Information

Our students and staff expect an increasingly diverse range of information delivered in secure yet flexible ways. Improvements in how we deliver information will help the University work more efficiently and reduce the environmental impact of our operations.

Our priorities for information services over the period 2010–2015 will be to:

• Continue to invest in a wide range of digital and print collections to meet the expectations of students and staff. Improve the digital access to our own collections, and the wider scholarly knowledge base. Increase the access to digitised core reading materials, helping to reduce carbon emissions, improve the learning experience for our remote students, and meet the expectations of our on-campus students for access to digital content.
• Improve how we manage and make available to others the University’s research output – both our published works and underlying data. This will support the Research Excellence Framework and improve open access.
• Focus on how we support our students’ learning by providing new modes of study, new technologies to support learners, support for information literacy and well-designed learning spaces. We will disseminate learning best practice, and share expertise in how best to embed new Web 2.0 technologies in the way we teach.
• Recognise the increasing mobility and flexibility of students and staff. Provide IT and telephony solutions to give students and staff more choice in how, when and where they work. We will continue to ensure our information systems are simple to use, connect appropriately to other systems and encourage collaboration.
• Continue to assure the quality and safe storage of our data, and meet compliance requirements for HEFCE and other statutory agencies.

For more detail, and information about specific actions relating to this area, please see Corporate Information and Computing Services (CiCS) and The University Library.