1 / 14

Information Strategy of Newcastle University

Information Strategy of Newcastle University. Paul Hopkins Director – Information Systems and Services University of Newcastle upon Tyne Paul.Hopkins@newcastle.ac.uk. Newcastle University. North East England Founded 1834 17,000 students 3 Faculties, 30 Schools $450m turnover

sitara
Télécharger la présentation

Information Strategy of Newcastle University

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Information Strategy of Newcastle University Paul Hopkins Director – Information Systems and Services University of Newcastle upon Tyne Paul.Hopkins@newcastle.ac.uk

  2. Newcastle University • North East England • Founded 1834 • 17,000 students • 3 Faculties, 30 Schools • $450m turnover • $100m Research

  3. Mission & Key Initiatives • To deliver world-class research, world-class teaching and support the economic development of North East England • “Value For Money” • “Full Economic Cost” of research • 50% of school children to go to University • Need to find new sources of funding

  4. Newcastle’s IT Situation • Single campus, centralised IT approach • Strong IT infrastructure skills • Operate Regional academic network (5 Universities, 23 Colleges, 450,000 users) • 125 IT staff • $10m allocation from University, plus $3m external earned income

  5. IT Goal • By November 2007, to give the best University based IT service in the UK! • “Simple” (not easy!) infrastructure, “Common desktop”, integrated applications, highly resilient • Focus continually on CUSTOMER SERVICE • …Numbers, numbers, numbers!

  6. Newcastle’s IT Philosophy • For core applications, use mainstream vendors (Microsoft, SAP, Oracle etc) • For “Niche”/emerging applications (eg timetabling, VLEs etc) use best of breed • For exploratory or small-scale use develop in-house • Go for campus-wide licensing, go for thin-client access in addition • Develop “Service Oriented Architecture” approach – “Web Services” based on open standards

  7. Newcastle’s IT Architecture • Move towards “Dark Fibre”-based regional network • Campus & dormitories cabled – wireless as a complimentary network • 10,000 desktops on campus including 1,500 in student cluster-rooms • >90% Active Directory managed Common desktops (- huge success!) • Small, but significant, Apple and Unix user groups

  8. Microsoft Environment • Largely, MS desktops, mainly MS servers (but significant Linux and Solaris servers) • All XP, Server 2003, Exchange, MS Office, growing SharePoint use etc • Campus Agreement, special deals for student purchases, Remote Access • Try to stay at leading edge of MS technologies (eg Collaborative computing)

  9. Applications Architecture • SAP-dominated administrative systems HR/Payroll, Finances, Purchasing -1999 Student Records-2003 Portal, CRM, Data Warehouse, Workflow, document management – 2005 • Best of Breed – Blackboard (VLE), Scientia (Timetable) • In-house – Accommodation, e-Portfolios, Shibboleth, SMS Text-messaging etc • Starting move towards SOA architecture – backbone of XML/http web services to link all applications

  10. Customer-Centric Visions • Any-time, Any-place, Any-thing on Any device • “Peace of mind” computing experience for students and researchers • Timely, accurate and consistent data for administrators • Self-service IT

  11. Some major areas of benefits By implementing Active Directory across more than 9,200 desktops on Campus… • We have eliminated or radically reduced the issues of different software versions on different machines, security updates etc • We have all user application data stored on public drives – not on c: drives • We need very few (1-2 full time staff) to manage ALL these machines • We can remotely re-build machines and roll-out new applications with ease Huge benefits, financially and service wise! Example, recently rolled out CONDOR across 1500 desktops – this has given us a large GRID computer at almost zero cost. We may increase to 10,000 computers ultimately…

  12. Integrated Administration Newcastle have implemented, (at great expense and effort!), a full range of SAP modules. However, the benefits are now starting to really come through… • Accurate and timely basic information across the entire University • “Future-proof” - Rock-solid basis for developing other applications, lower risk of vendor “disappearing” • Competitive advantage – we hope to dramatically increase our market share of international postgraduates next year (each one worth $15,000) • Can attract IT staff from outside Education. In future, we could “out-source” or set up a “shared service centres” for many Universities

  13. Collaboration Benefits We have 5 Universities and 23 colleges in the Region, connected by a Data Network. Although we compete at certain levels, we now actively collaborate in IT. Examples:- • Talk to vendors as a “group” • Do things “once” not “n” times (eg e-mail filtering) • Share our “experts” – help each other • Put our servers/data into other machine rooms • Collaborative projects in Shibboleth and e-Portfolios We have more in common than we have in difference

  14. Summary To become the “Best University based IT service in the UK…” we need to • Set targets, benchmark, measure our performance • Visit other Institutions, conferences etc to look for trends and ideas • “Steal with pride” ideas from Institutions that provide better services than ourselves! • Collaborate with others (vendors and Universities)

More Related