Ceremonies

Have taken time out to help out two ceremonies today as a platfrom marshal. This year's innovations include an online webast which means that the platform are counted down into the Hall after a short promotional video has played. A bit wierd. The other, is a student representative making a speech (student union sabattical) which I thought was a really good idea and Sophia did an excellent job. Terry Pratchett gave an interesting and slightly informal response (that's Sir Terry as he likes to be called...) and there were the usual speeches which were interesting the first time round.........tommorrow it's a promotion to mace bearing!

Clearing Training

This afternoon attended the training session ahead of A level results in August. Volunteered to be on the helpline for the busiest day of the year when co-incidentally our eldest gets her A Level results too. We got to hear about the way clearing will operate this year including a few new processes that are being introduced, some training on "how to handle difficult calls" and then onto using the technology in our new sunray facility where the clearing helpline will be located this year. It all went pretty smoothly and I remember bits of it from last year. There are a number of students employed to assist and it was interesting to observe a very small group cause quite a bit of disruption throughout the session - dis-interested, talking and muttering - and then when we got to use the phones etc playing around incessantly while others were trying to learn the preferred method of working. I guess this is the sort of challenge facing lecturing staff. I got fed up and said something. Don't know if that was the right thing to do, but it seems disrespectful to me, when others are trying to listen and learn.

Preparing a presentation (post Robina)

As a result of last week's development course with Robina Chatham, I've been thinking about how to make a better job of presenting materials to an audience later this week. Normally, when up against deadlines, there is little time available to consider the needs of the audience and the desirable outcomes from the activity. On this occasion however, set aside an hour and asked three people (with different preferences to my own and each other) to give me some help. Wasn't sure they would turn up as everyone is busy and this wasn't mandatory! It was a really interesting session as the group came up with a number of great ideas and suggestions and also kept us on task when we drifted onto the content - inevitable to an extent. We'll see how it turns out and in particular the idea of getting the committee to do an interactive task - this might be a bit too innovative - we'll see!

IT Services Newsletter #11

IT Services Student Survey 2009

This is now published for all students and staff to access on the IT Service web site. During July we welcome comments from readers and there is a link provided to the IT Services suggestions form. The report has also been circulated to the Information Strategy Committee in full. As before, we intend to review the conclusions, establish a series of recommendations, and publish those on the IT Services website for the start of next academic session.

Swine Flu Update

The Swine Flu outbreak has moved into a new phase of treatment versus containment. The University anticipates a signficant potential impact in the Autumn - perhaps at our busiest time when our students return or commence studies. We are making contingency plans across the University - the welfare of staff and students is a top priority. As a service area, we have the potential impact of the virus on our own staff, as well as the potential imapact on the services we provide to others. A couple of things have taken place this week worth reporting - we have updated every Student PC desktop image so that it emphasises the "catch it, bin it, kill it" message with links to University information. We have also confirmed the cleaning of all shared PC equipment which normally happens at this time of year as part of "business as usual". The LSS Board has also met to review line manager's views on how we might operate services and present a consolidated response to the emergency planning team. The main message at the moment is that we continue to operate in a "business as usual" manner.

University of Derby

A number of us hosted visitors from the University of Derby on Monday June 29th. They came to find out about the work we have been doing on Sunray and on e-assessment. The visit included tours of the Hub, Atrium, F42 sunray cluster and the Learn Higher Facility. We are seen as leading the developments in some aspect of thin client technology. We also talked about the plans that Derby have for outsourcing student email to Microsoft Live@Edu this September. This is another subject that is on the agenda for this week's ISC - papers are on the planning website (password protected) if you are following this project.

IT Services Draft Annual Report 2008/09

This annual report has also been prepared for ISC. It highlights some of our contributions and activity to the life of the University during the last twelve months. In this first draft, it is in a chronological format. It will be presented in a more digestible and accessible form for staff and students as part of the Annual Reporting process within Learner Support Services and will be ready for ISC1 at the start of the next academic session. There are a significant number of activities, many of them "business as usual" which do not appear in the report, but are no less important to the success of the University.

A New System to support Unique Fitness and Lifestyle

There are a number of us who have been involved in preparing for the launch of the refurbished sports facilities which are due to open on 16 July. We are now working to some very tight timescales as the project only selected an IT support system within the last week. A small team has had to re-prioritise work to get this up and running in time and it looks like it might be possible as a result of a "can do" approach despite the limited planning. Thanks to those who are contributing to this effort.

Change Management Project - Inspirational Leadership Course

Feedback on the first two days of the course have been positive. There has been a feedback mechanism for those who took part in the course. Some of the comments include:

• I found it an insight into the workings of my colleagues and myself, it gave me a alternate perspective on the ways we all interact. Left me with much to ponder.
• Really enjoyed the sessions and focus on IT
• Helped me to recognise ways of interacting more effectively with colleagues.
• Use other people's preferences to the advantage of the team
• I've already done a presentation where I tried to cater to the different types and received positive feedback straight after from a number of people who hadn't been on the course.
• I found it very enjoyable and positive experience
• The hot topic the course produced was the comment about not having SLAs.
• However most of the group have completed the ITIL course which has a strong emphasis on SLAs!
• Good to have informal interactions with other IT Services members
• Pay closer attention to others preferred types and be more conscious of that in my dealings both professionally and personally
• Having preferences doesn't mean your any good at it!

Any Other Business

As usual, this newsletter can only provide a limited and personal selection in terms of the many changes taking place within the service. Here are just a few more examples:

• There has been an account management review with Blackboard. We anticipate a number of improvements with our relationship as a result of the actions agreed at this meeting.
• New signage has gone up in JBP Building level 01 in time for last Saturday's Open Day: welcoming visitors to IT Services.
• We are preparing an update on the contributions that IT Services has made to the "Ecoversity" agenda in the last year. This is a positive news story.
• New PCs have been installed in the JBP 01.58 cluster room and are super fast (give them a go!)
• Preparations are well underway for the Clearing process - training starts this week - so phones and other set up work has already been taking place.

Quality of Working Life Survey

Hundreds of staff took the time to complete a recent "quality of working life" survey. I think it may be referred to by most people by the old fashioned phrase - staff satisfaction survey. Preliminary information is going to be reported soon and there is a very detailed analysis at some point which I guess will be made public (I haven't seen it just a short extract of the summary). The point I was goint to raise relates to additional questions that were inserted on email. This was as a result of staff feedback in a couple of forums about email overload. Anyway, 10 questions were asked about email. It's clear that email is important to the organisation - over 60% agreed. However, many feel overwhelmed when they return to work (from absence or vacation perhaps), that its cuts into tome for other tasks, it is too often used in place of other forms of communication and over 50% said there are too mane irrelevant emails. Far fewer people felt that the "tone of emails" was a problem. Therefore the survey concludes the key issue appears to be email overload. Comments?