Computing and Maths Programme Area

CAM Computing Committee

CAM Programme Area Information Technology Strategy

May 2005

Purpose and function

1. The purpose of this IT strategy is to clarify the IT-related intentions and needs of the programme area and their relationship to the overall faculty/university IT strategy.
2. This document outlines CAM’s plans and resources for IT and related matters. It is informed by the University IT Strategy April 2004 and the general Technology Faculty Strategy 2005 (note there is currently no Faculty IT strategy) as well as the specific vision and needs within the programme area. It will be publicised and discussed within CAM and with ISO, resourced through CAM and departmental budgets where appropriate and reviewed regularly.

Current IT provision

1. The current IT needs of staff, postgraduates and undergraduates are provided for as follows:

   Location	Facilities
   Mercantile House	General Windows plus specialist comms, multi-media, Mac and Linux labs (approx 300 PCs)
   Anglesea	General Windows (approx 40 PCs)
   Lion Gate	Multi-media (48 PCs including 8 video editing) + internet café (6 machines) Virtual reality lab (owned by CT)
   Academic and research staff offices	All staff have networked PC or laptop
   Admin offices	All staff have PCs linked to corporate systems
   Various	Servers for staff and student use.

2. Student IT provision can be broken down into two different classes – general provision (requiring standard PCs and software) and specialist provision (requiring high specification PCs to support primarily multi-media activities).
3. Currently the range of software and hardware required to support CAM courses is judged to be adequate but we would benefit from more licences for specialist software.
4. The delivery of IT services are supported by the following staff:
   • Senior Informatics Officer (Faculty)
   • Educational Technologist (Faculty)
   • 7 ISO Technical support staff (located in Mercantile, Lion Gate and Anglesea) plus student assistants during term-time
5. The Programme Area employs no IT support staff directly

Predictions of demand

1. The programme area's use of IT is expected to develop over the next few years in the following directions:
   1. Increasing numbers of students will have their own PCs/laptops to provide general facilities and therefore the programme area must help students make effective use of their machines.
   2. Although the requirement for general PC facilities is likely to decrease, demand for printing facilities is likely to remain at current levels as many staff provide electronic resources that students wish to print. Printing facilities are currently controlled by ISO.
   3. Wireless networking should become widely available in the next two years and students will be encouraged to make use of this facility. This might result in a reduction in the number of open-access general-purpose facilities.
   4. The success of some courses (e.g. Entertainment Technology) is highly dependant on the provision of current industry-standard hardware and software. This must be given appropriate priority.
2. The programme area will need to interact with external bodies regarding the following:
   1. The Faculty aims to increase the proportion of students engaged in e-learning and appropriate hardware/software must be in place to support this expansion. Some of this may be from University or TEX sources.
   2. The Service Level Agreement with ISO should, in liaison with Faculty IT committee, be annually reviewed and updated as necessary. (It should be noted that there are no penalty clauses to cover failure of ISO to meet agreed levels).
   3. CAM should aim for all its IT facilities to be provided at the Lion Gate/ Buckingham site with the phasing out of Mercantile House and Anglesea labs.
   4. Erratic/poor server performance impacting on the learning experience for students needs addressing.
   5. The number of operational problems (e.g. start of year problems) needs to be reduced each year.

Policy on provision

1. The provision of equipment must be supported by high-quality user information describing its availability, how to use it, and where to seek help when problems arise with it.
2. In order to avoid the retention of obsolete equipment, one-third of staff and student PCs will normally be upgraded/replaced annually.
3. Essential software will normally be upgraded/licensed annually.
4. The use of open-source or otherwise freely available software is to be encouraged.
5. Student local storage facilities need to be increased to cater for video and other high-capacity formats, and for backup and archiving of work.
6. We will attempt to maintain identical facilities in multi-media labs in both Mercantile House and Lion Gate.
7. Centralisation of processor power and large-scale storage on servers will normally be preferred to replicating resources on workstations.
8. Musical instruments, video cameras and related equipment must be provided to support CT's courses. These are essential input/output devices for IT equipment in the context of creative technology courses.
9. As well as purchasing equipment, a proportion of the annual IT budget must be allocated to software development, security, insurance and contingency.
10. Staff training (which cannot be paid for out of the equipment budget) must be provided to support new developments. This includes ISO and Faculty staff.
11. We will maintain a list of academic staff identified as the leads for particular areas (or specific pieces) of software or equipment. The lead is normally the member of staff who teaches using that software/equipment. They will assist in the liaison between academic staff as a whole and ISO on their area of specialism.

Last updated by Dr Jim Briggs of the School of Computing at the University of Portsmouth.