How to shorten your literature search time

Wouldn't it be great if a search engine could do your speed reading for you?  Google will find words but it can't tell you whether they matter, whether they are interesting or part of an article you should be reading.  I saw a demonstration from these guys at MIMAS which really could make this possible.  The potential for researchers is huge.  In fact many of Leicester's research articles are already searchable here.

Focus on the research elephant

Why do we spend so much energy running the corporate University?  Learning and research is what we are here for.  By most measures, research is the most demanding.  It produces most data, uses most power, is the most complex, diverse and unpredictable.  All disciplines need IT as they mine huge data, spot patterns and follow hunches, solve big computational problems, simulate phenomena in the natural and human worlds, try to predict, visualise and project into the future.

My pitch at the UCISA conference was that we need to focus more on the research elephant.  We haven't got a good record here and the elephant has a long memory. We need to build trust and show that we can do really interesting things together when we work as partners.  The BRISSKit project is a good example.  We need more of these.

Office 365 looks tempting

Enjoying myself at the UCISA conference at Celtic Manner. Microsoft just announced Office 365 for staff as well as students on a no fee basis, including Sharepoint and Lync as well as Exchange. This is a game changer. Whole community could have integrated team collaboration sites, email, calendar, web conferencing, instant messaging and presence. Can't see how we can resist. There's just the little matter of the anarchic explosion of information that will happen when 26,000 users get hold of this...

Have also seen something today that could help. Idol from Autonomy does semantic search across multiple information silos - and that includes audio and video sources. There is serious power here. Could we stop worrying about meta data and let this engine do the work? I'd like to see it running across an organically grown Sharepoint environment.

And I'm wondering if we'll need a VLE for much longer. Give it a couple of years.

A laptop that works at last!

He turned up on time, ran through his well rehearsed patter and I'm logged on to Windows 7 within a few minutes. Simplicity itself.  Every single IT plumbing component has been redesigned and replaced for this moment. How many human hours have gone into this? We've yet to count them.  For once though, this upgrade is worth the effort.  I now have the core of the modern working environment I've craved since I left the corporate world 11 years ago. I can move seamlessly around from wired to wireless. I can see all my Z drive documents and data wherever I am, update them offline and watch them synchronise back with central storage when I next connect. Everything's encrypted. The 'Programme Installer' is beautifully easy to use and gives me a huge range of apps that can be installed on demand.  Many of these are cached locally so they can be used anywhere so this isn't just a box for running MS Office. Even the email experience is great.  Good to have the full client and to be able to work offline - again with seamless synchronisation.

Well done team ITS!  This is a winner!

Now.  I wonder if we can convince a few folks to try a bit of instant messaging and web conferencing before 2012 is out? Then I really will have made it back to the year 2000.

Keeping up with the mobile pioneers

Really interesting meeting today with our Criminology department.  Students working for the UN, NGOs and aid agencies are now studying for a new MSc in Security, Conflict and International Development in some challenging environments across the world. They each have an iPad carrying their etextbooks and a mobile app to guide them through materials and activities, all linked back to our Virtual Learning Environment.  

So here are a few of the battles that this pioneering department has had to work through.  Sounds easy doesn't it?

• How to give away an iPad 
• How to get an iPad through customs
• How to get a publisher to sell you ebooks in bulk
• How to enable an iPad user to download an ebook that you've already paid for
• How to package material in a mobile app without breaking copyright law  
• How to get a mobile app developed when your IT department has only just written the 'we need a mobile application framework' proposal and needs three months to catch up with you

We are still trying to catch up and already our Education department wants to do this too! 
  

IT Strategy in 140 chars

The IT Strategy was ratified yesterday by our ICT Committee to the unremitting sound of a pneumatic drill.  We took 375 days to draft, debate, edit, discuss and polish this. Thanks to all.  

Here's the byte size version:
"Strategy = ITaaS"

Here's the bite size one:
"If we work together we can have the best of all worlds. We can

·         design services for students which are precisely in tune with them and efficient

·         build an IT research infrastructure which is flexible, agile and cost effective

·         deliver IT services that are better and cheaper"

And the full, word-crafted marathon is here. 

So what would the bite size University strategy be:

'Success = exceptional experience for all students inclusive of distance and background+globally important research+flow-control?' 

Ultra-connected student halls

Three fascinating days with potential ISP suppliers for our new ultra-connected halls of residence. They now get just how ground-breaking we want to be here. We've got nearly 5000 of the most tech-savvy, exacting consumers of cyber content on the planet and yes they do want unlimited bandwidth, totally ubiquitous and seamless wireless, at least four wired connections, simultaneous connectivity for at least five devices (e.g. iPad+laptop+xbox+smartphone+internet ready TV), all the broadcast IPTV channels you can think of, an almost private link to the data centres hosting 4oD, iPlayer, love film, netflix, Spotify....etc. And no we don't want to get in their way, tell them what to do or control their data download rates. As long as it's legal its OK. We want to watch and learn. Not much to ask.