Where the magic happens, and other stories

Had a meeting this week with some of the University's newly appointed  legal advisors to explain to them what we do, and explore where they might be able to help us. Obvious areas are Freedom of Information and Data Protection where we occasionally have to get legal advice, but also other areas such as information security, data export and copyright infringement. Good chance for us to explore some of the issues, and also talk about risk management in relation to legal issues.

We've also hosted a visit to the IC from colleagues from another University. Four years on it's still looking good and still impresses. I still love showing people round it. And it's still evolving. A creative media suite is about to open where staff and students can create and edit audio and video, make podcasts, record teaching materials etc. All set up in a user friendly way with presets for the camera angles etc. We're also setting up a skills suite where staff can drop in and consult experts in various digital media technologies for help and advice. I love the strap line on the door - "where the magic happens".  Let's hope it does :-)

Also had several meetings over the last couple of days about various capital projects, and how they might incorporate learning and teaching space. Some major refurbishments, and some new builds, and we need to make sure we gt the right sort of space in the right areas. Lots of exciting developments and the potential for some very innovative spaces.

Today has been spent mainly talking to suppliers. The first showing us a document management solution for creating efiles - single views of data collected from  variety of sources, especially scanned-in documents.

The second one of our long standing suppliers where we have a new account manager - but someone who used to be our account manger a few years ago for another product. So, some catching up and building relationships - always important to do.

Now I'm off for a long Easter weekend, so no blogging for a few days.  There's plenty of other good blogs to read - some of my favourites are in my side bar, but there's lots more.