Wolverhampton weekly newsletter #9

Update from week nine

• Concluded NDNA contract and now ready for final signature - commencing February 1st. 
• Managed 1-2-1s with most of my direct reports this week.  Lots going on.
• We have attempted to come up with viable options and a recommendation for the Faculty of Arts student desktop replacement.
• The team did a lot of work at the end of last week to very tight deadlines (NUTS3 analysis).  I took some time on Tuesday for a demo of the work and also we discussed developments in learner analytics.
• The AV framework for Summer Programme and longer term moved ahead positively this week in joint meetings with Estates/IT/Purchasing.  We have an agreed way forward which gives flexibility.  There is a schedule going to LAPSAG on Monday.
• Few staff related matters this week including following up with absent staff, probation reports  and one or two contract issues which should now be sorted.
• Account meeting with External Relations led to a number of follow up actions relating to digital signage, T4 upgrade and some work with the team on single sign-on improvements (T4 related).  We did some pre-work within IT including agenda setting for the third workshop on "lead nurturing".
• DAS comms went out to all staff ref CPU vulnerability and CAB approved first stages in mitigation activity relating to servers.
• Very useful call with JISC on remote Data Centre hosting out of Leeds.  JISC is going to approach a couple of other Universities about the business cases they have used - opportunity to fast track writing that up if we can avoid re-inventing the wheel.
• Arranged meeting with Digital Transformation Director at Wolverhampton Council for next week - good to be looking external as well as internal.
• We have got invites to join the GDPR working group and have been working on the Cloud Policy executive summary for the Information Security Board.

Good News Stories

• Positive lessons learned meeting for the Science Centre (SCTP) new build on Science Park.  No significant issues reported with IT or Network planning or implementation despite the fact there was a fundamental change of approach during the process for how network would work for tenants.
• No P1 incidents.