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 Jessop West, 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 Arts Tower 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 Hicks Building 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.