Projects and Developments
With News for September 2013 (covering August)
Business Activity Projects
- The University of Sheffield - MSP Project (Final Report) was presented to the July meeting of the MSP Project Board. The report's authors, Wyse Solutions, had undertaken a thorough analysis of the consultation data and recommended a solution designed to meet university staff's current and future print needs.
- On a practical level the MSP solution is being tested and rolled out in faculties across the university to ensure that it is genuinely fit for purpose. Management School has installed MSP in its newly refurbished Crookesmoor building; School of Languages and Cultures has installed it in Jessop West; MSP has gone live in Materials Science and Engineering department. Plans are well advanced for further testing and rollout in the faculties of Science and Medicine over the coming weeks.
- The procurement process for a supplier for the My Sustainable Print service has begun and is expected to last until October. Implementation is therefore expected to commence in November.
- Student system now live
- Staff pilot started, to be extended
Other Developments
- As Central Stores has closed Print & Design Solutions has teamed up with the Procurement Team to supply office through Office Depot who will deliver direct to buildings when ordered by departments(as with the stationery/consumables agreement). A range of paper has been tested and is fit for use.
- Print & Design Solutions are working with Accommodation and Commercial Services on a project to rebrand all the cafes and food outlets.
- Print & Design Solutions and the Library are producing exhibition materials for Anthony Bennett, a well-known local artist and sculptor. His forthcoming exhibition will be held in Western bank library from September 2013.
- The Drama Studio is currently undergoing a further asbestos survey in advance of upgrading the fire alarm installation. The upgrade will include making all circuits’ addressable and installing additional heat and smoke detection.
- The floor in Convocation Hall has been cleaned and finished over the Summer but requires more maintenance in the coming months.
- The public and bar goods lifts in the Octagon Centre is to be replaced.
Communication and Collaboration Projects
- Phase 1 (Access to services) is now live and we are working on a further release with enhanced functionality.
- Work has started on User Stories for Phase 2 (Personalised Home Page (with targeted announcements)
- If you are thinking about moving your learning and teaching content from uSpace take a look at our Learning and Teaching transition information to see what your options are.
- We have contacted people with active uSpace content so we can support their transition to other services. If you have not been contacted and think you should have been, complete the form on the projects page.
- Functionality within uSpace has been restricted for 13/14. New space and groups can only be requested upon request.
Other Developments
- Departments will no longer be charged directly for University landline rental and calls.
- Video Conferencing equipment has been installed in the Norfolk Room.
- The University Website project has chosen a digital agency to work with to design and help implement the new top three tiers of the University website by December 2013.
- A Pre-registration helpline is now live with Voice & Data implementing the necessary telephony services. The helpline is open until the end of September.
- Technical setup for the Unified Comms pilot will enable us to test it before rolling out to pilot users.
- Students can now book a PC or laptop on a mobile device through iSheffield.
- Delays in the extract tool for uSpace content is causing delays in progress with the migration of content and users.
Corporate Information Projects
- User workshops have taken place to raise awareness of the proposed new IT solution/processes and to review and refine requirements.
- The specification for Phase 2 development is in-hand. Epigenesys will provide a break-down by of estimated costs by technical area for the next project group on 18/09/2013.
- Pre-registration application has been switched over to the eFile database and is now live
- Work is to re-start on the main eFile work now that Pre-reg is complete
- The project to take the review forward is being organised.
Other Developments
- HR have removed the link to Docent from their web pages as most staff have now stopped using it. MOLE will be used for delivering the on-line course where it can.
- The first monthly alignment submissions of PAYE and National Insurance information in real time was sent to HMRC this month.
- A lot of work is being carried out to ensure Intro Week all runs smoothly.
- Corporate Affairs are intending to to work with a third party, STEMS, to deliver induction to staff, students, applicants etc.
- 185 staff have completed the online security training.
- The number of Freedom of Information requests continues to increase.
Help and Support Projects
Other Developments
It was agreed at the last meeting of the Service Management group that the major incident management policy and procedure needed operationalising. This will be carried out during the next month.
Infrastructure Projects
- Work continues on the rollout of the Windows 7 Managed Service to staff within Professional Services and Academic Departments.
Other Developments
- It is hoped that the new student intake will be on OES Linux. Functional testing is taking place with CiCS users, especially those using The University of Sheffield Desktop. Activating multi-processor on some Netware servers to deal with load.
- Commissioning and testing has begun on the new Oracle Solaris blade chassis
- Configuration routines for Eduroam for windows 8 has been made available and massively simplifies an otherwise complex task, whilst keeping secure communications and hopefully minimising wireless support issues when students arrive/return.
- Rationializing switches in IC, Arts Tower and re-deploying recovered switches.
- Movement of ducts around Durham Road/Jessops area to facilitate new builds/refurbs.
Learning and Teaching Projects
Online Programme Management System
- Senior meeting to discuss OPMS & PROMS progress/LeTS resources (Chris, Pablo, Patrice, Andrew West, Louise Woodcock, Stephen Beck, Alistair Warren): 20th September
- Project board meeting: 2nd October
Programme Regulations Online Management System
- A new IT system is being developed to input and update Programme Regulations. The system is scheduled for rollout in Nov 2013.
SHIP (Sheffield HEAR Implementation Project)
- HEAR as a formative document was delivered via MUSE to current 1st year UG students at 2pm on the 5 July 13.
- Interim HEARs will be available, via the Digitary system, so that students can provide third parties (especially employers) with access to this document before graduation,
- Exit HEARs will be produced for UG students on 2 year programmes in July 14
- A HEAR website has been set up at www.sheffield.ac.uk/hear. This has been revamped into a staff-facing website; a second student-facing site has been created as part of SSiD’s web review project.
Other Developments
- The names of the student print queues has been changed to more user-friendly and descriptive names.
- The wallpaper on the Windows 7 desktop to will now show ‘University’ desktop rather than ‘CiCS’ desktop.
- Versions of myPC and myRandR for mobiles has been enabled.
- An increase in student numbers has thrown up challenges in timetabling and IT support.
- We are hoping to deliver our first MOOCs early in 2014.
- The annual upgrade and replacement cycle is almost finished; Room refurbishments and installations will be completed before the start of the academic year.
- The Scoping Exercise for the process improvement of contacting the L&T support team has taken place with a review in late October.
- The BB mobile app has been upgraded and now looks the same on every platform.
Research Projects
Other Developments
- Mechanical Engineering and Thermofluids have purchased an additional £40k of capacity on iceberg (eight servers). This exhausts the expansion capability of the current internal networking capacity.
- AMRC require more training sessions and we are following up re usage of iceberg and Insight.
- Training being provided for APS in use of HPC.
- Matlab licences are being merged into a single pool, including both parallel and general licenses.
- The feasibility of setting up a collaborative WRG research data archive is being explored.
- NGS rebranded as NES (National e-Infrastructure Service).