Major Projects and Jan 2012 Strategy Update

Apologies for the lack of updates on the blog of late. However, I'm pleased to say that there has been plenty of activity with information projects at York this year to report on. Indeed, 2011 has seen us make progress in several strategically important areas:

* A new e-mail an calendaring system, using Google Apps, is being rolled out to staff and students

* York Print Plus, a project providing multifunction devices for printing, scanning and faxing across campus, is currently in its second phase of roll-out. It provides enhanced functionality for users and massive cost and environmental benefits to the University.

* A student portal was launched, in addition to portals for alumni and offer holders

* Major improvements in learning spaces have been made, with the opening of the Harry Fairhurst Building and progression of the Library Refurbishment

However, these are just a sample of the information projects that have moved forward in the past year; a full update on information strategy progress is currently being printed and will be distributed to staff and students in January 2012. An electronic version of the update will also be made available on this site in the new year.

Portal Project Update

The Portal Project now has its own website which will be used to provide information about the project to users.

The site currently has an update from the recent requirements gathering activities, including reports from the focus groups that have been held with students and student facing staff. The portal vision document, which describes a broad vision for the project and what it will provide for users, is also available on the site.

ICT Strategy Toolkit Project

The University of York won funding in December to field test the JISC ICT Strategy Toolkit, a set of tools which help to analyse and suggest areas of improvement to the ICT strategy of a university.

The Information Directorate is currently using the toolkit to review our Information Strategy at an institutional level through interviews with senior managers responsible for ICT, which will be conducted during February.

The project is due to complete in July 2011 and will provide a report that identifies areas of improvement in our Information Strategy, whilst also feeding back to JISC about the toolkit and our experience with it, in order to improve it for use in the sector generally.