ICT Environments Planning Objectives 2009

Prepared by: Dr Markus Buchhorn
Director, ICT Environments
Date: 27 November 2008
Version: 1.0

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Role Statement

The Director, ICT Environments, carries University-wide responsibility for ensuring staff and students work in environments enriched by innovative ICT based infrastructures and services and that they are empowered to integrate ICT in every aspect of their academic endeavours. Key areas include Research Information Infrastructure and 'e-Research', Education Technologies, and Collaboration Services. More specifically, the portfolio provides technological support to the entire ANU community through the Division for a range of services in-common, as well as the outreach, skills and help to make effective use of those services. This includes academic and general staff as well as students, performing their functions as researchers, teachers, learners and administrators.

At an operational level, these various functions are performed through three service programs: Digital Resource Services, Information Services Support, and Outreach. Although services are provided through these programs and accountability for their delivery rests squarely with them, in practice there are strong day-to-day dependencies on the other programs within the highly integrated structure of the Division of Information.

The following summary details the planning objectives ICT Environments will pursue in 2009.

Planning Objectives for 2009

Cost Effectiveness

To improve cost-effectiveness of ANU investment in Information Services through identification of, and support for, services best delivered in-common:

• The ongoing implementation of recommendations from the IIS-08 review, plus subsequent College reviews and other enhancements to University planning processes.
• The development of an improved Information Services governance model for the ANU through the UISC, the Academic Systems AAC, various College committees, and any emerging new entities and structures.

Platforms and Services

To enhance the platforms and services that underpin the education processes at the ANU, improving the experience and flexibility for both teachers and learners and those involved in their support:

• The accelerating deployment of a new Learning Management System to replace our current WebCT platform. The new platform will tackle some of the many requirements identified by users over the last years, and allow the University to move towards a much more flexible environment.
• The upgrading of our Lecture Recording Infrastructure (DLD), in part supported by a BURF grant, to provide richer capture of audio, lecture visuals and in some cases room video. This will be integrated with the current and new LMS platforms as well as other delivery channels the University supports (downloads, podcasts, iTunesU and others)

Curation and Preservation of Materials

To provide a framework for the curation and preservation of materials, to support the appropriate discovery, access, and re-use of all of the University's creative outputs:

• The further development of an institutional Repository Framework, providing a set of integrated facilities designed to support long term retention of University outputs (publications, creative outputs, research data, educational materials) in the middle as a service in-common and integrating with discipline-specific environments.
• The enhancement of the Scholars Keep, building on the Repository Framework, providing services for high-quality and significantly easier submission, curation and access to materials.
• The development of an Electronic Thesis submission process, providing support for the complex workflows associated with the assessment of theses, to simplify and accelerate the process, and to automate their retention in the University's online collection.

Services to Support Online Collaboration

To develop a deeply-integrated set of services to support online collaboration, on- and offcampus:

• The roll-out of a unified framework for realtime videoconferencing services, including desktop to large-room systems, as well as support for low-bandwidth webbased systems.
• The further enhancement of non-realtime web-based collaboration systems such as Alliance, and linking it with the LMS and Document Management processes.
• The ongoing work with high-performance network infrastructure provision opportunities for regional, national and international connectivity to support all forms of online collaboration.

Visualisation Systems and Environments

To coordinate access to and support of a range of visualisation systems and environments for research data analysis and research training:

• The creation of a University-wide users group for visualisation requirements to take advantage of existing and planned specialist facilities, provided centrally and within Colleges.

Services for Skills Development and Support

To continue to enhance the services for skills development and support of the entire University user community:

• The ongoing evolution of the Division's award-winning training and support services to make them scale even further, for face-to-face training and the increasing provision of online self-training material.

Internal and External Communication and Marketing Services

To enhance a range of ANU internal/external communication and marketing services:

• The deployment of a new University-wide Information Services website, built on top of a large-scale Knowledge Base, with content published from the Division, other areas and from Colleges as appropriate, and integrated with the wider University website replacement, to support ANU users.
• The further development of the Scholars Gate (formerly RP3) service to provide a rich and deeply integrated search service across the University's research and education activities, expertise and outputs, to support a range of external audiences.
• The creation of a single Audio/Visual design and production unit, to support a range of research and education activities, as well as supporting strategic communication needs for the University through MAC and CELO.

ANU Research Community Support and University Profile

To further support the ANU research community, and enhance the profile of the University, through direct participation in national and international research infrastructure initiatives:

• Participation of key staff in national programs, including membership of the National eResearch Architecture Taskforce (NeAT), leadership roles in the Australian National Data Service (ANDS), the leadership and hosting of Australia's peak computing facility for research through the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), and participation in the Australian Research Collaboration Services program (ARCS).
• Participation in various international research collaborations for support of particular disciplines, e.g. the Bamboo project for Humanities, IVOA for Astronomy, as well as projects for the development and support of information infrastructure, e.g., NSF initiatives in the US, JISC programs in the UK, and various European initiatives.