Annual Academic Year Review 2007-2008 (17th edition)
Corporate Plan Aim 5: Physical Environment
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- The Computing Utility project was initiated in February 2005 with the aims of
- 15.6 Corporate Plan Aim 6: Governance, Management and Relationships
- 16 Marketing and Communications
- 16.2 Distinguishing features
- 16.3.1 Marketing and Communications operating at a strategic level
- 16.3.2 Professionalism and excellence
- 16.3.3 Operational effectiveness
- 16.3.4 Internal communication and organisational culture
- 16.3.5 Excellent relationships with stakeholders
- 16.4 Progress against aims
15.5 Corporate Plan Aim 5: Physical EnvironmentThe aims of the Information Services Strategy under Corporate Plan Aim 5 are: IS Aim 5a: to develop a reputation for reliable core services which are secure, sustainable and highly accessible. IS Aim 5b: to assist staff across the university to exploit information technology, media services and information resources confidently and effectively. IS Aim 5c: to manage flexibly the physical spaces, resources and services under the stewardship of the department, planning and managing scholarly information resources and services coherently, in line with the university’s Information Strategy. IS Aim 5d: to evaluate and exploit new technologies when they are stable and meet an identified need. IS Aim 5e: to consider the environmental impact of all activities in the department and make reasonable adjustments, where appropriate, to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, in line with the university’s Sustainable Development Strategy. The Computing Utility project was initiated in February 2005 with the aims of:developing the capacity to support the increased loading on the systems underpinning studentcentral; adding additional resilience to support increased dependence by the university on its IT systems; replacement of ageing equipment. The purchasing of all the relevant equipment and software has been completed within budget and within the timescales of the HEFCE capital project funding constraints. Systems integration is now underway so that the latter phases of the project can be fully deployed in early autumn. The ailing “Uob-intranet” service was finally replaced by “department docs” with the successful migration to the new service completed by the end of November. Email quotas for staff were raised in the spring. Revisions to the university Information Security and Information Interception Policy, due to come into effect on 1 August, include advice on secure management of sensitive and confidential data on mobile devices such as laptops and USB sticks. A trial service to Schools by Information Services enabling the scanning of copyright material covered by the Copyright Licensing Agency’s licence using the British Library’s new service, Higher Education Scanning Service (HESS), without the costs being passed onto Schools, was undertaken in the second half of the academic year. This service has proved to be relatively popular, and requests have been within the capped budget set by the department, although there have been some concerns about the quality of some of the materials supplied by the BL. The trial (again with no costs passed onto Schools) will be extended for another year, ie until July 2009. A web 2.0 training programme was successfully trialled for a number of library staff in the summer term and discussions are underway on how this may be rolled out more widely. In July the IT HelpDesk logged its 30,000th call since the HelpDesk reporting system was established in May 2002. The cross-institutional steering group planning for the deployment of the latest Windows operating system, Windows Vista, agreed not to recommend the deployment this summer of Vista across the university as originally planned. This is because of larger than anticipated hardware upgrade costs to support the new environment, there are still a number of application software packages which do not have stable Vista versions and remaining concerns about the stability of the current release of Vista: this decision is in line with the known plans and experiences of other universities. The revised target date for university-wide Vista deployment is summer 2009. This steering group, following its recommendation to deploy Office 2007, the latest version of the Office suite of tools, this summer, is managing the university deployment of Office 2007 (including Outlook 2007 and Internet Explorer 7) to all university owned staff and student PCs. In addition, the MacOS X Steering Group is managing the deployment of Office 2008 software (which is very similar to Office 2007 and shares the new file formats) on the university’s Apple Macintosh computers over the summer. The menus and “look and feel” of Office 2007 are significantly different from those of the versions that the university is currently using and there is a file format change for Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Therefore the deployment is being accompanied by an appropriate training and documentation programme. New features of Office 2007 include incorporation of an RSS reader in Internet Explorer (which enables the alerting of changes to web pages selected by a member of staff or student for web sites where the RSS feature is enabled), PDF file generator and the new file format means that files are generally smaller and much more transferrable between Apple Macs and PCs. The number of wireless hotspots around the university has been increased, mainly in informal learning areas; there are now more than 120 Access Points available. Concurrent usage of the wireless network peaks at around eighty to a hundred connected devices on many weekdays in term. During the year no significant operational issues were experienced with the wireless service in its first year of full operation. In the autumn the “findit@brighton” service was launched. The “findit@brighton” logo is annotated on the search results from most of the online databases available in the Online Library section of studentcentral (providing the search is undertaken on a computer connected to the university’s network). Clicking on the logo opens a page which can either reveal that the university has online access to the article, with a link to that article; or, if a print version only is available, provides a link to the university’s library catalogue so that the journal can be searched by title or by ISSN (and similar links to the University of Sussex catalogue and the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust journals’ list); or there is information that electronic access is not available, offering alternative options for retrieving the article. In a major developmental project, the department is preparing to undertake a trial of the use of RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) technology at the Falmer Library leading to the introduction of the option of self service for book issues and returns at the start of November. If successful, the intention is to introduce this in a phased programmes to all of the university’s libraries. It is anticipated that key improvements for members of the university are: staff and students get books and items much more quickly. Books can be issued and returned without having to queue while library staff deal with problems and queries from others; books and other items circulate much more quickly and items are returned to the library shelves faster, meaning they are available for use without delay; Information Services staff are better able to focus on the needs of individuals and offer greater levels of information and study support. Falmer library, for example, has recently run a successful Roaming Library Helpers trial with Information Services staff helping students throughout the library rather than just at an enquiry desk. It is planned that self-service will enable this successful initiative to be expanded; self-service can potentially be used as a means of offering loan services during longer opening hours. A new “mobile printing” service was introduced during the autumn term. This enables printing from Windows laptops connected via the university’s wireless service to the networked printers in the open access computer rooms. During the summer 2008 work is being undertaken to refurbish the ground floor of the Aldrich library to create a “comfortable informal learning area” which will provide comfortable furniture, refreshments and wireless access points for students without needing to leave the library and will be available at all times when the Aldrich open access computer room is open. If successful, Information Services will be looking to introduce similar zones in some of the other libraries of the university. The tungsten based lights in the TV Studio at Moulsecoomb have been replaced by more environmentally friendly lighting; the new system uses fluorescent technology with specially developed tubes with colour characteristics matching the requirements of video and file cameras, coupled with advanced dimming techniques. The new lights are much cooler (which reduces the amount of air cooling needed for the studio) and consume considerably less energy than their predecessors (2.5kW compared to 20 kW). The use of virtualisation technology, whereby multiple virtual servers can be used on the same physical device, is being piloted; this has the potential to significantly reduce the number of servers and hence reduce energy costs. The programme for replacing desktop computers with those which are more environmentally friendly has continued and a programme for installing double sided printers for the students has begun. Reprographics has continued its long standing programme to use as much recycled paper as possible provided the quality is appropriate and the costs are not significantly higher than using other types of paper. 15.6 Corporate Plan Aim 6: Governance, Management and RelationshipsThe aims of the Information Services Strategy under Corporate Plan Aim 6 are: IS Aim 6a: to enhance services that support the administrative activities of the university, in line with the university’s Information Strategy. IS Aim 6b: to plan and manage the department’s finances, in line with the university’s Financial Strategy. IS Aim 6c: to provide tools and services to facilitate studying and working across organisational and physical boundaries. A group with representation from many central departments has been established to co-ordinate the developmental activities across the university around the use of cards issued to students and staff which may be used for identity, financial and access control functions. The activities of the group are under the auspices of the Information Systems Implementation Steering Group (ISISG). The co-ordination group has made proposals for a phased introduction of a combined identity, access control and pre-payment card for all staff and students at the university, with the first services becoming available in September 2009. A programme is underway to migrate the Business Objects reporting tool, used for devising and generating reports from many of the core administrative corporate systems, to the latest, and much changed, version. This involves reviewing and modifying the large number of Business Objects report templates used in many areas of the university. Once again, the department donated library fines collected during the Students’ Union Rag Week to the nominated charities of the Rag. This year £2,312.96 was raised. Development work was completed to enable the university to migrate from the Athens authentication system, used to access many of the online resources such as e-journals and e-books to which the university subscribes, to a new system using Shibboleth software operating under the auspices of the UK Access Management Federation. Owing to a dispute between the national funding agency and the providers of the Athens service, the promised smooth transition infrastructure at national level never materialised. Information Services has undertaken a number of steps to try and avoid prolonged loss of access to the most important services after 1 August 2008 and to reduce confusion resulting from changes on how to logon to the services. 16 Marketing and Communications16.1 5 year planThe 5 year strategy for Marketing and Communications was produced in response to the publication of the university’s corporate plan for 2007-12. Marketing and Communication’s activity is delivered to ensure that we achieve the aims set out in this plan. 16.2 Distinguishing featuresThe 5 year plan highlighted distinguishing features or positives of our work, and the way in which we undertake this work. We endeavour to ensure that these continue to be recognisable in our activities. The features are: Increasingly ‘professional’ in terms of the quality of work that we undertake e.g undergraduate prospectus 2008, Channel, eChannel, central website, inaugural lectures, annual report, graduation ceremonies, BGA magazine Increasingly ‘professional’ in the way in which we works e.g financial management setting up rostas of companies to undertake specialist work e.g printing, thus being able to ensure ‘best value, high levels of quality and meeting established environmental criteria e.g waterless printing, use of vegetable link Increasingly proactive not reactive as a result of marketing plans prepared for each area of work Gaining recognition that people working in marketing and communications are ‘professionals’ and ‘expert’, and that their work is often underpinned by a professional recognised qualification e.g Chartered Institute of Marketing, Chartered Institute of Public Relations, Institute of Fundraising; and specialist knowledge e.g accessibility in relation to web Evidence that where marketing and communications have worked with particular courses there has been an increase in student recruitment Gaining recognition and support of the importance of marketing and communications through a ‘partnership’ approach with faculties, schools and central departments, and Student Union e.g introduction of marketing officers for faculties and schools, establishment of marketing interest group, and rolling programme of workshops Increased positive news coverage locally and nationally Departmental culture that is open, creative, challenging and supportive (of each other and colleagues), positive, energetic and that is based on a great collective desire to work for the good of the organisation Marketing and communications work based on ‘evidence’ not ‘spin’; using external and internal market research e.g usability testing for central and school websites to inform next steps in relation to look and feel, content, navigation; development of undergraduate prospectus 2008; re-launch of Channel; major donor research 16.3 PrioritiesThe 5 year plan identified a number of priorities which shape our annual operational plans and activities: 16.3.1 Marketing and Communications operating at a strategic levelCreating and sustaining a meaningful brand that distinguishes us from other providers of HE – locates institutional strength that resonates with our target markets, is sustainable and easily communicable and which will help ensure a positive reputation and secure our continued success, and which is communicated consistently and assertively so that it provides a reference point for our work e.g is it ‘on brand’ and that serves as a platform for specific work e.g development and fundraising. Positioning the university in each target market with each subject area, and service area (e.g business, community) having a clear market position that builds on its and the universities strengths Marketing intelligence and research underpinning strategic and marketing planning helping us to develop a greater understanding of existing and future markets, ensure that our materials and ‘products’ address market needs and that this forms the basis for course development. 16.3.2 Professionalism and excellenceEnsure that everything that we produce inspires institutional confidence and confidence in the institution through a clearly articulated and compelling brand and visual identity Continue to increase levels of professionalism and excellence within the department and be recognised for these both internally and externally; ensure that the department is abreast of best practice within HE and fields of marketing, communications, fundraising and alumni and applying this to its work at the university That M&C serve as ambassadors for change, acting as a positive example of how to work with internal and external customers through excellent customer service and being a ‘good’ colleague or department to work with. 16.3.3 Operational effectivenessAchieve greater coherence and improve coordination between M&C and faculties and central departments to underpin key work by delivering impactful integrated marketing campaigns: Student recruitment (undergraduate, postgraduate, international) Research Widening participation Recruiting and retaining the best staff Social and economic engagement Raising money for investment in university activities and developments Implementation of an ambitious fundraising plan, alumni engagement plan and supporting processes e.g CRM, fundraising database Integrate more closely with other key departments e.g Registry (specifically international office, schools liaison and enquiries), Student Services and accommodation to contribute to understanding and ensuring the ‘student journey’ and its associated processes are designed to create maximum impact on the quality of the student experience – enquiry, application, enrolment and induction to becoming an alumnus Developing a greater understanding of how target markets are using new media technologies and how this relates to our marketing activities so that our decision making is evidence based to inform our on-line and off-line strategies Ensure that we have the correct resource (people, money, skills and experience) to do the job, whilst ensuring that we are sensible in requests for resource and mindful of the fact that whatever we ask for will have a possible (negative) impact on resources elsewhere within the university Ensure that we are mindful of sustainable development in all of our operations 16.3.4 Internal communication and organisational cultureHelp to ensure that the delivery of the corporate plan is underpinned by a ‘fit for purpose’ institutional culture and delivery of an effective internal communications strategy so that colleagues at the university have an increased sense of involvement with and commitment to the university and its key aims. 16.3.5 Excellent relationships with stakeholdersSecuring strong relationships with key stakeholders by helping to understand their perceptions and awareness of the university through a programme of research and supported by appropriate marketing activity Be the university’s experts on customer relationship marketing working with colleagues to understand the principles of CRM, and develop appropriate processes and systems to ensure that we manage these relationships with respect, following good practise so that we can move key customers up the ‘ladder of loyalty’ to the university. 16.4 Progress against aims
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