Abstracts Day 2

 

Accessibility audits: Terrifying opportunities for change
Andrew Millar, Head of Web Services, University of Dundee; and Paddy Callaghan, Head of Web Services, Leeds Trinity University

Website and mobile accessibility regulations came into force on 23 September 2018. Public sector bodies have a legal obligation to meet accessibility requirements for their websites/apps. To check how well public sector bodies are meeting the requirements, the Government Digital Service (GDS), part of the Cabinet Office, is carrying out audits of public sector websites and mobile apps.

 

Implementing AI in Higher Education: A Case Study of Newcastle University's Discovery Process and Considerations
Abduljaber Abdulqader, Data Architect, Newcastle University

The presentation explores AI's potential to enhance operational efficiency in higher education, focusing on Newcastle University. We'll discuss a discovery workflow identifying key factors for AI implementation in the sector. Based on a staff development programme, the study centred on marketing and communication teams, using workshops to identify processes where AI could streamline operations and address pain points. Key aspects include:

  • Discovery process overview
  • Analysis of university process pain points
  • Essential stages for AI implementation
  • Strategies for determining AI investment areas
  • Prerequisites for AI adoption
  • Potential barriers and solutions
  • Importance of data architecture
  • Best practices for informed decision-making

This presentation offers valuable insights for institutions considering AI implementation, providing a practical framework for assessment and strategic planning.

 

Partner Showcase session - 10:40

  • How Higher Education IT Can Revolutionise IT Services with AI Operations
    Phil Taphouse, VP and Centre of Excellence Head – ServiceNow, NTT DATA Business Solutions

    This presentation will explore the transformative potential of AI powered IT and Digital Operations in Higher Education. With IT estates as large as most enterprises and the mission of operating mission critical services from back-office finance to lecture room, campus networks to cloud infrastructure, the use of AI Operations can bring new levels of operational intelligence, availability, experience and operational efficiency to Higher Education IT teams. Phil Taphouse, NDBS Global Leader for Service Operations, will bring his experience of helping some of the world’s most digitally dependent organisations transform their service operations capabilities, platforms and process, will cover actionable strategies and insights into best practice service operations to help you enhance your AI-driven capabilities. Join us for inspiration and insights to the benefits of transforming service operations to deliver an IT environment fit for the future. 

    Future-Ready IT Teams: A Strengths-Based Success Story
    Carley Brown, Consultant, Strengthify and Rosey Murdie, Head of Digital Transformation, University of Westminster

    This 20-minute session will explore how a strengths-based approach is being utilised within the IT Team at the University of Westminster to boost staff engagement and performance. Attendees will receive an overview of the strategic aims behind this initiative and a detailed explanation of its implementation. The session will highlight key outcomes of leveraging individual and collective strengths, and how this approach is supporting the team to be future-ready. Participants will leave with practical insights and actionable strategies for applying a strengths-based methodology to their own teams, fostering a more engaged and high-performing workforce to support rapid changes in the workplace.

  • Testing Times - Enhancing Quality Assurance Whilst Surrounded by Chaos and Constraints!
    Dave Thomas, Head of Digital Solutions, Swansea University

    Dave will present how a test maturity roadmap was leveraged to advance test processes, including tooling, automation, and ensuring GDPR-compliant data management. These improvements were first implemented in the SRS program and are planned for rollout across all digital transformation initiatives.
    In this session, you will learn about:

    • The programme's background and drivers
    • The test maturity review and roadmap (based on the industry standard TMMi model)
    • A structured approach to achieving GDPR compliant test data management
    • The benefits of test automation
    • How configuring Azure DevOps brought increased efficiency
    • Key outcomes and lessons learned

 

An Industry Vision for Student Life, the Metaverse and What AI Will Bring
Tony Sheehan, Vice President, Analyst, Gartner

This session will explore how higher education will change by 2035 and review impacts on the existing university strategies, technology systems and CIO priorities. We will review the changing nature of the future university, as well as its technologies and practices.

Partner Showcases sessions - 12:15

  • Adapting for the future: Lessons from UEA's SITS Migration to Tribal's Cloud Platform
    Stephen Kirk, Associate Director of IT and Digital Lead, University of East Anglia Liz Butler, Consultant Senior Project Manager, Maxica Consulting

    The HE sector is facing into a headwind of change due to the shift towards cloud-based solutions. This presentation provides a “warts and all” walkthrough of UEA’s SITS migration to Tribal’s cloud-hosted platform covering:

    • Pre-requisites for migration including the upgrade path to cloud and the Case for Change.
    • Data handling strategies during transition
    • System integration strategies
    • The importance of collaboration and meticulous design to deliver a successful first-time migration.
    • Enhancing knowledge and internal capabilities.
    • Lessons adapting to a new Service Delivery Model and Security Design

    The session aims to provide valuable insight to help guide other institutions considering similar transitions.

  • Defending The Digital Campus
    David Conway, Director of Technical Services, University of Sunderland Johnathan Williamson, SaaS Director, TechnologyOne

    Join David and Johnathan as they explore Sunderland University’s successful recovery from a cyber security incident and how TechnologyOne’s SaaS Native solution helps keep them secure into the future.

  • Evolution Through Collaboration
    James Blair, Director Development & Operations, Univeristy of Stirling and Michelle Craig, Director of Marketing and Commercial Operations, AppsAnywhere

    Universities’ traditional operating models can be a barrier for adopting external innovation, critical to achieving student success. Universities must balance increasing demands, technology advancements, and compliance with budget pressures and limited resources. This fireside chat explores the evolving journey of the University of Stirling in gaining efficiencies through adapting and future-proofing their delivery models. They will share their lessons from the past and challenge how we rethink our delivery models to create a sustainable future. It’s a story of resilience, innovation, and adaptation, to continue to meet universities’ changing needs, student expectations and rapid technology development, now and going forward.

Strategic AI Adoption in Higher Education: A Journey in Productivity, Risk, and Innovation
Ryan Tyler, Head of Development and Data; Daniel Taylor Manager of Software Development, University of South Wales

This session highlights the University of South Wales’s journey in AI adoption, showcasing developments from in-house sentiment analysis tools for the National Student Survey to leveraging ChatGPT and Microsoft's CoPilot. We'll discuss the risks associated with AI implementation and why a focused AI strategy has become central to our approach. The session concludes with an interactive discussion on AI adoption and strategy.

Embedding Product-Led ITS Delivery
Bella Abrams, Director of IT Services and Sarah Boyd, Assistant Director Product Delivery, University of Sheffield

Adopting a product-led approach to ITS delivery, the University of Sheffield has recently aligned its Product and Delivery teams within IT Services to the University's Strategic Pillars. As a result, all planned activities, whether strategic initiatives or operational BAU, can be tied back to the support and achievement of the University's strategic goals. In this session, we will share the reasons for adopting this approach, challenges in making the change, the impact on our operating model and ability to deliver, and finally, the impact on the University.

Moving from doing Agile to being Agile
Lottie Robinson, Head of IT Product and Delivery, University of Central Lancashire

We started from a position where the word Agile was loaded with negative connotations and experiences. “Doing Agile” meant a lot of extra meetings with no value, reporting on Story Points that no-one really understood and specifications being carved up into User Stories. This session will share some of our experiences at the University of Central Lancashire from the past year where we have reset and shifted approach to focus on people, culture and embedding Agile principles and values and moving towards truly being Agile.

 

Breakout Sessions - 15:55

  • How sustainable is your website?
    Andrew Millar, Head of Web Services, University of Dundee and Harry Barnard, Solutions Architect, Manifesto

    In a world where reducing emissions across the board is becoming not only the norm, but essential, the University website represents the primary touch point for many in their interactions with your University. So just how much carbon is your website consuming? In this case study we’ll look at how we tracked our emissions across the many systems involved in running a University website to get a benchmark figure and then look at what tangible and meaningful behavioral and technical changes we can make to reduce them.

  • Product vs. Project in Higher Education
    Ashton Duncan-Whitelaw, Digital Product Manager, University of Glasgow

    This presentation explores the evolution from Project Management to Product Management in Higher Education, highlighting how Product Management emphasizes long-term value creation through ongoing innovation, continuous improvement, and user-centric design of educational tools and services. The talk showcases the benefits of adopting a Product Management toolset and mindset even within a traditional Project Management environment, adapting to changing stakeholder needs and an evolving digital landscape as well as ensuring sustainability in future.

  • Creating the golden thread: the project journey to implementing a portfolio management system
    Craig Chapman-Smith, Director of Strategy Implementation and Risk, University of Glasgow

    Like many institutions, the University of Glasgow often delivered change in siloes.  This made it challenging to see the whole picture, understand what levers can be pulled, drive robust decision making and track the delivery of strategic objectives and projects. In the last 6 months they have implemented a single platform and created a data “golden thread” through strategic objectives, KPIs, the business case template, risk registers, benefits logs and project delivery. The system is methodology agnostic and supports waterfall, academic, RIBA and Agile workflows.  This has unlocked the ability to provide reporting and insight and now plays a key role in strategy implementation and project delivery. This presentation is their journey and will include screenshots of the system/golden thread in action.

  • Implementing future-ready timetabling systems - from business case to go-live
    Jamie Thin, Timetabling Programme Manager, University of Edinburgh

    Case study of the journey at The University of Edinburgh - from legacy on-premises timetabling systems that didn't scale to the growth in student numbers , to implementation of the new SaaS Optime Timetabler, Booker and Exam applications from supplier EventMAP ltd , as new platform to drive improvements across the Teaching Timetabling and Exam scheduling services. This session will focus on the project delivery element, how The University of Edinburgh phased the API integration work to align with our longer-term Enterprise Architecture goals, and on the business benefits.

Breakout Sessions - 16:55

  • Building for the Future
    Sally Jorjani, PMO Manager, University of Stirling

    How the Information Services have transformed the infrastructure, information security, business systems, services and established a governance framework to deliver what the University requires now and into the future.

  • Accessibility: audits, maturity, ownership and change
    Claire Gibbons, Strategic Projects Manager, Leeds Trinity University, Andrew Millar, Head of Web Services and Paddy Callaghan, Head of Web Services, Leeds Trinity University, Robert Fowles, Head of Digital Channel Management, University of Birmingham and David Harrison, Web Services Team Leader, Lancaster University

    The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 came into force in September 2018, and public sector organisations are now being audited by the Government Digital Service to check their compliance. This community-led session, facilitated by the UCISA Web Services Group, will encourage participants to share their experiences of accessibility audits, as well as the maturity of their organisation with respect to digital accessibility more broadly, in order to pass on best practice, and discuss how to integrate accessibility into future developments to make our services more accessible to all.

  • Future-Proofing IT Architecture: A Framework for Continuous Evolution
    Steven Merkelt, Enterprise Architect, University of Warwick

    This session will explore a practical framework for building an IT architecture that can continuously adapt to the evolving needs of higher education. We'll discuss strategies for identifying future trends, evaluating emerging technologies (like AI and automation), and designing flexible and scalable systems. The session will include real-world case studies showcasing successful implementations of adaptable IT architectures in universities.

  • Preparing for Chatbots
    Dr Helen Dixon, Digital Transformation Programme Manager, Liam Maguire, Project Manager and Peter Hassard, Analyst/Developer, Queen's University Belfast

    Chatbots are one of the most innovative tools being used by universities to engage with staff and students with the ability to interact using natural language offering an enhanced user experience. However, the integration of generative AI capabilities presents unchartered possibilities and risks. While extending our use of chatbots, Queen’s University has also been considering the wider implications and how we can mitigate against emerging risks. This presentation will discuss the governance structure and wellbeing safeguards we are putting in place to allow us to use AI in a way that will benefit our users while limiting potential negative outcomes.