A bit about what I've been doing (work)

Here is a quick reflection on some of the things that have been happening since the return to work. It has also been a very busy time for a lot of other people too as we begin the preparations for another new Session:

• Clearing is over for another year - from the hotline perspective anyway - and has been a tremendous success. We are recruiting well both through the UK/EU but also International recruitment and all systems and telephony performed well under stress. The formal process started with A level results Sunday when we download the results internally from UCAS and begin the confirmations process. Of course the planning started months before that - like Susan who was checking data transfers at 06:00 that day, there have been people "going the extra mile" to prepare for this important time. They include Richard who managed the installation of 73 PCs in the large teaching cluster used for Clearing, Ray who took the lead in testing and setting up across the range of rooms used centrally and within Schools, Christine who has implemented so many of the voice-related improvements, Susan who managed the student databases over the busy period including Saturday/Sunday when we were open for business, as well as the team of people who have attended the clearing working group meetings and deal with actions arising. There are too many people to mention everyone by name - it is a team effort by many throughout the University and the IT service has played a vital part again this year.
  
• Have met with 7 colleagues in IT services so far as part of the process to meet with everyone one-to-one in the next 2 months or so (51 to go...). I have been learning about how we provide Facility Management from various perspectives, the variety of technical projects that are in progress, about major framework tenders to speed up frustrating new purchasing procedures, how we provide front line support to students and also to staff as well as the back end support for over 70 operational services. It has been very useful already to learn some more about what various people do, what they enjoy about working at the University and sometimes what frustrates them too. We have some great people who are very committed to the students and staff that they serve. We currently don't always do a great job of communicating that enthusiasm or commitment although it's very evident when you pause for a chat.
• Sara and I met with the CIO and a colleague from the Yorkshire Building Society last week. They were interested in the impact of "Digital Natives". We first met after the Gartner Symposium earlier this year on the way home - we were able to provide some information based on our local experience but also the JISC research. We plan to follow up - Jason in the Careers Service pulled out some really interesting information about University business with YBS in recent years (ref recruitment to their business).
• I met with two consultants from the new Cumbria University to discuss their plans to re-launch student systems with a unified SITS/Tribal system and share some of our experiences. Bradford was recommended as a site that is more advanced with implementing the full system suite and it felt that we were some way ahead in terms of our processes, support and most importantly student experience, although this University has very ambitous plans to catch up.
• The Hub is busy working on the annual HESA return at the moment (a huge challenge as the dataset has changed and increased again) and has also launched the Pre Enrolment Portal. This is a service using e-vision (SAINT) available to all new students to basically enrol online ahead of registration week to get access to various services before arrival. The first applicants had already become students before the end of its first afternoon as a production service. Several thousand more are now being invited to register fully online.
• There is now a weekly meeting in the diary with the PVC e-strategy on Monday's. We have already had the first meeting to discuss how we will work together to support the PVC's work, to review one or two strategic items (agenda items for ISC and Green IT were other meetings this week) and also to discuss operational matters (problems raised with me relating to mobile phone email and I raised HESA, clearing and wireless for visitors).