Showcases

All showcases are at the Majestic Hotel, please check the programme for rooms and timings.

Google
Google Apps for education
Samantha Peter, Google UK Ltd and Aline Hayes, Sheffield Hallam University
Google Apps for Education, enables you to provide your students, staff and alumni with the communication and collaboration tools they need to manage their academic careers effectively. The architecture of this solution is very simple because Google Apps is delivered through the Software as a Service model, which requires no hardware of software on-site at the university. In this solution, users and administrators would connect to the Google services through the Internet. As this hosted service is offered at no cost to universities and educational institutions, this removes the burden of deploying and maintaining these services internally. 

Microsoft
Teaching and Learning with the Cloud: The new frontier?
Dominic Watts, Microsoft and Mark Stubbs, Manchester Metropolitan University
Many universities are feeling squeezed between rising students expectations and institutional limits. As the nirvana of cloud based learning is touted as the answer, and students become stronger leaders of their own learning, we explore the implications of blending your existing IT infrastructure with internet based services. You have an opportunity to hear how Manchester Met has balanced the need for flexibility and control, whilst keeping their university at the core of their students’ learning experience.

The Leadership and Management Award Winner 2009 - Outstanding ICT Team. What we did to win to it?
Paul Dean, Edinburgh Napier University
We entered this award, our first ever entry for any award, because it wasn’t like so many others that are all about one outstanding project. Our pitch was high quality universal service and support provision, i.e. a good rounded service. Some quotes from the judging panel.
“All round excellence not related to one isolated individual project, as evidenced by exceptionally high user-satisfaction scores.”
“Among Edinburgh Napier’s noteworthy innovations are its focus on reducing carbon emissions and the formalisation of out-of-hours support.
“These are on top of its solid work on improving infrastructure resilience and a strong focus on support for both users and teaching.”

Green Gown Green ICT Award Winner 2009- RE:LOCATE Thin-Client project
Fraser Muir, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
Fraser will describe how QMU implemented a thin client desktop environment as a strategic tool to support the institutional sustainability strategy whilst still providing a fully featured computing platform.

YouthWire Chat@ Glasgow Caledonian. Delivering online student support and service evaluation.
Sonya Campbell, Glasgow Caledonian University and Ross McLarnon, The Youth Group
Increasing student demand and the requirement to provide streamlined access to support services are presenting new challenges. With no online support mechanic for students, Learning Services at Glasgow Caledonian turned to YouthWire, a desktop widget platform, to deliver, quantify and improve our service, enhancing communication and the delivery of multiple other university resources via a single platform.

iBorrow: a large scale self service student laptop loan scheme. Award for Excellence winner
Ian Ellery, Canterbury Christ Church University
Within a new library and learning centre at Canterbury Christ Church University we have created a unique self service laptop loan scheme. As well as fixed PCs, there are 200 netbooks available for any student to take and use within the building – as simply a taking a book from a shelf. By using a combination of Terminal Server 2008 and App-V, the netbooks act as thin clients: meaning nothing can be altered and they have no value to thieves. With additional JISC funding, we are also using WiFi positional tracking, to record the location of every laptop, along with basic demographic data on who is using it.
This showcase will explain the technology we used and how iBorrow was implemented. It will also look at the location tracking and usage data, which is providing extremely valuable insights into student use of computing in a large learning space. This showcase is a must for anyone thinking of putting mobile IT into a library or learning centre!
 
Virtual IT training (Riding on the back of IT support).
Amber Miro, London School of Economics
London School of Economics adopted the use of remote assistance technology already being used to deliver end-user IT support to provide short and effective training sessions for staff at the point of need.
This has realised a significant return on a very modest investment, by making the most of technology already being used elsewhere.

StudentNET portal - a personalised online experience.
Philippa Spratt and Jo Lapka, Canterbury Christchurch University
StudentNET V2 is the new highly personalised Canterbury Christ Church University student portal. Combining cutting edge web technology with a robust data structures, it provides students with online administrative and academic services in one place.
What sets our portal apart is that it is completely managed by the University's client management system, and is fully integrated with the University's active directory for all authentication needs. There is, therefore, no manual maintenance of users’ accounts or access to services, and any updates are applied to the portal in less than 30 minutes.

NorMAN Out of Hours Helpline.
Debbie Figgis, Northumbria University and Brian Hackett, University of Huddersfield
An example of enhancing services in times of financial constraint.
This showcase examines the significant expansion of the service which, assisted by HEFCE shared services project funding over the last year, rose to 25 participants. A customer perspective of how this cost effective service operates effectively will be presented along with an outline of future plans and new extra options.

Reaching out and reaching in: Examples of using IT for both at the University of Oxford.
Stuart Lee, University of Oxford
Oxford University Computing Services are running four projects that look at how IT can be used to reach new audiences, outside of the traditional academic sector, and also how it can be used to engage the public in University research. These projects are:
iTunes U
OpenSpires
Great War Archive
Mobile Oxford

The Identity Management Toolkit.
John Paschoud, London School of Economics
The Identity Management Toolkit, endorsed by UCISA, JISC, RUGIT and ISAF, is launched at the UCISA Conference today. The Toolkit has been produced by a partnership of universities and colleges funded by JISC. The Toolkit is intended to help CIOs, IT Directors, Security Managers and their staff understand the risks to legal compliance and business efficiency, review current Identity Management policies, practices and systems in their institution, and improve these where necessary.

Supporting blended learning using ITIL.
Colin Addy, University of Wolverhampton
This Showcase will discuss a project being undertaken at the University of Wolverhampton, jointly lead by the Library & Information Services, the Blended Learning (support) Unit and IT Services to implement a servicemanagement structure to support Blended Learning using the ITIL model.