ANNUAL REPORT, 2001-2002

(Produced by Valerie Blackett, Director of CIS, September, 2002)

1. Introduction

The CIS department aims to provide a first class, best value, information service to support learning, teaching, research and the management of the University. To that end, we work with faculties and other support services to acquire, develop, implement and support corporate information systems which help the University transform how it does things for the benefit of all.

We do this by:

· managing projects set up to:

� review existing processes and formulate new ways of working;

� acquire and implement corporate information systems;

· develop and implement:

· any corporate information systems the requirements of which cannot be met from the market-place;

· interfaces between corporate information systems;

· managing the ongoing support (both in-house and by supplier and including the implementation of system upgrades) of corporate information systems;

· managing (both in-house and by supplier) the initial training of staff in the use of its corporate information systems.

Whilst the department has previously planned ahead and reported progress on a regular basis, this is the first time that it has produced an annual report. It is hoped that it will be of interest and use to others.

2. Overview

The 2001-2002 academic year was one of major change for CIS. Two new managers and two new CIS Officers joined the department in the course of the year increasing our numbers from 9 to 13.

These additional staff have made it possible for the department to start taking on major projects and to make major improvements to our support services. Unfortunately, they do not allow us to meet all of the many and varied needs of the University in the corporate information systems’ arena and there remains both much competition for limited resources and many difficult decisions to be made regarding the relative priority of different business cases.

Sally Mason joined in October, 2001 as Project Manager and has taken control of the department’s infrastructure (database, liaison with Computing Services, etc.) and user support services (Help Desk and requests system).

Tricia Breen joined in November, 2001 as Project Manager and managed to completion the project to acquire a core Human Resources information system for the University. She is now managing the projects necessary to achieve successful implementation of that system.

A new CIS Officer (RH) joined in November, 2001 and she spent some months re-training in the Oracle tool-set, developed the system we use to record time against projects/tasks and has more recently been working on the department’s Help Desk and on requests for changes to existing systems.

Jacqui Harrison joined in March, 2002 as a Senior CIS Officer. She has spent time undertaking analysis work for the department’s managers, developed the new CIS web-site and has recently undertaken re-training in the Oracle tool-set.

CIS has been granted some funding on two occasions (once this year and once last) to hire contractors to undertake work which we would otherwise have been unable to progress (latterly for the upgrade of the in-house finance systems). Unfortunately, after these two attempts at an alternative solution, we have concluded that contractors are a poor use of resource. They do not have the necessary background (i.e., knowledge of Loughborough University procedures and systems) to allow them to work effectively without major and constant supervision, so the actual total of additional resource they bring to the department is either minimal whilst they are here, or heavily counter-balanced by the amount of re-work which departmental staff have to undertake after their departure.

3. Strategy

CIS drove the development of the University’s Information and Information Systems Strategies and input to its Information Technology Strategy (the development of which was driven by the Director of Computing Services). Whilst most of the work undertaken took place in 2000-2001, it was in 2001-2002 that all of these strategies were approved by the various University committees.

CIS has aligned itself with all three strategies and aims to work with stakeholders to:

· establish priorities;

· develop long-term plans;

· win funding for effective change programmes;

· optimise University procedures, systems and services;

· acquire, implement and support best-value systems;

· use our limited in-house resource to add value rather than re-invent the wheel;

· successfully manage programmes of change for the benefit of all.

4. Operation

Sally Mason has been working as Project Manager on the User Support side and Tricia Breen on the development side. CIS Officer staff have been flexible and have worked on development projects, user support or database administration as required but:

· user support (calls to the Help Desk and enhancement requests) has largely been undertaken by Richard Mollart, RH and Jane Snape;

· development has largely been undertaken by Pali Bains, Nick Bullen, Dawn Fendell and Jacqui Harrison;

· database administration has largely been undertaken by Peter Harvey.

Ann Spenadel and Helen Buckton have continued to run the production service and Helen Buckton has also provided administrative support to the department.

No-one has left the department over the year.

We have worked closely with staff from a number of different areas within the University and have assisted many others, via our Help Desk, in their use of the University's corporate information systems.

5. Projects

In the course of the year, CIS staff worked on five development programmes and eight development projects. Some of these began before the beginning of the year and some are continuing into 2002-2003. These are listed below with description and current status.

Programmes

Strategy Development Programme : Information and Information Systems
To develop University Information and Information Systems strategies.
Started in 2000-2001 and initial development completed.

Systems Upgrade/Transfer Programme (total of 22 projects)
To upgrade and transfer out-of-date systems from the old production machine to the new.
Started in 2000-2001. Due to complete that year but had to be extended to include the finance systems which have not been replaced by Oracle Financials. Now due to complete early in 2003.

Human Resources Information Systems Programme, Stage 1 (core facilities): Acquisition, Data Conversion, Interface Development and Implementation
To acquire and implement an integrated human resources information system to enable Personnel and Payroll to offer an improved service to the University.
Acquisition completed and implementation scheduled for early 2003.
Stage 2 (enhanced facilities and roll-out to University) yet to be funded.

Student Information System Programme: Acquisition
To acquire a new student information system to better support all types of programme and student, and faculties and support services.
An attempt was made to progress the programme without dedicated resource but had to be aborted because of its negative impact on other areas of CIS work.

Oracle Financials Programme
To provide technical support (only) to the Finance-managed Oracle Financials project.
Ongoing.

Projects

Database Upgrade/Transfer.
To upgrade and transfer the corporate database from the old production machine to the new.
Started in 2000-2001. Completed early this year.

Academic Staff Activity System
To develop and implement a system to record and report upon academic staff activity.
Started in 2000-2001 and initial development completed.
System little used, if at all, because most academic departments are unhappy with the model agreed upon by the project team (which included undergraduate Associate Deans for Teaching).

Swipecard System Upgrade
To implement an upgrade to the existing system in order to enhance its usefulness and reliability.
Completed.

Computer-Aided Assessment Interfaces
To develop two-way interfaces between Learning and Teaching’s Computer-Aided Assessment system and the corporate student information systems.
Started in 2000-2001.
Completed.

Transfer of Business Processes to Process Owners
To investigate the requirements of such a transfer.
Initial investigation completed.

Disaster Recovery
To improve the University’s disaster recovery planning.
Ongoing.

Time Recording System
To develop a time recording and reporting system for CIS, whilst providing a useful and safe development exercise for a new member of staff.
Initial development completed.

CIS Web-site
To develop a web-site for the department, whilst providing a useful development exercise for a new member of staff.
Initial development completed.

6. Support

In the course of the year, CIS staff have supported other University staff via the CIS Help Desk and requests systems. Statistics relating to the Help Desk and requests are provided below.

Help Desk

	Calls Received	Calls Cleared	Calls Outstanding
end July 01			22
Aug-01	94	96	20
Sep-01	106	92	34
Oct-01	261	200	95
Nov-01	182	147	130
Dec-01	55	117	68
Jan-02	97	77	88
Feb-02	64	52	100
Mar-02	49	65	84
Apr-02	77	90	71
May-02	70	99	42
Jun-02	63	56	49
Jul-02	85	76	58
TOTAL	1203	1167	Net change +36

Requests

Prior to August 2001, there was a substantial and increasing backlog of outstanding requests. By August, 2001, this backlog stood at approximately 100.

Between August and the end of February there was an extremely limited amount of resource available (that which the person allocated to the Help Desk could give when not dealing with Help Desk calls) to progress requests and only 8 tasks were completed. Many tasks (including the majority of those over 12 months old) were closed as they were no longer appropriate.

In March, an additional member of staff was made available to progress requests. Various mechanisms were also put in place to prioritise the requests and to determine the order in which outstanding and new requests are progressed.

In the period 1/3/02 to 31/7/02:

· 60 requests were completed, including 8 “small projects” (i.e., of 30-60 hours’ effort);

· 18 requests were in progress (including 2 small projects);

· 70 requests remained outstanding (the majority of these are scheduled to be undertaken during the 2002/3 academic year).

The following table lists the number of requests received each month.

Aug-01	14
Sep-01	6
Oct-01	11
Nov-01	7
Dec-01	4
Jan-02	9
Feb-02	20
Mar-02	7
Apr-02	25
May-02	14
Jun-02	14
Jul-02	6
TOTAL	137

7. Liaison

The CIS department is part of the Division of Information Services and Systems (DISS) which reports to the Deputy Vice Chancellor and the Information Services’ Committee. The Director meets monthly with fellow Directors in that Division (the Director of Computing Services, the Librarian and the Director of Media Services) and with the Deputy Vice Chancellor. The Directorate contributed the Information Strategy section to the new University Strategic Plan, including targets specific to CIS.

Over the year the Director continued to seek strategic advice from the CIS Advisory Group and a CIS User Group was set up to advise the Project Manager responsible for User Support on operational matters. In addition, the Director met twice with the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Registrar and Bursar to discuss priorities.

8. Dispensation of Expenditure

	£
Salaries	386,710
Departmental Operating Costs
Recruitment	1,089	^1
Staff development and general travel and subsistence	25,646
Office expenses	9,100
IT equipment	24,481
Telephones	1,342
Total	61,658
Corporate Information Systems’ Operating Costs
Hardware, systems software and peripherals	15,602
Database	84,645	^2
Systems maintenance (PAT and ALBANY)	23,328
Production stationery	10,332
Media Services’ deliveries	2,500
Total	136,407
Corporate Information Systems’ Development Projects
Finance systems’ upgrade (necessary on account of failure of Oracle Financials to deliver)	45,343
Human Resources Information System Acquisition	14,488
Total	59,831
Grand Total	644,606

¹This includes approximately £10,000 of Oracle training vouchers.

²Anyone reading this report in conjunction with University financial reports should note that this figure is shown as £28,215 in auditable accounts because, though CIS spent £84,645 in 2001-2002, the payment was for a licence running well into 2002-2003

9. Professional Development

A new, annual departmental appraisal system was developed and all academic-related staff were appraised and contributed to a review of the system. The system will be adjusted in line with University guidelines once a new corporate procedure has been agreed.

During the year the Director continued as Secretary of the Universities' Computing and Information Systems Association (UCISA)'s Management Information Systems Group (MISG)'s Executive Committee .

In order to keep up-to-date professionally (in terms of both information systems and higher education issues), the department's staff have attended, between them, a number of external conferences and seminars/workshops:

conferences:

· UCISA;

· UCISA MISG;

· UCISA Teaching, Learning and Staff Development

seminars/workshops:

· Financial Management Systems;

· Authentication and Authorisation;

· Disaster Recovery;

· Human Resource Information Systems;

· Investigatory Powers;

· UCAS and HESA;

· The Purpose of Customer Support;

· Portals;

· E-Pocurement;

10. 2002-2003

In 2002-2003, the department will be concentrating its efforts upon:

· the implementation of the new Human Resources information system;

· work which the environment imposes upon us (e.g., HESA/HESES changes/support);

· the completion of the systems upgrade/transfer programme;

· facilities to better disseminate information which we already hold;

· maintaining our current level of user support..

Information on projects is available elsewhere on this web-site.