UCISA Conference Day One (March 11) - Sungard

Bill Graves also keeps a blog where the presentation is available. I think the most interesting stuff was actually off piste (ie not part of the presentation). He talked about some of the tools we use routinely (Google, Amazon, ebay) and whether we care where the servers are located, and how the data and systems are backed up, and who is maintaining etc etc. He reported that the Obama election was won in "the cloud" of social and other networking online. Quite a powerful video with some interesting factoids. Liked the phrase "let's not waste a perfectly good crisis", and a challenge: ask "how we can be the best for the world" versus "how can we be the best in the world (or whatever league table you are after improving)..." Again message about students: they are more under-prepared, there are more first generation (to HE) students, and more "needy" students - the pipeline has changed radically.