tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68421397147755063292011-07-07T21:06:30.835-06:00Director of Information Systems and Media Services at Anglia Ruskin UniversityAjayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.comBlogger111100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-21307259155069193052010-03-04T07:07:00.003-07:002010-03-04T12:01:24.348-07:00

Tim Marshall promising to be good value for money talking about current climate for HE and how we need to learn to do the impossible.National debt is equivilant to 2,600 x the running costs of the University of Leeds. Pundits are saying that public funding is likely to be cut by 25% over the next 3 years, that requires a fundamental shift.I think I can see what might be coming here - a please for

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-73891121480712655372010-03-04T05:12:00.002-07:002010-03-04T11:57:49.301-07:00

In discussion session about student attendance monitoring. A key issue for many with immigration regulations the main driver, but retention also featuring. Many still using semi-automated faculty/school based systems. Some looking at bio-metrics Eg: fingerprint registration. A lot of interest in Bedfordshires approach of statistical monitoring of student 'touchpoints' with different student

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-68678845125363353782010-03-04T04:25:00.006-07:002010-03-04T04:58:10.101-07:00

First full day for me at this annual event, arrived last night.http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/events/2010/conference2010/programme.aspxFirst session this morning was Gartner talking about negotiating techniques. Essentially a presentation of their research paper on the subject. Usual stuff, which we need to get better at.Now listening to Lynne Tucker, Chief Technology Officer from King's College London

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-62520810311929320322009-11-19T14:39:00.002-07:002009-11-19T14:43:57.732-07:00

This morning, during a fairly animated discussion about an ongoing political issue, one of the team recited this rather wonderful poem, and it's kept a smile on my face all day long, no matter how big amd fierce the dragons ... (thanks Martin!)KNIGHT IN ARMOUR Whenever I'm a shining Knight,I buckle on my armour tight;And then I look about for things,Like Rushings-Out, and Rescuings,And fighting

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-30998392772458850912009-11-06T09:34:00.010-07:002009-11-11T03:35:05.437-07:00

Arrived slightly late for the session, so hoping that it's the right one .... we have committed to Sharepoint for our VLE (or LMS, whichever you call it) and for corporate document management, content management system etc. So I'm keen to hear from other who are further down this path than we are .....Speaker is showing an IT service web site - with integration with data from underlying systems

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-23128626466979430782009-11-06T08:13:00.004-07:002009-11-06T18:47:33.651-07:00

Friday 8.10am, and a session on SOA and student data. A subject that is very hot for us at the moment as we try and implement XML .Net based SOA to tie all our student data together and deliver the information agility that our University needs.So far and not too technical - presentation starting with quick overview of the problem - increasing need for data and information, data in lots of silo

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-63308219884783340012009-11-05T15:39:00.006-07:002009-11-05T17:29:49.146-07:00

I've always thought that failure was under-rated and that the best way of improving things was to pay attention to when things went wrong and learn from the mistake. The trouble is you have to do it carefully, otherwise everyone starts getting anxious and muttering about blame cultures. So, I was quite excited when I saw a session at Educause entitled "Houston, we have a problem - Leading through

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-72659418054150366362009-11-04T13:00:00.009-07:002009-11-08T15:41:23.951-07:00

The session started with a brainstorming exercise to produce a list of "things that you want students to do in a learning space" - it was a long list covering individual and group activities, noisy and quiet, learning and socialising etc. Pretty much the sort of thing you would expect (full list from flip chart at bottom of this blog post!).We then broke into groups to look at a suggested student

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-87928081401098092732009-11-04T10:35:00.015-07:002009-11-04T16:34:10.360-07:00

First session I attended this morning was about Xavier University's new learning commons (87,000 square feet of it!), which opens this summer and hopefully will provide some useful insights for our new build at the Cambridge campus. There is a website with lots of info about the project, including a video and a live web-cam of the construction site here http://www.xavier.edu/hoffquadThe session

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-4176391403737546232009-11-03T13:26:00.001-07:002009-11-03T22:14:08.057-07:00

Afternoon session started with discussion around who does what. The essential point was made quite quickly that from a student's perspective they don't care who does what - they just need services and support and they ideally want it from a single place. The organisational structural divides between library, IT, faculty, learning development etc are artificial constructs that from a student

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6842139714775506329.post-20861184066023092362009-11-03T10:55:00.000-07:002009-11-03T22:15:12.230-07:00

This morning was mostly spent in the first half of a session on libraries - billed as "a primer for CIO's on cutting edge library technology . An area that I badly need to understand better if we are to work more closely with our University library colleagues.It's interesting, and turning out to be useful, but so far not quite in the way I expected.Attendees seem to be a mix of librarians,

Ajayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00180349461759036758noreply@blogger.com0