54 | EVENT REVIEW: UCISA 2014 |
the changing landscape of IT in higher education with sun, sea and sand (well OK, pebbles)? Throw in 325 delegates, nearly 80 suppliers and some world- class speakers and you have UCISA14, the annual conference that brings together senior IT professionals from across the sector and the largest sector-specifi c supplier exhibition. This year, the Conference took place between 26 and 28 March in Brighton. After Professor Julian Crampton, VC
W
of the University of Brighton, opened the Conference proper, the opening keynote showcased one of the largest IT implementations in the world: the London Olympics. With four billion users worldwide and the single biggest wireless network installation, Gerry Pennell OBE, now Director of IT Services at the University of Manchester but previously CIO for LOCOG, explained how it was done. A key challenge was relaying huge amounts of data in real time; over 60% of the load came from mobile. Most of the software was writ en new for the London Games. Surprisingly, there was no standard development methodology. But, as Gerry explained, “Get ing eff ective governance and project management in place was essential.” A hard deadline where failure was not an option certainly helped too! The remainder of the day was split
into a number of University Showcases, including presentations from the various UCISA Award winners and the poster session before delegates headed off to dinner. Day two of the Conference focused on
leadership, engagement and building eff ective teams. To get us going, Paul Gentle, Director of Programmes, Leadership Foundation, opened with an interactive session about engaging stakeholders with courage. He suggested that universities needed to foster more strategic conversation. He questioned whether fear was holding us back from talking to our diffi cult stakeholders and reminded us that leadership was not restricted to heads of services. Colin Gautrey shared his six stage
process on infl uential leadership. He challenged us to, “make progress in the goals of today to create space to create vision for tomorrow”. Asking how many great leaders there were in our own institutions, he went on to suggest that “rational persuasion gets compliance
UCISA14 Review by Adrian Ellison, Director of IT, University of West London
at best; inspirational appeal can result in real change.” Clay Shirky, American author,
educator and consultant on the social and economic eff ects of internet technologies, fl ew in from the US to deliver a thought-provoking talk. He explained how students collaborated more themselves when space was made available to them. He pointed out that the Academy is a social institution and the role of educators is to make other people smarter. This need not happen in specially designed environments and Clay gave examples of educators using freely available social tools. Perhaps the key message for me was that students
had more detailed analytics available on their social habits (e.g. from FourSquare) than they had on their education! Citing the power of IT as an enabler, “the computer is not a box but a door,” he said. Next up was
Simon Fanshawe, who as a writer, broadcaster and stand-up comedian, described himself as a provocateur with a purpose. He has done a lot of work with
Adrian Ellison
here else could you combine inspirational leadership, innovative technology and
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74