IT Services

1. BluQube Financials with in-house developments; Begin replaced with Agresso Business World.
2. Planner in ABW and Excel.
3. • HR – part of a solution developed for HE sector in late 1990s by Oracle for the MAC family (part of funding council sponsored initiative).
   • Pay – Altar / HR from University of Birmingham.
   • both to be replaced with solution recently selected (unable to announce at this time - commercial in confidence).
4. None.
5. Impromptu / Cognos.

2444 (last updated 1 February 2012)

The only shared service is provided by JANET(UK) – provision of main external network service.

2445 (last updated 1 February 2012)

Not to the best of our knowledge, and no relevant information is held.

2446 (last updated 1 February 2012)

Major projects are managed following a gateway process operated in the public sector. The process is described in:

sussex.ac.uk/efm/documents/sussex-project-management-framework.doc

2447 (last updated 1 February 2012)

IT Services is managed by the Director of IT Services who reports to the University's Registrar and Secretary.  IT governance and major investments are handled through the work of the Information Services Committee and Capital Programme Committee. The responsibilities of Information Services Committee are set out on page 22 of:

sussex.ac.uk/governance/documents/OrganisationoftheUniversity2011-12.pdf

and the responsibilities of Capital Programme Committee on page 23 of the same document.

2448 (last updated 21 February 2012)

Through programme boards established as a part of the gateway process outlined in question 2447.

2449 (last updated 1 February 2012)

The University has a Director of Information Technology Services. The Director's principle duties are Head of the Information Technology Services Department and Chief strategy advisor for the exploitation of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) within the University.  For details about the IT Services Department see:

sussex.ac.uk/its/about

For details of IT Governance see the response to question 2448.

2450 (last updated 21 February 2012)

The IT strategic plan can be found at:

sussex.ac.uk/its/about/strategy

2451 (last updated 1 February 2012)

See response to question 2450. The Director of IT Services is a senior manager in the University.

2452 (last updated 1 February 2012)

Yes, through gateway reviews described in:

sussex.ac.uk/efm/documents/sussex-project-management-framework.doc

2453 (last updated 1 February 2012)

We do not formally use this approach. Senior business and IT staff have discussed the approach to providing major business systems.

2454 (last updated 1 February 2012)

Maintenance support arrangements are the responsibility of management of the University’s IT Services Department.  The current holders of these posts can be found on the web site (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/its/about)

2459 (last updated 17 February 2012)

The University purchases its server systems under the National Servers and Storage framework agreement.   Almost all of the servers are purchased directly from Dell with four or five years’ support (either next day support or 4 hour support) included in the purchase price.  We purchase mostly mid-range models currently R410 and R510 systems.  Servers are bought when required by the business and so the end dates for support are four or five years following the purchase date.  We have a small number of Apple Xserve systems which were also purchased with five year support from Apple.  We have a few legacy SUN systems also purchased from the National framework; some of these are supported by Oracle directly and others are no longer maintained.  Oracle’s standard support arrangement is a four hour response.

We use the Falcon storage SAN systems with Dell servers as controllers and DotHill storage systems; these are again bought with four or five year support.  We also have some DAS which is supplied by Dell.  Again these purchases are made under the National framework agreement.  The storage support is a four hour response time contract.

Our tape libraries were purchased from Sun and are presently maintained under a maintenance agreement with Oracle.

The majority of our wired network is HP ProCurve equipment; the edge devices come with a life-time warranty and the aggregation layer and core devices are purchased with four or five years’ warranty from HP via a supplier selected from the JANET framework agreement.  We also have a small amount of Cisco equipment which was purchased with a maintenance and support contract through the JANET framework agreement.

We tend to include the support agreements covering the expected life-time of equipment at the time we purchase the equipment.  This reduces our administrative costs and is generally better value for money.

Where we have maintenance contracts for equipment which has not been included with the purchase of the equipment, or if we run equipment beyond its planned life-time and wish to have it maintained, we align these to the University’s financial year whenever possible and continue to use the manufacturer’s support offerings.

We regard any further details of our support arrangements as commercial in confidence.

2461 (last updated 21 February 2012)

At present all major IT projects are progressed via the project gateway process (see FAQ 2453).  The University's Capital Programme Committee reviews projects and decides which projects proceed.  The Director of IT Services is a member of this committee.  Smaller "projects" are progressed internally within IT Services, and the decision to make such rests with the Director of IT Services and his senior colleagues.  All such projects are reported to the University's Information Services Committee.  The committee structure can be viewed at: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/governance/documents/OrganisationoftheUniversity2011-12.pdf

2473 (last updated 12 March 2012)

The University's Director of IT Services is a member of the Professional Service Group - a committee chaired by the Registrar and Secretary made up of the heads of all the professional service groups and the Librarian.  The Director of IT Services is not a member of the Vice-Chancellor's Executive Group - the Registrar and Secretary represents the interests of all of the professional services on that body.

2474 (last updated 13 March 2012)

Turnitin® software is NOT used within the University of Sussex to detect plagiarism but as a formative tool for students to develop their academic skills.

It is made available to all students to use as part of their development of academic skills. So we are using it currently to *prevent* academic misconduct.

No cases of academic misconduct due to plagiarism will therefore have been uncovered or evidenced through the use of Turnitin®.

We only started using Turnitin® across the campus on 8th Nov 2010, so we don't have any full academic years.

From 8 Nov 2010 to mid-November 2011, 13097 files were uploaded to Turnitin® by UG/PG (T) students.

From mid-November 2011 to now (24 Feb 2012) 8752 files were uploaded to Turnitin® by UG/PG (T) students.

A site for doctoral students was launched in April 2011 and has been used to submit 248 files since then.

In terms of costs, the license costs are fixed by the size of the institution. 

We haven't purchased any additional hardware for the service. There is some expenditure of staff time for support, although this is pretty minimal and is managed within existing provision for Study Direct generally. 

2476 (last updated 13 March 2012)