CAM Programme Area Information Technology Strategy (June 2003)

1.     Purpose and function

1.1            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. 

1.2            This document outlines CAM’s plans and resources for IT and related matters. It is informed by the University IT Strategy September 1999 and the general Technology Faculty Strategy 2002 (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.

2. Current IT provision

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

Location

Facilities

Mercantile House

General Windows plus some multi-media and Linux (approx 300 PCs including 11 video editing)

Anglesea

General Windows (approx 40 PCs)

Lion Gate

Multi-media (48 PCs including 8 video editing) + internet café (6 machines)

Academic staff offices

All staff have networked PC or laptop

Admin offices

All staff have PCs linked to corporate systems

Various

Servers for staff use.

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).

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.

The delivery of IT services are supported by the following staff:

Principal Technician (Multimedia) (Faculty)

Educational Technologist (Faculty)

7 ISO Technical support staff (located in Mercantile, Lion Gate and Anglesea)

 

The programme area employs no IT support staff directly.

3.            Vision for the Programme Area

3.1             The programme areas 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 can reduce its provision of general labs.
  2. Although the requirement for general PC facilities is likely to decrease, demand for printing facilities is likely to remain at current 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. 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.  
  5. Wireless networking should become widely available in the next two years and students will be encouraged to make use of this facility. This should be reflected in a reduction in the number of open-access general-purpose facilities.
  6. In order to avoid the retention of obsolete equipment 1/3rd of staff and student PCs will normally be upgraded/replaced annually.
  7. Essential software will normally be upgraded/licensed annually.
  8. The use of open-source or otherwise freely available software is to be encouraged.
  9. The success of the Creative Technology courses is highly dependant on the provision of current industry-standard hardware and software. This must be given appropriate priority.
  10. 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.
  11. The Service Level Agreement with ISO should 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). 
  12. Academic staff desktop PCs to be replaced by laptops for all who require them.
  13. Student local storage facilities need to be increased to cater for video and other high-capacity formats.
  14. Centralisation of processor power and large-scale storage on servers will normally be preferred to replicating resources on workstations.
  15.  As well as purchasing equipment, a proportion of the annual IT budget must be allocated to software development, security, insurance and contingency.

 

4.      Problems

 

The programme area currently has a number of unresolved problems that need to be addressed:

 

1.      Erratic/poor network performance impacting on the learning experience for students.

2.      Start of year problems – changes to procedures/policies/systems and activation of new student accounts.

 

Total dependency on ISO facilities – consideration should be given to providing a CAM network and CAM staffing.