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UCISA

UCISA stands for the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association and represents the higher education and (increasingly) further education, in the provision and development of academic, management and administrative information systems. UCISA17 took place over three days in early March at Celtic Manor in Newport,Wales.

Celtic Manor image

Whilst it does look rather forbidding (Alcatraz springs to mind) it was actually a well designed conference centre with functional seminar rooms. The accommodation was very good and there was even a pool that guests could use (and did in my case).

Day one

After the introductory sessions the first 'real' plenary was a presentation by the very engaging Stefan Hyttfors who describes himself as a Futurist. His presentation entitled 'Do you want to know the future? Create it!' was engaging and interesting and asked how can we create value in a digital world? He used the term ROI - 'Risk of Ignorance' which he posited is an increasing problem in our ever changing world. He also proposed that technology was the most important consideration that we face in the modern world with it being more important that ideas, money or politics. His presentation was peppered with anecdotes from his life; his teenage children and the world in general. If you would like to know more about him, he has his own website at:

www.hyttfors.com/.

The next session was described as a partner case study and I chose the presentation called 'Playing the technology long game: great student experience, great education, great University by Paul Westmore Director of IT at Plymouth University. He described how Plymouth has invested in an institution-wide Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Further information about the project is available on their blog at: http://blogs.plymouth.ac.uk/crm/. One particular piece of advice that he gave was the need for the project to apply to the whole institution and not just individual departments.

'At Plymouth University, like a lot of higher education institutions in the UK, we are always looking to improve the student experience, ensuring they feel connected with us when and how they want to be. But that’s only one area of focus for our IT department, we also are constantly looking to improve the processes and systems across all of the University’s departments and faculties. In this session, I’d like to present how at Plymouth, we have together with Salesforce created a connected campus, not only building a 360-degree view of our students from prospect to applicant, thought to student and to alumni, but also delivering unification across departments and eliminating time consuming pen and paper processes. I’ll also describe the scope and challenges we have encountered along the way, why we partnered with Salesforce, the lessons learned from deploying an Enterprise CRM and our future plans to expand the system into other areas of the University.'

Paul referred to the Gartner CRM standards in his presentation; these are available at:

https://www.gartner.com/doc/3306017/magic-quadrant-crm-customer-engagement

The next plenary was a really random session given by Andy Whittaker a teacher and author on 'The art of being brilliant'.

'The Art of Being Brilliant keynote will provoke lots of thought and laughter, exploring how you can be you, brilliantly. The aim is to share some secrets of Positive Psychology, focussing on learning new habits of thinking and behaviour that will sustain personal brilliance, in and out of work. Andy Whittaker is a trainer, best-selling author and frustrated comic. He co-writes the Being Brilliant series of books with Andy Cope and has a no-nonsense approach when it comes to leadership, communication and human interaction. His keynotes are thought provoking, inspiring and very funny!'

I think it was supposed to be motivational rather than particularly relevant to HE or IT but I didn't find it very useful (or funny for that matter).

Day two

The first session of the second day was a plenary entitled 'Journey to the public cloud with reality based IT' given by Mark Silis, AVP of IS&T at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

'How does one support the needs of legacy, business critical applications, and provide flexible infrastructure to support new VM-based applications or a migration to SaaS? The answer is the hybrid cloud. In this session, Mark will share the MIT journey to Hybrid Cloud, the approach they took and why, the challenges along the way and the benefits this has given him, his team and the MIT. Mark Silis is the Associate VP for MIT IS&T. He heads the Enabling Services group, responsible for rapid deployment of IT services in the MIT ecosystem for ongoing operations, support and security of IS&T IT systems and services. These efforts encompass IT infrastructure, continuing operations, customer support services, and security.'

For my role this was not particularly relevant but I could see how IT Directors might find it useful. One question occurred to me at this point - why isn't Warwick ITS represented here?

The next plenary was a really interesting session by Alison Davis, Director of IT&S at the Francis Crick Institute in London called 'Creating the Francis Crick Institute – the opportunities and challenges for IT'.

'The Francis Crick Institute, which opened in 2016, has brought together around 1500 scientists and operations staff into a single organisation and migrated them into a new building, the biggest biomedical research facility under a single roof in Europe. Alison will reflect on the IT challenges and opportunities presented by this hugely exciting project. Originally a research chemist, Alison Davis has been working in IT across pharmaceuticals and life sciences for 30 years. For 16 of those years, she has worked in IT Director roles, delivering IT solutions, IT-enabled change and organisational development. Since November 2013, Alison has been the CIO of the Francis Crick Institute.'

Although this is a completely different type of institution to Warwick it was fascinating to hear about a project so big it is difficult to comprehend. Not just the physical labs and people but also the data storage - petabytes of data!

Next up was the brilliant Maggie Aderin-Pocock talking about 'Careers in Physics'.

'Why do so few girls take up careers in Physics? Meet Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, rocket scientist, TV presenter and Managing Director of a small company. Over the last 10 years Maggie has seen around 250,000 school children and encouraged them to consider the scientific option. What does one do with a career in physics? Surely it’s just sitting at a computer or wearing a white coat in a lab? Follow Maggie’s career to date; making missile warning systems for the MOD, working on the next generation space telescope to making TV programmes. There is more to a career in Physics than you think. Maggie Aderin-Pocock is a scientist and broadcaster referred to as the BBC’s face of space. She is the presenter of the astronomical institution the Sky at Night, has fronted a number of space documentaries, and regularly appears on science and non-science programmes. Maggie is also a research fellow and an Honorary Research Associate at University College London, and continues her work to engage the public with science.'

I don't think I've ever listened to anyone presenting quite so quickly but Maggie's enthusiasm for her subject is infectious. A very enjoyable and informative session (although not one that I can apply to my role).

The next plenary was called 'Digital HE: practice and prospects' by David Maguire, Chair of JISC.

'There are many business challenges facing UK universities including greater competition, globalisation, content growth and rising digital expectations. David’s presentation will examine the impact of these challenges from the perspective of being Jisc Chair and a UK Vice-Chancellor. It will look at some of the progress in developing areas such as Janet, cloud computing, learning analytics, and research data management. Professor David Maguire took up the post of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich in 2011. Before this he held a number of senior leadership positions in both the US and the UK. He has a highly successful track record in the private sector as well as in higher education. David was appointed Chair of JISC in 2015, a national organisation which champions the use of digital technologies in UK education and research. He is a member of several other boards, including London Higher, Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex – NHS governing body, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the Universities UK Treasurer’s Committee.'

Quite how David has the time to be the Chair of the JISC as well as the Vice-Chancellor of Greenwich University I don't know but this was a very interesting talk and I learned a lot about the JISC; what they do and how they do it. I refer to the work of the JISC a lot in my teaching so it was useful for me to fill in the blanks. This also linked well with Digifest the following week as this is organised by the JISC (please see the post entitled Digifest for further details).

Topics included:

HE challenges
Greater competition
Globalisation
Content growth (this links to Alison Davis' presentation too)
Rising digital expectations
Developing digital responses
Library subscriptions
Rich digital collections

Further information is available here:

After lunch the next session was totally off the wall and really got the audience thinking about cyber security. It was delivered by Jamie Woodruff who describes himself as an ethical hacker. His session was called 'Social engineering – manipulation for information.'

'Jamie will be talking about how easy people are to influence and how he is able to extract information from people without directly asking them a question. He will also be speaking about how easy it is to break into companies via social engineering techniques and how to prevent these techniques. Jamie also will be doing a live hacking demonstration to show the audience how susceptible they are to a certain type of attack. Jamie is an expert on cyber issues, travelling internationally to talk to global corporations and at the industry’s most important conferences. He is also writing a book on cyber intelligence and combating terrorism whilst pursuing a PhD in political science at the University of Sheffield. Although he’s in his early twenties, Jamie is already one of the world’s leading authorities on cyber security.'

It certainly made me change my computer password when I got home and made me question how secure we are in CPE!

The next sessions were described as university showcases and I chose sessions from Wolverhampton University and Heriot-Watt University.

'The Digital Campus transformation programme' by Fiona Parsons, Director of Academic Support, University of Wolverhampton.

Investment in a Digital campus transformation programme is a key enabler for strategy realisation at the University of Wolverhampton. In her presentation, Fiona will describe how the programme is enabling business change, putting people and pedagogy at the heart of a technology programme.

'Unifying a Global University' by Mike Roch, Director of Information Services, Heriot-Watt University.

Heriot-Watt University originated as Edinburgh School of Arts, founded in 1821 to address societal needs by incorporating fundamental scientific thinking and research into engineering solutions. The University has over 32,000 students studying at three UK campuses, another in Dubai and a 5th in Malaysia, at partner institutions or by distance learning. Operating as a single institution with a common curriculum requires an integrated information and technology environment for all its students and staff, 24x365, worldwide.

Both of these sessions were interesting - particularly the Wolverhampton one where they described how they were using Canvas as their VLE to get back their reputation in technology enhanced learning.

Day three

The first plenary of the day was entitled 'Getting to the bottom of the 2017 EDUCAUSE top 10 IT issues' by John O'Brien, President and CEO of EDUCAUSE.

'In this keynote, EDUCAUSE CEO and President, John O’Brien will dig into the most pressing issues from the annual EDUCAUSE top 10 IT issues, especially issues and opportunities related to student success. Drawing on his experience as a professor, provost, president, and IT leader, John will explore why information security, student success, data informed decision making, and strategic leadership rise to the top of the top 10 IT issues for 2017. John O’Brien is President and CEO of EDUCAUSE, a non-profit association whose mission is to advance higher education through the use of information technology. The current membership comprises over 1,800 colleges, universities, and education organisations, including 300 corporations. He began his role as president on 1 June 1 2015.'

Further information is available here:

The next one was a surprisingly interesting presentation by Stephen Prentice, VP and Gartner Fellow at Gartner UK.

'Technology and business – the Paradox of Progress?'

'Technology is advancing at an ever increasing pace, creating opportunities and challenges across every industry. This presentation explores the key trends over the next 5-10 years and examines the issues that arise that spread far beyond technology itself, into areas of regulation, ethics, morality and the ability of society to cope with what is happening. Stephen has spent more than 40 years in the technology industry, encompassing telecommunications, hardware and software. He joined Gartner in 1997 and is now part of the digital business and CEO Research team. He focuses on the long term trends looking at the impact of technology on business and society over the next decade and beyond.'

The penultimate plenary presentation was given by Angela Lamont and was called 'It shouldn’t happen to a geek.'

'Exploring how everyone outside of IS assumes that it’s the most boring thing ever… whereas people inside IS realise what hair-raising stuff goes on! The talk takes an amusing look at life in IS – how you can feel unappreciated, ignored by operational people, how things can so very nearly go horrifically wrong and yet end up going right, how the challenges have changed over the years – and aims to take people who work in IS on an emotional journey...ending in them feeling that they’re basically doing the best job in the world and life as we know it would collapse if they weren’t there! Angela is a television and radio presenter, writer and conference host. Her area of speciality is IT and science. Known for quirky, science with a smile programmes, Angela has gone on to make over a hundred appearances on television and radio for the likes of Science fix, The Physical World and It’ll Never Work, winning a BAFTA in the process.'

The final plenary session was called 'Achieving the impossible: no challenge too great' and once again this was a motivational lecture rather than specifically about IT or IT related issues.

'Widely regarded as one of the world’s most inspiring speakers, Lewis shares his insights on the mindset, teamwork, and leadership skills necessary for any major undertaking. The most crucial success factor, he says, is to have a driving purpose, which for him is to protect our planet's threatened oceans. Lewis is a swimmer, environmentalist and former maritime lawyer. An ocean advocate, Lewis combines a passion for raising awareness of the effects of climate change with a determination to take on seemingly impossible challenges. As a United Nations Patron of the Oceans, Lewis has shared a platform with high profile politicians and campaigners to deliver first hand accounts of what is happened in some of the world’s most fragile ecosystems and to push for government action and legislation to protect these regions.'

A copy of the UCISA Toolkit publication entitled 'The UK Higher Education Learning Space Toolkit: a SCHOMS, AUDE and UCISA collaboration' is available in my office (WA0.20) if anyone would like to borrow it.

Mon 03 Jul 2017, 12:02 | Tags: UCISA

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