journeys in to lectures which had been re-scheduled!

I’ve found it so easy to study here – as I can get access to everything that I need at any time of the day or night. I’m told that I can use almost any type of device to access the computer systems within a couple of minutes– or I can use any of the hundreds of PCs which are scattered around the campus. Even better, I only need one password to get access to anything. So I didn’t need that fancy laptop which Dad bought because I can use anything with a browser to access all of my teaching materials, e-library and all other e-resources and I can do my home-works from anywhere – even from the local café… I should have got Dad to buy me a better games console!

I sympathising with you about all those silly paper forms that you have to complete at your University… At UWL , everything that requires a form to be completed (registration, change of courses, change of address etc) can now be done on-line through my Student Portal. On this same screen, I can jump off to my emails, VLE, get UWL news feeds, chat to my course colleagues etc – but I also get reminded if I have not done something by a certain time (e.g. return a library book, missed a homework deadline etc). I remember that you were surprised when I told you that it took me only a couple of minutes last week to register for my second year, choose the relevant courses and options that I wanted and get my personal timetable returned to me!

You were surprised when I told you that I have to swipe my Id card at most lectures so that I can prove that I am attending everything that I need to…Last week, I was ill and missed a couple of lectures. Both my tutor and my lecturer sent me emails to see what was the matter – and links so that I could view the lectures to catch up on the course materials. This will also be useful at revision time!


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Around UWL, there is always somebody available to help me if I get stuck – either in a cluster room or on the Out-of-Hours Help desk. So, I have no excuse for not doing my assignments! Most of my lecturers are happy to answer emails quickly – but some of them offer virtual surgeries when I can chat to them at agreed times of the day or evening. The systems seem to be really secure and always seem to work – I haven’t had any of the problems which you were complaining about at your university! They even record most of the lectures here – so that I can view them via iTunesU or YouTube – depending on how cool the lecturer is! This is a great help at revision times and also because of my health problems. I was shocked to hear that you had had lectures cancelled because your lecturer couldn’t get the IT kit in your classrooms to work... I can’t remember any lecture or seminar being delayed - everything just seems to work and the staff know how to use the kit.

The Virtual Learning systems here are amazing – they include all of the usual teaching stuff but also lots of personal e-portfolio stuff because UWL are really focused on ensuring that I find a well-paid job when I leave here. I have been creating video CVs so that I can stand out when I am applying for a summer holiday job – the employer will be able to see that I am a real team-player rather than just read my list of achievements. I’m told that many employers run virtual career fairs to try and select the best UWL students for interviews. I know one student who was head-hunted by an employer just because her cool video-CV, blogs and web-site…

You will remember that UWL gave me access to lots of things from the very moment that I applied to join them… I’m told that they will also continue to give me access to lots of IT services well after I leave as well… I think that it is because they want you to come back for more courses! These include the library, most IT systems, the careers service etc. They really seem to treat their Alumni as being part of their extended university.

Anyway, I am looking forward to the summer holidays – but I will still be able to do everything from home that I can do whilst on campus… They don’t seem to give us any excuses to NOT studying these days!

Best wishes,

John


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A Vision of the Academic’s Experience at UWL in 2014/15

Email:- From John Jones (Senior Lecturer) to his colleague Jean Smith who is also a Senior Lecturer at the University of Poppleton.

Jean,

It was really good to chat to you at last week about our quite different experiences of the quality of IT systems at our respective institutions. I promised to send you more comments about UWL and how I have found things during my first few months here…

My initial impression at UWL was most positive… Before I even arrived here, they contacted me to help to prepare me for joining them. I had the same named IT contact person from my the date that I was first appointed until a month after I had joined and was satisfied that I knew how to used all of their systems. They wanted to know what computing facilities I would need, whether I needed immediate access so that I could transfer files and documents etc in to my UWL workspace. So, on my first day of starting here, I had my computer, email accounts, telephone, car park permit, smart card, induction plan etc all in place. On my first working day, an IT person came and ensured that I had everything that I needed and could use all of the tools etc. It was so comprehensive that I was able to start productive work by the afternoon of my first day! Can you remember how long it took at Poppleton to get hold of a car park pass?!

The systems are easy to access but seem to be both secure and resilient. I can access them from anywhere on campus or off-campus. I can use any device – including a smart-phone, if my eye-sight is good enough! There are many collaborative tools enabling me to work with colleagues across the institution or across other universities without any difficulty. Indeed, the systems are so good that I am missing opportunities to travel to meetings across the country because it is so easy to use the videoconferencing and collaborative working tools available. If you visit me here, then it will take minutes to give you access to our systems etc – even if Poppleton has not yet joined Eduroam or other ways of working remotely!

Can you believe that UWL claim to have eliminated the last of the paper-only forms?… Everything that requires a form to be completed (room bookings, expenses, library cards, change of courses, change of address etc) can now be done on-line through my Academic Portal. On this same screen, I can jump off to my emails, link automatically to key Journals, blogs etc but I also get Workflow messages to tell me what actions I need to take on urgent matters – e.g. student assessments, applications, Research Funding deadlines etc. I must admit that I almost feel ‘organised’ and (almost!) in control of what is going on…

I think that the administrative systems are tremendous. They operate seamlessly and just purr away in the background. I can instantly get hold of all of the information that I need concerning my courses, students, timetables etc. The information is readily available and is also ‘consistent’ so that all of the numbers balance across all of the reports – I still remember in horror all those days that you and I used to spend grappling with the Poppleton systems just trying to get a basic set of information that we had no time left to analyse it! Recently, I’ve even taken part in the departmental planning activities for next year’s budget because it was so easy to just talk about courses, students, rooms and time-tabling etc rather than FTEs, Pounds and Rates of Return stuff…!

All of these seamless admin systems mean that I can focus all of my attention on teaching and my research interests. So, although there is an ever increasing amount of paperwork coming from Regulatory bodies, it is


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really easy for me to extract the necessary information from various different systems and complete the mind-numbing questionnaires that we have to do these days!

The Learning & Teaching systems – VLE, e-portfolio, e-Coaching/Mentoring etc – are equally smooth. There is a logical set of processes and workflows all the way from the initial Course and Module development through the development of the course catalogue and into all of the VLE lecture materials and supporting resources – right through to instructing the bookshop how many books to buy!

I can create my lectures and seminars quickly and easily, moderate VLE discussions etc and the students really do respond positively. I’ve even experimented with providing all of my lecture notes BEFORE I turn up for the lecture so that I can run the lectures in a different fashion! I’ve noticed a few lecturers have already integrated Facebook. Twitter and SecondLife in to their courses – but I’m not THAT adventurous, yet!

In the classrooms, UWL have standardised the key equipment so that it is easy to use – and there is immediate contact with a central control room if case something doesn’t work at the start of a lecture. In many cases, students have ‘clickers’ to vote anonymously. This has been really beneficial for students who have poor language skills or need to revise etc. I have recently chosen to let my lectures be lectures are recorded (just the screen projection and the audio) so that they can be re-used by students as appropriate – I’m not sure whether I am comfortable with this method of teaching yet – but I’m willing to try it especially after I discovered that some students were using their smart-phones to film me anyway!

Thank goodness, we don’t take any ‘classroom registers’ any more... Students swipe themselves in to a class or seminar so that we can track their attendance. We also have a fascinating system which collects information about other student activities (e.g. borrowing a library book, downloading academic materials within their programme, using the library etc). We can combine this intelligence with their assessment performance and we use the information to try and identify whether we can assist student who seem to be struggling. This ‘Student Analytics’ system has dramatically improved our retention rates by identifying students who seem to be struggling and requiring some pastoral support.

You will be aware of how much progress we have made on recruiting higher quality students and improving our retention percentages. The IT systems have been pivotal in nudging our enquiries-to-registration ratios ever higher. They have also been superb in tracking and warning us of students who may be showing signs of dropping out so that we can intervene early.

Although UWL are in the early days of expanding their Research capabilities, they have started well be implementing a comprehensive suite of support tools to ensure that Pre-Award, Costing, Submission, Post-Award processes are easy to manage. They have an excellent repository for outputs – and they have also developed some intriguing methods of measuring the dreaded ‘impact’ aspects of research. Through the Library, they now have excellent access to a wide range of publishers and also to a mass of e-repositories – enabling us to begin to ‘punch above our weight’ by making better use of the resources available through cyber-space.

All in all, I feel that I can now do my ‘proper job’ here because I have all of the facilities and supporting tools that I need. No wonder you noticed how bouncy I have become!

Next time you are in London, you MUST come and drop by so that I can show you just how superb it is to be an academic here at UWL!

Best wishes,

John


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A Vision of the Administrator’s Experience at UWL in 2014/15

Email:- From John Jones (Manager –Student Registry) to his colleague Jean Smith who is Deputy Registrar at the University of Poppleton.

Jean,

It was really good to chat at last week’s conference about our quite different experiences of the quality of IT systems at our respective institutions. I promised to send you more comments about UWL and how I have found things during my first few months here…

My initial impression was most positive… The University contacted me shortly after I accepted their offer to prepare me for joining them. They gave me a named person in IT so that I could ensure that my IT requirements could be prepared before I arrived. So, on my first day of starting here, I had my computer, email accounts, telephone, car park permit, smart card, induction plan etc all in place. An IT person came and ensured that I had everything that I needed and could use all of the tools etc. It was so comprehensive that I was able to start productive work by the afternoon of my first day! Then, the same IT person kept in touch with me for at least my first month to ensure that I knew how to use all of the other IT facilities which might be useful to me. Can you remember how long it took at Poppleton to get hold of a car park pass?!

The core administrative systems are tremendous. Although they come from different suppliers, they all operate seamlessly so that I really do have ‘one version of the truth’ and ‘accurate and timely information’ across the entire University…. Can you believe that the HESA returns took only a couple of days this year – and most of that delay was due to my boss’s fussing rather than any data issues!

They have recently upgraded their CRM, business intelligence and reporting systems to turn the ‘data’ within any single system in to comprehensive university-wide ‘information’. It’s fascinating to be able to really understand which courses and departments are really making money and which ones are not! And also to see the true cost of operating many of our core business processes!

The systems are easy to access but seem to be both secure and resilient. I can access them from anywhere on campus or off-campus. I can use any device – including a smart-phone, if my eye-sight is good enough! The recent introduction of a ‘single sign-on’ means that I no longer have to remember and change loads of passwords. It has also saved me from wasting time signing on and off lots of different application systems which I end up having to use...

There are many collaborative tools enabling me to work with colleagues across the institution or across other universities without any difficulties. We can even be working on the same document/report at the same time. Its brilliant! Indeed, the systems are so good that I am missing the opportunities to travel to meetings across the country because it is so easy to use the videoconferencing and collaborative working tools available.

They have recently implemented a site-wide Documentation management system. I volunteered to be a pilot department and have now loaded almost every file, document, letter, form, policy, procedure and anything else(!) in to it. So it is now easy to find everything – to ensure that everybody has the latest version – I’ve even seen that they can attached emails to documents in order to log the discussions which led to the latest versions… By putting some workflow processes around the scanned documents, we have been able to transform the performance of quite a lot of our administrative processes in purchasing, HR, finance, Registry etc


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UWL believe that they have eliminated the last of the paper-only forms… Everything that requires a form to be completed (applications, library cards, registration, change of courses, change of address etc) can now be done on-line through one my Staff Portal. On this same screen, I can jump off to my emails, check on key reports etc but I also get Workflow messages to tell me what actions I need to take on urgent matters. I must admit that I almost feel ‘organised’ and in control of what is going on here!

Budgeting, Planning and monitoring progress is really simple these days. It means that I can spend smuch more of my time getting involved in activities to improve processes and develop the institutional strategies.

You will be aware of how much progress we have made on recruiting higher quality students and improving our retention percentages. The IT systems have been pivotal in nudging our enquiries-to-registration ratios ever higher. They have also been superb in tracking and warning us of students who may be showing signs of dropping out so that we can intervene early.

All in all, I feel that I can now do my ‘proper job’ here because I have all of the facilities and supporting tools that I need. No wonder you noticed how bouncy I have become!

Next time you are in London, you MUST come and drop by so that I can show you just how superb our administrative process and systems are here at UWL!

Best wishes,

John


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A Vision of the Executive Experience at UWL in 2014/15

Email:- From John Doe (PVC – Faculty of Humanities) to his colleague Jean Smith who is PVC-Research at University of Poppleton.

Jean,

It was really good to chat at last week’s UUK conference about our quite different experiences of the quality of IT systems at our respective institutions. I promised to send you more comments about UWL and how I have found things during my first few months here…

My first impressions were just how easy it was to access and use all of the things which I needed – no matter whether I was at home, travelling or on campus. I could intuitively and easily log in, synchronise files etc. I also found that I could easily switch my desk phone to follow me home – so I could effectively run my office from wherever I happen to be…

All of the computer systems just seem to work. I’m told that they have great resilience and security measures. Thank goodness we haven’t had to test these in earnest(!) but last weekend’s simulation of a major fire in one of the computer rooms seems to have demonstrated how our new Crisis management processes would work in a real emergency.

I get a dashboard of all key indicators and can easily drill down to see what is happening on any programme, School etc. The quality and consistency of the data from whatever sources just seems to be amazing – and all of the Professional Services directors and academic PVCs etc all get the same version of the ‘truth’ literally over night. After so many years of working ‘in the dark’ when I was at Poppleton, it’s just invigorating to be ‘in the daylight’ here! They have a comprehensive library of surveys, benchmarks, KPIs etc taken from HESA, NSS and other quarters…

I was really surprised to see how cost effective the IT department seem to be here. They have a significant investment on a rolling cycle for replacing the campus infrastructure and classroom re-furbishings but then a modest revenue budget because they are constantly looking to find innovative ways of outsourcing ‘commodity’ services so that they concentrate just on the services which differentiate UWL – primarily the ‘student experience’.

Apart from the traditional administrative systems, UWL has a full complement of personal and collaborative tools with Business Intelligence, CRM, Document management and a host of other things that I have never heard of before! The CRM tools are superb – they are being used not only for student recruitment purposes but also for engaging with staff, with alumni, with students, with employers etc… I was fascinated to scroll through and see quite how many different people have recently had contact with the local council – no wonder the councillors were confused about what we were wanting to do! Needless to say, the VC ‘suggested’ that we should have a more joined up approach in future!

The IT people seem to have progressed from the back-room reactive mode that you and I are so familiar with(!) to one of being positively ‘can-do’. Last week, I had one of their managers ‘shadow’ me for a couple of days because they wanted to know what sorts of services and information I might need in the future. It was refreshing to NOT to have to talk to them in geek-speak! I even had a sensible discussion with her about developing new courses and how we should manage these activities! The creation of the ‘Balancing Committee’ has enabled the Executives to dictate IT priorities – rather than vice-versa…


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We are seeing an ever increasing number of IT services being delivered from the ‘Cloud’ – which means to me that we are focusing more on how we move the university processes forward and can concentrate on how students and staff use the services which they require. These have enabled us to become much more agile with fast implementation s than we have been able to achieve in the past. Initially, we implemented student and staff email in the cloud, then added our library system, VLE and others... I’m not sure which services we might NOT want to put in the Cloud eventually!

Amongst the most interesting of their projects recently has been their support of attempts to engage with the Community and also their activities to support the Learner Supply chain – from Year 8 through to year 80, I think!

You really must come down to visit me when you are next in London – and see for yourself just how easily YOU could use our IT systems when you drop in…

Best wishes,

John

it strategy - back to home - university of west london

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