Delegates from across England gathered at the Microsoft Head Quarters at Thames Valley Park, Reading, in December for Capita Further and Higher Education (FHE)’s annual UNIT-e technical briefing day. The event showcased how UNIT-e is embracing recent advances in Microsoft technology alongside plans for research and future development. The event offered a varied agenda comprising product demonstrations, customer experiences and service presentations.
The day commenced with a presentation from Walsall College. Julia Goldsmith, Head of Information Strategy, and Ben Cotterill, MIS Programmer, provided an excellent presentation that focussed on Walsall College’s development, showcasing its recent modernisation alongside Capita FHE’s software.
Walsall College has recently opened a new, state-of-the-art campus and undertaken extensive refurbishment throughout their estate. In light of this, the College was keen to ensure that its information systems met the same high standards. Walsall had implemented UNIT-e on a SQL Server 2008 platform, so with attractive campus agreements , Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2007 was the clear choice for unifying systems throughout the institution.
In early summer 2009, the College rolled out a new intranet-based feature on SharePoint, which included learner pages presenting personalised UNIT-e information including attendance, punctuality and timetables. The system also offers access to learning resources, the virtual learning environment and personal development plans. Senior management also has access to a number of drill-through key performance indicator reports that monitor retention, attendance, average class size and other key information.
The day continued with a joint presentation on Reporting Services from Microsoft evangelist Andrew Fryer and Rupert Ireland, Capita FHE’s UNIT-e Applications consultant. Andrew Fryer promoted the Microsoft vision and strategy for business intelligence and how Report Services fits within it. Rupert presented working examples of how graphical representations can be embedded into SharePoint or Columbus and linked with UNIT-e reports to offer drill-through reporting. He also provided an overview of development undertaken at Thames Valley University using SharePoint as a document management solution linked to UNIT-e .
As information systems begin to pervade every aspect of the operational side of an organisation, an IT infrastructure that is reliable, stable and highly available is critical. Alan Knight from Capita FHE’s managed services team provided an overview of available services, including a UNIT-e migration package from an Oracle to SQL Server, as featured in the recent St Mary’s Case Study. Other services include the installation and configuration of SharePoint, Reporting Services and a new service for advice, guidance and implementation of high-availability concepts, such as network load balancing and database clustering.
The day concluded with talk about research currently being undertaken and plans for 2010. This presentation looked at the rapid advance in technologies and the ways UNIT-e could possibly exploit the opportunities on offer. Steve Cain looked at how a browser-based user experience continues to improve and why emphasis on hosted solutions encourages research into moving Information Interface technology into a browser.
Mobile technology’s significant shift was also identified, with 3G and Wi-Fi permitting blackberry and iphone to become everyday practical devices. Andrew Fryer introduced new features that will be available in Excel 2010 and Reporting Services 3, including some very sophisticated dashboard techniques and powerful mapping features.
The day concluded with Andrew Fryer drawing the winners of Capita FHE’s 10th Birthday celebration prize draws. Congratulations to the following:
Netbook
Chris Holden Longley Park
Alton Towers
Gillian Hamilton Coatbridge
Waterstones tokens
Gill Burrough Cambridge Education Group
Angela Emerson Braintree College
David Jordan University College Plymouth
Sarah Wells City College Birmingham