Early morning start

On train on way to London at the moment – going to RUGIT meeting – lots of work to do on way down, but getting increasingly annoyed that East Midlands Trains seem incapable of supporting the business traveller – no power sockets for laptops, no wireless network. Thank goodness for my USB modem and iPhone – could do with some sort of power generator for MacBook though – solar panels maybe or a hamster in a wheel……

Thinking a lot about strategy at the moment – how we bring together all the work we’re doing on collaboration and new technologies, particularly with our recent decision to implement Clearspace. We’ve done a lot of work on a Teaching and Learning Support Strategy which I hope is about to be circulated wider and presented to the Teaching and Learning Committee, and a Technology strategy which will got to our Executive Board later this year. Work needs to start now on a research strategy, and one of the areas we will be working closely with the Library on over the next few months is how we manage research data - not just storage but the whole life cycle management, including curation, metadata, storage and archiving. I worry that there are some areas of the University who don't see the management of research data as a concern, despite the amount being generated, and who are content to store it on local servers, PCs or even CDs. Will CDs be readable in 10 years time I wonder?