Summer may be a quieter period while our students are mostly away from campus, but the work never stops for Digital Technologies. Over the summer, we have been working hard on improving and updating the University with the latest equipment and systems to enable you to work more efficiently.

Take a look through the headings below for more information on all the hard work our teams have been doing!

Print Service

As part of a new Managed Print Services contract, we reduced the number of existing printers and plotters across campus and replaced them with updated devices from our new supplier, Kyocera. This totalled just over 70 new, more efficient and cost-effective devices. The main driving point behind this new contract is to ensure sustainability so that the print service supports the University in its Net Zero ambitions. Work is currently ongoing to ensure smooth operation of wide-format devices from Macs.

Telephony

A significant amount of work was carried out across the summer to streamline and replace our existing telephony with Microsoft Teams telephony across the organisation, while maintaining essential telephony in areas which required it. With increased flexible work using Teams, the requirement for desk phones and extension numbers has changed significantly. The University’s new telephony service is a cloud-hosted solution comprised of two main components, namely 8×8 (the telephony service provider) and Microsoft Teams Voice (providing the user interface). Microsoft Teams, with its telephony features enabled, is now the main user interface staff use to make and receive telephone calls.

Audio Visual

We implemented a huge range of Audio Visual improvements to teaching and working spaces with upgraded technology set up in buildings all over campus. Below is a short list of some of the highlights:

• Cutting edge meeting room AV technology installed in Lawress Hall. 
• All of the David Chiddick Building is now fitted with upgraded AV and hybrid technology.
• Student wellbeing refurbished with updated AV equipment.  
• 179 High Street has updated AV in new office spaces.  
• Enterprise has had AV equipment upgraded.
• Floor 3 of the Minerva Building has been upgraded.
• Teaching Spaces Working Group has overseen improvements to all 12 existing lecture theatres.  
• We’ve carried out room checks to ensure AV equipment is working in existing spaces.
• We have supported over 20 events including Graduation.

Computer Labs

We have upgraded PCs in a number of computer labs in the Alfred Tennyson and Sarah Swift Buildings in the below rooms:

• ATB1101
• ATB1107
• ATB1111
• ATB1113
• ATB1114
• ATB1115
• SSB3202
• SSB4203 

In addition, we’ve also upgraded the vast majority of the University Mac labs with the latest equipment and rolled out MacOS Ventura across the whole University.

Equipment Disposals

We have disposed of over 600 pieces of IT equipment with our rolling replacement program and will continue this work through the year.

Network Security

We are in the process of implementing a range of major security enhancements on our Master Data Hub as well as the Data Warehouse including the reporting and Dashboards service operated by Planning. As well as this, we’ve made significant progress in enhancing the security of the campus network.

Research

We’re in the process of replacing the old ePrints Research Repository with a new solution that will also provide a Research Data Repository, and are developing a cloud-based high-power computing solution.