Corporate Information & Computing Services.

CiCS Annual Report 2008. Corporate Information and Computing Services (CiCS)

Corporate Information and CiCS is organised into three sections, Computing Services (CiCS) is a with each section headed by an Assistant complex department that provides Director who reports to the Director. a diverse range of services to the The Director and the three Assistant University. These include: Directors form the CiCS Executive, who manage 202 CiCS staff, distributed Computing systems and software to • between 13 buildings. support learning, teaching, research, communication, collaboration and CiCS has recently published its Information corporate business activity Technology Strategy and its Support for • Data network and phone system Learning and Teaching Strategy. These • Printing service can be found on the CiCS website at www.shef.ac.uk/cics/about • Rooms with AV equipment and PCs • The Octagon Centre and Drama Studio Here you will also find the CiCS • Transport and Parking Services programme definition and information about all projects currently being These diverse services will develop and undertaken. evolve, guided by a common CiCS vision: CiCS also delivers the University’s Information Strategy, and meets standards set out in Service Level “We will be an innovative Agreements. More information can and influential department, be found at: respected by the University www.shef.ac.uk/cics/sla and recognised as a leader in the sector, delivering excellent customer-focused services.”

CiCS Annual Report 2008 CiCS Annual Report 2008 CiCS Annual Report 2008 Director’s Report

Welcome to the 2008 Annual Report from As well as installing networks into new and Finally, we look forward to the introduction CiCS. I hope you find it interesting and refurbished buildings, we’ve carried out this year of our own social networking informative and I would be more than a major programme of work to make the environment – uSpace. I am a keen user happy to receive any comments you might network more reliable and able to cope of such technologies, and am more than have on it. with inevitable problems, including power happy for you to make friends with me cuts, and cable damage. on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, As I look back over the past year, there are or read my blog – which is the only one some notable things which stand out. Knowing what our customers think of of the three which has solely work our services is very important to us, and related content! We have had a huge involvement with the we have continued our programme of University Estate – new buildings including regular service reviews which then result Dr Christine Sexton , the Soundhouse and the in a plan of action to improve services – http://cicsdir.blogspot.com/ Student Village had data and telephone over the last year we have reviewed the infrastructure to be designed and installed. wireless network, the High Performance Major refurbishments also have a major Computing Service and the Helpdesk. impact on us with infrastructure having to be redesigned in a number of buildings. The introduction of the new Faculty structure has enabled us to align our We have invested resources improving services more closely to the academic learning and teaching space, as well as departments. We have introduced a helping staff use the facilities we provide. new strategic liaison service to exchange The CiCS Learning and Teaching Team information between ourselves and the have been holding regular sessions with faculties and ensure that our services academic staff to demonstrate the use meet your needs, and that we keep you and potential of the AV equipment in informed of our developments. teaching spaces. One event which stands out personally for We had two birthdays – the Octagon me and many members of the Department Centre was 25 years old and celebrated was the untimely death of the Deputy with a Snowflake Ball, raising over £1,000 Director of the Department for the last for the Cavendish Cancer Care Centre; 12 years, John Hawley – he is being and the Information Commons was one sorely missed. year old, and had balloons and a cake to celebrate. The Information Commons had I am pleased to report that during the past another reason to celebrate, winning a year we agreed our Learning and Teaching RIBA Award and the Yorkshire Building of Support Strategy and are in the process of producing a Research Support Strategy. the Year award. Dr Christine Sexton Underpinning both is our Technology Director of CiCS The Drama Studio reception and Strategy, which puts the needs of the user Green Room areas were refurbished. first, and continues our commitment to The Computing Centre had a major providing web based services available refurbishment to improve access, on all devices. Our strategies are available customer facilities and working on our web pages and we would be very environment for our staff. happy to receive any comments on them.

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Support for Learning and Teaching

Learning Spaces CiCS has an important role to play in supporting learning and teaching by encouraging and facilitating effective use of technology and space.

We’ve refined our services in the Information Commons in response to feedback from the student survey and now provide even more bookable PCs to help cope with the enormous demand. We’ve also replaced all of the PCs in the IC with the latest up-to-date Omninos from Viglen. Our frontline team in the IC were nominated for a customer service award and we hope to build on that excellent service in the coming year to provide a During the summer we refurbished the We also upgraded MOLE (My Online more complete advice and information student computer room in the Geography Learning Environment), which allows service for students. CiCS now provides building. This room has brand new state of students access to their course via the technical support for CILASS which the art PCs as well as group study space internet. MOLE has over twenty-five tools, includes sessions for academic staff in the and excellent teaching facilities. We worked used to engage students and enhance use of the excellent technology available with the Department to create a Geography their learning experience. in the CILASS spaces. look and feel in the room (above). We initiated a Student Timetables CiCS has a rolling programme of To help academic staff make the most project to deliver a real-time, web-based refurbishment for pool teaching spaces of the new learning spaces, the CiCS timetable for each student. and student computer rooms. Rooms Learning and Teaching Team have been feature cutting edge technology to holding regular sessions to demonstrate We used the room-bookings/timetabling support innovative ways of learning and the use and potential of the AV equipment software to model the refurbishment of teaching alongside traditional methods. in teaching spaces. the to plan office moves and CiCS contributed to the University’s ensure there would be space for everyone capital review of teaching space and, in their temporary accommodation. as part of the strategic team, we helped Software and Systems decide how best to implement the In 2008 we also undertook a large We began testing uSpace, the University’s recommendations. investment in improving student software. new collaboration tool. This will provide an exciting new way for staff and students to This year we refurbished four lecture The most significant change was the collaborate. theatres in the as well move to Microsoft Office 2007 for the PC as all of the teaching spaces in the and Office 2008 for the Macintosh. The We started our Seechange project, Crookesmoor building. We installed AV Managed Desktop was rebuilt to contain Student Learning Community 2.0. equipment and networking in the new Office 2007 and deployed in all student Partnerships between CiCS, students and Jessop West Building. computer rooms. departments will aim to encourage the use of web 2.0 tools in student learning and research.

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Learning and Teaching Strategy To plan for future support of learning and teaching, CiCS has recently completed and published its Learning and Teaching Strategy. This describes a framework to be used to develop the support for learning and teaching provided by CiCS.

The overall strategy will be to provide technology, physical spaces and support to ensure that students have the highest standard learning experience in our research-led learning environment. We will manage the use of our learning and teaching spaces ensuring that we maximise usage and develop them in flexible and innovative ways. This development will be in collaboration with others working in the same area, and informed by wide consultation within the University and best practice across the sector and beyond.

The objectives in the CiCS Learning and Teaching Strategy are aligned with objectives contained in the University’s Corporate Plan (Our Shared Vision) and the University Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy. The full text of the CiCS Learning and Teaching Strategy can be found at: www.shef.ac.uk/cics/about

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Support for Research

Iceberg and Beyond For researchers who choose not to learn The Pi-Phi Lensless Imaging Project Team, complex computing systems, we have based at North Campus, is developing CiCS provides the High Performance built a portal which allows researchers a microscope which uses computation Computer Iceberg for research to submit distributed jobs to iceberg rather than high-quality expensive lenses computing. In 2008 the number of with minimal IT knowledge. The portal is to produce images. CiCS integrated their processors was increased from 160 to web-based and offers a choice of software cluster of computers with Iceberg so that 464. In addition, work was undertaken to applications which are controlled by they could use the secure data storage increase the resilience of the service by forms. Instead of using the computer and their processors could be added to adding a second ‘head node’. program, researchers simply specify the the pool on Iceberg for use by others Iceberg is increasingly used in two ways. values of variables in a web form, click the when not required by the project. Traditionally it has operated as a high submit button and let the software do the throughput computer in which many jobs hard work of submitting the job. are simultaneously sent to many CiCS is instrumental in facilitating processors, but with the latest upgrade it collaboration and the sharing of data and will be used more and more for parallel resources. Using the Access Grid Video processing in which a single job is Conferencing facility we link up distributed over many processors Research groups with external research simultaneously. groups and project partners.

Iceberg is part of the White Rose Grid We provide filestore for external research which links computing resources at groups, and facilitate data sharing, Sheffield, Leeds and York. Jobs can be making research data available to groups distributed to any of the sites, and data anywhere. We encourage research groups can be accessed and shared between within Sheffield to use their research three sites. In 2008 we became affiliate computing funds on extensions to Iceberg. members of the National Grid Service This gives them dedicated resource on which allows research teams from other the machine, while allowing others to institutions to use a share of Iceberg. take advantage of the extra power when the dedicated resource is not required. We are working to keep electricity usage For CiCS, the strategy minimises the of the facility to a minimum, by replacing maintenance overhead. older, less efficient computers with newer machines, and by developing ways to shut The Virtual Vellum Project hosts high down processors when they are not in Supporting Research resolution scanned folios of medieval active use. During 2008 we provided computing manuscripts, which can be viewed in support for several research groups great detail from anywhere in the world. Working Together in Sheffield. CiCS provides file storage and a backup procedure. CiCS offers a range of training courses The Humanities Research Institute is a key covering how to use Iceberg, how to partner in digitising the proceedings at The Sheffield Atlas Group operates at the submit jobs, how to use multiple the Old Bailey. CiCS provided support and Large Hadron Collider located at CERN. processors and how to use the software. storage for the scanned images, hosted at They use video conferencing to collaborate All course participants join the research the . with colleagues and use Iceberg to securely computing on-line forum in which CiCS store and process data. staff offer help and share good practice.

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Information Technology

Resilience During 2008 we continued to improve the fault tolerance of University computing and telephone systems. In addition to the central filestore and the virtual server infrastructure outlined in the Technical Services report, we have increased the resilience of the campus network, the connection to the internet and the telephone system.

Essential University systems and data are duplicated in two machine rooms. Each machine room now houses a network router, either of which can maintain the full network service in the event of failure of the other. Further work is planned Information Technology Collaboration between colleagues, which will reduce the impact of network Strategy students and external partners, is now cable breaks around the University. a crucial part of the University’s work, CiCS has completed and published the and our services will give increasing This year we have connected both Information Technology Strategy for support for this way of working. We will machine rooms to JANET (The Joint 2008–2013. The strategy outlines a shift make use of the latest generation of web Academic Network) and the wider from the provision of computer systems technologies to facilitate collaboration internet. This provides a failsafe link for towards a more integrated and customer- and will ensure that collaborative us and for all institutions which connect centric approach. requirements are considered as part of to the internet through us. the implementation of all new systems. To this end, we will continue to ensure The University’s telephone system that all major services are available in a We will enhance our support for research underwent a major upgrade in 2008. Over web browser, but will also develop the use computing by increasing the size of the a long weekend the existing system was of MUSE so that it becomes a central point research support team when funds removed and a new system installed with of information, and provides a common permit, and by lowering the technical negligible disruption to University staff and look and feel for users who currently barriers to the use of our HPC facility students. The new telephone system is must consult several systems with so that researchers can concentrate on built on two physical devices, one in each different interfaces. research rather than computing. machine room. Each device can handle all telephone calls in the event of failure of We will also consider how widely-used In order to cope with the exponential one of them. functions can be accessed in other ways, increase in the number and variety of for instance on mobile devices. services we provide, we will: We are already working on extending the • reduce the variety of technologies used; reach of the Managed Desktop service for • reduce the number of systems staff and students, and will continue to providing similar functions; investigate ways in which we can achieve this with the technologies which are • integrate existing services to minimise available. duplication and overlap.

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Financial Report

Budget Servers and storage Income Streams Servers that run all central services are The core financial budget for 2007–08 Several functions and services produce upgraded to maintain capability. (SAP, CIS, was £7.5m, including £5.4m for staffing income to fund their activities. Where not uReports, myCalendar, MUSE, MOLE, resource (with the exception of self-funded mentioned funding is from CiCS Oracle, Managed Desktop). functions/services). Of the remaining core budget: expenditure £1.1m was spent on other Research facilities The University Print Service annual costs which include: The High Performance Computer, Iceberg, This service is entirely self-funded including is upgraded annually to maintain its • £210,000 maintenance contracts staffing. The service broke even in 2007–08, usefulness to the research community. • £200,000 external line rentals and however delays in income created a deficit internet service provision Document Management project at the year end on paper. • £665,000 software licensing This is being developed as a platform for a Parking Services range of new storage needs and business This service is a self-funded service from The high proportion of expenditure for processes like electronic student records parking charges and again includes staff software licensing breaks down as follows: and invoice-handling. costs. Surplus funds are transferred to • £178,000 Microsoft Campus licence the University Transport Policy budget for Student IT rooms and services £167,000 Teaching and Research software • This supports the ongoing extension of use on transport related projects and bus • £320,000 General software/systems the wireless network and refurbishment ticket subsidy. including MUSE, MOLE, Oracle of IT rooms. The Drama Studio This service is 50% University funded 2007/08 was a challenging year; budgets Student PC replacement and 50% from the hire of the theatre and were cut by 5% and two-thirds of the staff The stock of 1,546 student PCs is replaced rehearsal facilities. pay increase was funded by the Department. on a rolling 4 year plan, expenditure However, staff are our most valuable £250,000 pa. PCs in good condition are The Octagon Centre resource and this is being funded through redeployed throughout departments and This service produces income from the hire savings and efficiencies achieved in the only recycled when they are deemed to be of the Convocation Hall. In 2007–08 surplus Department. CiCS is also fully committed of no further use on campus. funds were placed in a reserve account for to make available resources to support new major refurbishment work planned over the areas and technological developments. Telephone system next 2 years. The University telephone system was The major development in 2007–8 was upgraded which has removed the Room Booking Service the implementation of SAP and uBASE. limitations of the previous system. A surplus from external room hire is used CiCS now has an appropriate account and This allows connections to be added more to maintain the furnishing of the pool budget structure and has the resources in freely, brings voice and data services onto teaching rooms. place to manage the financial systems and a single resilient network and allows the use processes. SAP has created transparency; of new services. Transport Services however it has also brought difficulties Vehicle hire charges and other income in completing internal sales transactions. Infrastructure generated enable the service to plan for A priority is to increase the reliability of the replacement vans and cars that support the main data network and its resilience. During service and the University. Capital Fund 2007/08 extensive works took place to add CiCS presented a Capital Expenditure Plan new underground cables, replace a major Audio Visual to Finance for both capital and infrastructure router, network switches and improve the External hire and the repair of AV equipment projects totalling £1.5m. The fund in 2007–08 security of the computer rooms. produce income which is used to upgrade was divided as follows: the AV provision in lecture theatres.

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Business Services

The Records Management team provide record storage and management for the University. The new document store, with 5,000 box spaces, opened in February 2009 at the North Campus. The new store was crucial in the move to the Jessop site, which could not hold the departments’ archives.

The Programme and Project Unit (PPU) manages the CiCS Programme and handles new developments with around 20 live projects at any one time. The PPU gives project management training through SDU, The Environmental Print Review Project the Research Office and for CiCS staff. reviewed how, why and where printing is performed on campus. The aim of the The Electronic Document Management project was to reduce the environmental System has been piloted and is now in use. impact and costs, improve services, make A related project has begun which will use of new technologies and promote best focus on the systematic scanning of paper practice. Recommendations will support the documents. development of a University Print Policy.

Kath Winter myAnnounce has been developed to A Work Related Driving Policy has been Assistant Director, Business Services manage messages for broadcast by email produced in response to the Corporate and for other channels. This gives better Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide control when targeting messages. We are Business Services is responsible for the Act. The policy clarifies individual and working with SRAM to revise the existing internal administration, finance, personnel collective responsibilities and will help the policy. In 2009 these changes should and business management of CiCS; and for University to minimise the risks associated result in a reduction in unwanted email. information law compliance throughout with occupational driving. the University. CiCS is working closely with the Academic Division on the development of Mi View, Achievements and highlights a management dashboard of Key throughout the year include: Performance Indicators. This will be used Plans for 2009: by UEB to assist with the planning and The Higher Education Statistics Agency Full Service Review of the University development of the University. (HESA) requests detailed data each year Print Service from the University on its main activities. Professional Services are currently The University funding depends directly developing data sources for inclusion in Develop a University Print Policy on this data, which must be submitted this management resource. National HE agreement for PCs both on time and in a precise format for processing. The University has an excellent The Octagon Centre marked its 25 year Refurbish and review teaching facilities reputation at fulfilling this complex task. anniversary with a celebration ‘Snowflake and space In 2008 a major change to the format Ball’. Local companies, organisations and Revise the policy for broadcast emails presented a real challenge, however both senior University staff attended. The venue Project for scanning paper documents the quality and deadline were achieved is used for a wide range of events and the successfully. Octagon took this opportunity to thank Mi View – KPIs its customers.

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Customer Services

We have introduced a rolling program of In the coming year we plan to build on service reviews to focus on how we can the successes of the past year focusing specifically improve the service. In 2008 particularly on making all of our services we reviewed the wireless network, High more customer-focused. These are just a Performance Computing and began a few of the things we are planning – review of the Helpdesk. so look out for them: Introduce ‘Service Management’ as a The Helpdesk and IT Support team have • way of delivering services that better launched some new services including meet customers’ needs. the ability to remotely access a user’s PC to help resolve their problems and also a • Start a monthly CiCS email, which will self-service facility which allow users to provide a consolidated overview of log and review progress of their calls. what is happening in CiCS and with our services. We have upgraded the University phone Launching uSpace as a social system so that the system now provides • networking tool for all staff and the resilience, expandability and flexibility students. to build the services we need over the next 5 years.

John McAuley Assistant Director, Customer Services

The Customer Services section supports the users of the University’s IT and communications systems, provides and supports the use of space and technology for learning and teaching, and takes the lead in the development of customer service quality across the department.

The highlights of our year have been: We celebrated the 1st Birthday of the Information Commons with it being named the RIBA Yorkshire building of the year and winning the 2008 RIBA Yorkshire White Rose Gold Award for Architecture.

We continue to improve the quality of student IT spaces and lecture theatres. Most notably we refurbished the IT rooms in the Geography Building and Portobello.

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Technical Services

A development virtual infrastructure has A major overhaul of the way uReports is also been created which allows for quick supported has been undertaken, resulting and easy provisioning of development in an increase in support and a raising of environments for all manner of testing the profile of the service. purposes. The Online Registrations System for During 2008 Technical Services made students was rolled out over the summer, progress on the development of new and, in spite of technical hitches, proved applications and systems. very successful.

A major upgrade to MOLE was undertaken Several new projects are well underway, at the start of the academic year, entailing including: the installation of a complete new set • Collaboration software of servers which ensured minimum downtime during the upgrade. Work on • Next generation calendar and email upgrade to the Content Management • E-Recruitment System is well advanced. • CRM phase 2 Work continues on the Document Management System, which now has a full production environment and is ready Dave Speake for testing. Assistant Director, Technical Services

Technical Services create and maintain New Network Design high quality IT systems and services which Server Farm Routers meet the ever increasing demands of the University community. Campus / During 2008 we have continued to Internet improve the resilience of University Routers computing systems.

Nearly all computing systems now use New Virtual the resilient central file storage facility. Switch / This protects against a number of types Router of system failure, while minimising our maintenance effort. 2 * 1 Gigabit Buildings Resilient Connection Our virtual server infrastructure is well- Double Bandwidth! established and successful, and several Hicks departments have taken advantage of the facility.

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Facts and Figures

Helpdesk Network • 35,655 phone calls, emails and visits • over 4,000 outlets added to the network to CiCS Helpdesk, IT Centres, the this year (17% increase in size of network workshop and networking staff in 2008 on last year, 40% increase over last two years) Email • 250 wireless access points around • 1,738,319 email messages delivered campus (25% increase on last year) each week • 11,000 telephone extensions • 85% of messages arriving from external • 5,800 voicemail accounts sources were rejected as spam • 2 Gb per second University connection Student Computing to the internet, 1 Gb per second for general work and 1 Gb per second for • 36 student computer rooms provided scientific work. by CiCS. • 10 Gb per second maximum core • 1,546 computers available for student use network speed • 509 computers available 24/7 in the • 100 Mb per second delivered to Information Commons the desktop • 150 bookable PCs in Information Commons and 10 bookable group rooms Learning and Teaching • 244 software applications on student • 160 pool teaching rooms and various computers, increased 22% from 200 others available through Room Bookings applications last year • 54,000 class sessions allocated to • £655,000 p.a. spent on software bookable rooms and an average of purchase and licensing, increased 19% 100 room enquiries daily from £550,000 last year • 10 lecture theatres refurbished with • 400 Mb filestore for each new AV equipment undergraduate student increased 74% • 5,648 courses in MOLE (My Online from 230 Mb last year Learning Environment) • MOLE accessed by 1,580 concurrent MOLE users during the day time • MOLE runs on 10 servers • 275 ECDL tests were taken with 243 passes • 74 CiCS IT courses given

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Corporate Business Activity • 30,097 student records returned to the Higher Education Statistics Agency for 2007–8 • 14 servers and 18 databases used for SAP • 1,400 reports in the uReports system, in which staff can now create their own reports from central data • 50 vehicles operated by the University on a permanent basis and between 200 and 300 daily rental vehicles hired in each month • 40 tonnes of paper photocopied at the University Print Service • 5,600+ theses bound each year • 40% increase in the number of the University Print Service’s estimates produced for customers • 1,650 car parking spaces available and all parking permits managed by Room and Parking Services • 25 year anniversary for the Octagon Centre • 73% usage of Convocation Hall in the Octagon Centre on the available days • £40,000 used for subsidised monthly bus tickets for staff, and a further £60,000 funding for other travel and environmental initiatives

Printing • 7,322,574 pages printed by students • 50,107,940 pages printed in total • 50 printers available in the IC, open access rooms and libraries and 25 printers in departments for students • 2,490 printers at the University in total

CiCS Annual Report 2008 Design I www.sheffield.ac.uk/cics/uniprint

“We will be an innovative and influential department, respected by the University and recognised as a leader in the sector, delivering excellent customer-focused services.”