Abstracts

 

Day 2 Thursday 1 December

 

Partner showcases 10:30 - 11:00

  • Infuse
    Learn how Southampton Solent University delivered a challenging transformation programme on time and on budget
    Aaron Tyler, Project Manager, Southampton Solent University
    Southampton Solent University (SSU) Programme Manager Aaron Tyler presents how SSU rescued a challenging Student Record Transformation programme that kicked off in April 2021 and went live successfully with Enrolment in August 2023.

    In this session you will learn:
    • The background and business drivers of the programme
    • The challenges faced and go to green plan
    • How SSU dealt with IT staff shortages, cost pressure and minimal process and documentation
    • How Test Automation became a key component in the approach of the programme
    • The outcomes of the Enrolment phase and the lessons learned to date
  • TechnologyOne
    How to apply technology as an enabler of your institution and your students’ success, using lessons learned from TechnologyOne’s customers around the world.
    Leo Hanna, EVP, UK, TechnologyOne
    How to apply technology as an enabler of your institution and your students’ success, using lessons learned from TechnologyOne’s customers around the world:
    • Manage the student relationship from recruitment through to graduation and beyond
    • Using all of your data to make better decisions
    • Ensuring the security of your data
  • Crimson
    Real-World AI Use Cases for Higher Education
    Speakers - TBC
    Drawing on survey results from the 2023 Nash Squared Digital Leadership Report, including investment priorities in AI, we explore where the sector goes next in leveraging the AI opportunity.

 

Partner showcases 11:30 - 12:00

  • Avepoint
    Kingston University's journey to the Microsoft Cloud
    Steve Britton, Head of IT, Kingston University and Steve Smith, VP of MaivenPoint, AvePoint
    With the rapid changes in the ways of teaching and learning, education institutions are migrating their on-prem set-ups to more flexible and cloud first models, just like Kingston University. Join Steve Britton , Head of IT at Kingston University, as he shares his Microsoft cloud migration strategy.

    What will be discussed:
    • Microsoft Cloud becoming a central part of the university digital experience and service
    • Unifying their collaboration platform to enable one digital university with a seamless experience
    • Placing staff, academics and students first in their data migration to Microsoft 365
    • Change, adoption and training
    • Thinking about the future for teaching and learning at Kingston University
  • Clarivate
    Everything, Everywhere, all at once - Connecting for Student Success
    Rupert Frankum, Digital Experience and Platforms Manager, Plymouth University and Matthew Sherlock - Director of Product Strategy, CampusM
    Discover how the campusM Student engagement platform supports the University of Plymouth.

    The student experience can be overwhelming and fragmented. The University departments tasked with supporting students – Student Services, Academic Services and Administration services can best drive student success by supporting their differences whilst integrating their similarities.

    In this session, Clarivate will be speaking with the University of Plymouth to understand how they’re using the campusM Student Engagement Platform to deliver a more personalised student digital experience and provide different departments with the different student engagement data they need to drive better student engagement and reduce attrition.
  • Courseloop
    Why universities are increasingly seeing curriculum management as the foundation of agility, transformation and long-term success
    Speaker - TBC
    With a university’s curriculum being one of its most valuable assets, it can come as little surprise that the Higher Education Reference Model (HERM) has curriculum management up front and centre as a core capability and at the heart of its data reference model. This session will reference real-world examples to explore how innovative curriculum management approaches and solutions form the foundations of Higher Ed success – enabling universities to undertake meaningful change, deliver real benefit, and support long-term agility.
  • Tribal
    The Power of Change - Turn Disruption into Innovation
    Matthew Avery, Sales Manager HE and Oliver Mussett, Account Director, Tribal Group and Institutional speaker - TBC
    Universities and colleges are skilled navigators when it comes to technology and process changes. How do you effectively manage these changes? How do you ensure a successful strategy that limits disruption and the impact on productivity and budgets while prioritising innovation?

    Key discussion points will include:
    • The problems driving change in the sector
    • The strategy adopted for change
    • How to manage the change
    • The difference change has made

 

University showcases 13:50 - 14:20

  • Tertium datur: A third way for enterprise applications
    Alexander Watson, Information Systems Manager, University of Cumbria
    Stuck between hosting your enterprise applications on-premises or with the supplier's cloud offering (and the associated price tag? University of Cumbria share their experience of a novel model: private cloud hosting with application support wrap for their Student Record System (Tribal SITS) and Finance System (Unit 4 Business World (Agresso))
  • If You Like It Then You Should Have Put a Ring on It: Transforming Telephony in HE
    Debbie Hall, Head of Digital Programme Delivery, University of Huddersfield
    From 2021 to 2022, the University of Huddersfield undertook a project to implement Teams Voice across the organisation with a view to enhance and innovate telephony for the modern workplace. The project was implemented on a large scale and delivered significant benefits across the organisation. A robust approach to project management meant that this project was delivered under budget despite an array of challenges along the way. This presentation will provide an overview of project management and change management best practice that led to the successful delivery of the Teams Voice implementation.
  • Money doesn't matter
    Mike Whyment, Programme Director, University of Aberdeen
    Mike Whyment, Programme Director at the University of Aberdeen invites you to join him on a journey to discover how they have been able to provide their COO & University Secretary with a level of management reporting and financial visibility not previously possible to deliver a transparent overview of Digital spend across the organisation, at a time when budgets are increasingly under additional pressures and scrutiny.
  • Graduate Apprenticeships – A Robot’s Story
    Anna Phelan, Assistant Director (Business Systems), University of Glasgow
    Showcasing the University of Glasgow’s Graduate Apprenticeship framework and Information Services partnership with their School of Computing Science…..and the opportunities it provides to try new things and experiment…..

    …..particularly a Graduate Apprentice’s final year work based project:

    Robot Week - A proof-of-concept to test the use of conversational interface technology by delivering information to students in a novel and engaging manner via a robot called Pepper.

 

  • Keeping it simple - reinventing our intranet without reinventing the wheel
    Sarah Jacques, Deputy Director of Digital and Information Services and Andrew Haywood, Corporate Systems Manager, Leeds Trinity University
    Replacing the ancient staff intranet was long overdue. Our old SharePoint platform had fallen out of use, previous attempts to kick start the replacement project had stalled, and inertia had set in.

    In this session, we will explain how we breathed life back into the vision and successfully delivered an up to date staff intranet by focussing on staff empowerment, taking it one step at a time, and keeping the technology simple.
  • Reflections of a PM: Take 6 Technical Facilities, 1 new system, and a large dose of process change...
    Polly Nelson, Digital Experience Project Manager and Vicky Gosling, Director of Digital Experience, Falmouth University
    A case study showcasing Falmouth University’s Loan and Sale Project. The project has implemented a single centralised kit and space booking system across 6 decentralised, autonomous technical facilities. Each facility has a kit store and specialist spaces supporting different courses. This meant bringing the departments together to change and standardise their deeply embedded and largely different processes and ways of working. Alongside this, the journey involved migrating over 16,000 items from different legacy systems, moving sale items to an online click and collect model, and dealing with some dramatic scope additions due to Covid-19. Easy – definitely not! Worth it –definitely.
  • Clearing Reimagined at Queen's University Belfast
    Michelle McGaughey, Digital Transformation Architect,= and Jessica Nelson. Graduate Analyst Programmer, Queen's University Belfast
    Clearing is the process whereby universities advertise the courses that have spaces available to prospective students, matching applicants to places. The opening of Clearing on A-Level results day is one of the most impactful periods on University business but also the most stressful for staff. With the onset of a global pandemic, our Clearing solution moved to a digital environment, making use of Microsoft Forms, SharePoint lists and Power Automate flows. For Clearing 2023, the solution was reimagined to make use of new technologies with applicants applying via Power Portal and staff administering the service via Dynamics 365. We will delve into staff engagement and system performance to help us identify what went well and any lessons learnt.
  • The Enterprise Application and Service Integration Kit - an acceptable face for the new integration development culture at UCL
    Alexis Nelson, Integration Platform Owner/Technical Lead, University College London
    With the birth of a new strategy looking to take us from on-premise to the cloud, from central to devolved development, this talk focuses on the tooling, training, business change and fancy new branding for integration at UCL.

 

Embracing organisational change in Digital Transformation
Rachael Johnson, CIO / Chris Stedham, CTO, Bath Spa University

Bath Spa would like to share an exciting and successful journey from our Digital Transformation Programme, showcasing our migration from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365.

“Was this technically challenging?” Yes. “Were there unexpected issues along the way?” Yes. “But you said it was successful! Is this wizardry?” No!

Our approach was a deep focus on business engagement and user communications, which really eased the transition and bought us a lot of goodwill – especially when things were a little… wonky.

This success story highlights how good planning and user-friendly communication can make a significant organisational change easier for everyone.