Review of achievements in 2009

After all the depressing news about the Digital Economy Bill, something a bit more cheerful! Last week I posted that we'd completed our planning statement, and as part of that we'd done a review of achievements over the past year. Thought it might be interesting to share it a bit more widely - it's very short as we had to keep it to less than a page of bullet points, but I hope gives a flavour of the sorts of activities we've been involved in. Will post list of current objectives/projects soon. Achievements listed under our seven service area headings.

Learning and Teaching

Continued to implement innovative technologies to provide the best learning experience for students.

Implemented lecture capture tool to allow streaming of lectures over the internet. Reviewed underlying system delivering MOLE (on-line learning environment).

Improved speed of the managed desktop. Replaced 120 PCS in teaching rooms.

Recruited a Teaching Space Manager and established a programme to pilot timetabling at Faculty level to increase efficiency in space utilisation.

Research

Research support strategy written.

Improved collaboration facilitated by implementation of uSpace.

Web portals for submission of jobs to HPC implemented.

Introduced Research Publications database as part of REF.

Collaboration and Communication

Launched uSpace - a collaborative environment for students, all staff and external contacts - which allows co-authoring of documents, blogging, and discussions.

Launched a new email service for students based on Google technologies.

Developed and launched a mobile application for students, CampusM, giving access to location data, library information etc on mobile phones.

Help & Support

Improved access to our help and support systems by introducing helpdesk self-service, remote support, service status page and twitter notifications.

Improved the quality of the customer experience by improving communication, decision making and processes across the whole department through the introduction of key elements of Service Management including problem, incident and change management.

Infrastructure

Major services moved to clusters of computers in two data centres,

University connected to JANET by two independent links

Consolidation of servers and storage using virtualisation techniques, increasing the resilience of services while reducing carbon footprint, space usage and running costs.

Corporate Information

Improved access to management information through the implementation of MIView - a management information dashboard for senior decision makers.

Completed the SAP implementation programme and continued to improve services through the implementation of eRecruitment - streamlining the application and the recruitment process.

Responded to changes required by the Points Based Immigration Scheme.

Business Activity

Continued to promote good project management practice in the department and University through help, advice and considerable resources on project support web site.

Established the University Print Management Team and completed an EU Tender for outsourced print to improve the environmental impact of printing within the University. Installed the latest high volume Mono and Colour Digital Printing equipment, improving quality and reducing cost.

Completed significant refurbishments to Drama Studio including introduction of video relay system.