UEB and Apples

Early morning meeting today - University Executive Board meets Heads of Departments. Shorter meeting than usual, with another good presentation from the VC. Biggest discussion was about the release of the RAE results later this month, which will go to the press before the Universities. And even the Universities can only share them with a few senior staff as they are embargoed for a day before we can release them to the rest of the University.

Then at lunchtime my presentation to UEB - seemed to go OK. Lots of discussion and questions. Managed to find plenty of pictures to illustrate it, so very few lists of bullet points. Hope I got over that we're not just about technlogy, but about supporting the business needs and objectives of the University. We need and want to be involved in strategic discussions - almost every decision made by the Board will impact on us in some way, and almost everything we do will impact on the University. Partnership is the key, and we need to work together to make sure that the University gets the maximum benefit from our services.

Then later today I had a meeting with our Apple Higher Education rep. As I'm sure everyone know, I'm a real fan of Apple products, and this was a good opportunuity to talk abot some issues. I found out why Apple weren't at the EDUCAUSE exhibition, and why they won't be at UCISA later this year. A corporate decision aparently, but a pretty stupid one if you ask me. We talked about some of the issues we've been having getting iPhones on an O2 corporate contract, and also about iTunes U - something I'm very interested in. There's some excellent University sites onthere, and we will be considering having our own as part of our media hosting project.