Hi – thanks for taking the time to read our resurgent ICT Monthly Newsletter. Our aim is to make it worth your while by including features on planned services; changes to our computer environments; tips to help you work more easily; IT security alerts and other bits and pieces that should be of interest. It’s been a while since we communicated in this fashion and we have some important news to convey.

In this Newsletter we provide a quick snapshot of some of the key initiatives that we will be working on, in the short term, to improve the provision of ICT services to you our customers. In the next, we will start to introduce some of the ICT personalities, so that you know who it is that can help you meet your information requirements.

I have only been here at UC for a few weeks, but already I am greatly impressed by the quality and dedication of the ICT staff. In my view, they are the equal of any ICT team working anywhere. I am also impressed by the support given by the University’s senior executive to improving ICT services. My priority is to lay down the plans to improve the provision of ICT services and to define the ICT strategies that the University needs for success into the future. I am confident, that we have the where-with-all to make some great changes in the not too distant future.

Perhaps our biggest failing to date has been in keeping you our customers informed. This Newsletter is intended as our first attempt to address this failing. I hope you find the Newsletter informative and a valuable means of staying abreast of the many services offered by ICT Services. Enjoy.

Steve Foley
Director ICT Services

Current Major Activities in ICT

While many of the activities and projects in ICT are not directly visible to the University community, we are currently abuzz with new developments and changes to both systems and processes to improve services to clients. This article lists some of the major current activities without going into too much detail. Most of the projects or activities listed below will be described in more detail in future newsletters. Here is just a brief overview and a contact person for each activity, if you would like to know more or contribute in some way:

Collaboration Suite

In September this year, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint were selected and accepted as the tools to support University-wide online collaboration. A project to implement these tools is currently in its early planning stages. When the project is completed all staff will, as a minimum, use a consistent set of tools for e-mail, calendar, file sharing and other basic collaborative functions. For more information about this project, please contact Karl Maftoum, Manager Systems Support and COE.

ITIL implementation

ITIL stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library and is a best practice framework for the management of IT service delivery. ITIL enables ongoing improvement of IT service provision and takes an organization through a path of moving towards a higher level of maturity in relation to management of IT services, IT components and associated planning functions. You can find out more about ITIL here. The ITIL implementation project at UC is managed by Jason Corney, the Manager for User Support and Service Desk.

Service Desk software implementation

A project to consolidate service desk software solutions across campus is currently underway. In the past the University has used a number of disparate helpdesk systems that could not be integrated. This has meant that none of the ServiceDesk areas could pass on information on faults between them without cutting and pasting the details into emails. BLIS has been successfully using the CA Unicenter tool for several years and, it was decided that it would be adopted as a tool for the whole of the University.

Staff from all IT units on campus are working together towards implementing this new ServiceDesk tool that can be used across the whole of UC as a replacement for the systems currently used in each Division. This is a large undertaking which will cater for the needs of all Divisions, will result in a University wide IT knowledge base and will help with the consolidation of Service Desk functions across campus. Jason Corney is the contact person for this project.

Callista Connect and Callista Upgrade

Significant upgrades to Callista are currently in progress. Callista version 9 will be deployed at UC early next year. This is a very significant technology upgrade with minimal changes to user functionality i.e. lots of work at the back end but will not result in any immediately obvious changes to users but will enable future development of the product. Even before the version 9 upgrade Callista Staff Connect is being deployed. This change will result in significantly enhanced and simplified staff access to Callista data via a web interface. The new functionality is described in more detail in a separate article below. Any questions with respect to the technical aspects of Callista software upgrades should be directed to Linda Chen, Manager Corporate Enterprise Systems.

PMO and Project Portfolio Management

A major initiative is underway to improve Project Management practices and to introduce a Project Portfolio Management Framework with respect to projects that have an ICT or an Information Management component. This initiative is governed by UIMSC (University Information Management Systems Committee) and is led by Katarina Christenson, Director, ICT Planning and Coordination. The major objectives of this project are to improve the return on investment in ICT and IM projects by both doing the projects right (improved project management) and doing the right projects (project portfolio management). The Project Management Office (PMO) provides support for this initiative and extensive information on progress so far can be found on the PMO website

Procurement changes

ICT Services is currently working with PC Suppliers to establish a preferred supplier arrangement for desktops and notebooks for the University. We are working towards establishing a service where Divisions will be able to access high end level equipment at reduced pricing before Christmas 2006. The equipment will be available through a 3 year leasing plan.

Common Operating Environment projects

The Common Operating Environment (COE) team is working on the development of a new staff COE for both PC and Mac desktop computers. The team currently supports multiple environments for staff and students and manages a maize of complex upgrade procedures for patching desktops for security threats, protecting desktops from viruses, upgrading software versions. The new consolidated SOEs will provide a much more integrated desktop environment for users and will enable significant efficiency improvements in ongoing support and development. The next staff Mac COE is targeted to be ready in mid 2007, with the PC version slated for Q1 2008. A project team with broad representation from across the University is working on common specifications that will form the test and production builds. As the new COEs will involve upgrades to versions of desktop software, numerous awareness and training sessions will be held before production release. For more information please contact Kieran Egan, Team Leader of the COE team.

New Windows servers

Early this year, a number of servers with associated storage and backup solutions were purchased to refresh our aging Windows infrastructure. The new backup solution is working exceedingly well, but the full rollout has been delayed by problems with the disk subsystem. We are currently using an interim disk storage arrangement and will roll out the correct equipment by the end of November. When all new systems are in production, we will have a very high quality Windows infrastructure with significant capacity for growth. Please contact Karl Maftoum for more information.

Review of identity management and provisioning

The way staff and student identities are managed and provisioned into computer systems is a major factor in delivering online services and online workflow. At the University of Canberra we have largely achieved a common sign-on (the same usercode and password across different systems). But we are still a long way away from having relevant access for data configured quickly and easily based on organizational roles and some way away from having single sign-on where users do not need to re-authenticate when moving between systems. A review of identity management and provisioning is currently in progress to enable us to develop a roadmap to meet the long term needs of the University. Contact Mick Sharp for more information. 

Callista Staff Connect

Staff Connect is a new module for the Callista Student System which ICT and Student Administration have been configuring and implementing over the last few months. The module is an online staff portal into Callista and it should be of significant benefit to academic staff in particular. Since the portal is accessed via a web browser Macintosh computers are able to access Staff Connect as easily as PCs. Overall, student information is much more accessible and is presented in a much more user-friendly manner than through the full Callista application. The presentation of information on research student candidature is significantly improved.

The class list spreadsheets used to capture final results are also much easier to down and upload. Over the past two years, Student Affairs Offices have emailed the spreadsheets to academic staff for the collection of final results. Academic staff then emailed the spreadsheets back to Student Affairs Offices for uploading. With Staff Connect, academic staff can perform the down and uploading of the results spreadsheets directly into Callista themselves.

Staff Connect is being released at the end of October 2006.

Ideas for Hints and Tips

One of the standing features of the ICT Newsletter will be a Hints and Tips section which will strive to provide readers with useful tidbits of information about using computers and networks and generally any ICT based services. We would like to ask our readers i.e. you to help us think of useful topics for Hints and Tips. Is there anything that you have only just recently found out and you wish you had known about before? Is there anything that you know how to do but you think others may not? Is there anything that you have always wondered about but never got the answer? If you have a great idea, a question you have always wanted to ask or a complete Hint or Tip for us to include in the Newsletter please email ict-newsletter@canberra.edu.au and tell us all about it. We will endeavor to incorporate as many reader ideas as we can in future Newsletters.

This Month's Hints and Tips