Corporate Information & Computing Services.

CiCSAnnualReport2010.

Director’s ReportWelcome to the 2010 CiCS Annual Report. It contains reports from our seven service areas, linked by our four cross cutting themes for the year which are: reduced complexity; green IT; resilience and doing more with less. I hope you find it both interesting and informative.

This year has been an interesting one for us – but not always in the best way! We have had many successes, with a number of notable projects and initiatives coming to fruition, most of which are mentioned in this report.

Other things haven’t gone as well. We had a major staff email outage in August, and during Fresher’s week suffered a number of problems with systems including on-line registration and timetabling. These issues were due to a variety of different factors – some, like hardware failures, completely outside of our control. We are always very sorry for the inconvenience these disruptions to service cause our customers, and it goes without saying that we do not welcome them either. However, it is at times like these that our incident management and communication procedures are put into place, and staff from all areas come together to solve problems. I am very grateful to all of the staff involved, some working very long and unsocial hours to restore services as soon as possible.

Part of our service management system involves looking at the root cause of problems, and we have spent a great deal of time in the past year investigating these and other service issues with the intention of fixing any underlying problems, and putting in place measures to ensure that they do not happen again.

We are also looking to change the way we deliver services - last year saw the successful move of student email and calendars to Google and this year we began the migration of staff to Google apps. This marks an exciting transition from providing all of our services in-house to a more mixed service delivery model using outsourced and out-hosted provision where appropriate. This will ensure that we can continue to concentrate our support on the core activities of teaching and learning and research.

This year also marks my second as Chair of UCISA, and I have also been involved in a number of external activities, including membership of HEFCE and UUK steering groups, and attending many national and international conferences. I am as ever indebted to my colleagues, especially the CiCS Executive, who have supported me in this and looked after things whist I have been away from the Department.

Finally, I would like to thank the people I have had the pleasure of working with throughout the year: CiCS staff for their hard work, dedication and professionalism; and staff from many other departments with whom we collaborate and work in partnership to provide our services.

Christine Sexton

Learning and TeachingOur priorities for learning and teaching are: to improve the quality of teaching space and to maximise its usage; to introduce systems and services that support innovative teaching; and to realise our commitment to provide the best possible learning experience for students.

The facilities available in each teaching space are listed and described in detail in our new guide to teaching spaces. This allows lecturers to make informed choices about which spaces meet their teaching needs. Each teaching space is also equipped with an instruction booklet describing how to use the display equipment in that space.

We are improving the efficiency of room booking and timetabling processes with a Common Timetabling project. Although the 2010 pilot encountered problems, we are working with departments to implement the lessons learned for a more successful pilot in 2011. In addition, we have worked with some departments to allow them to produce individualised student timetables which can be made available electronically via Google calendar and to mobile devices.

Supporting Innovative TeachingThe refurbishment of teaching spaces has been achieved in close collaboration with the Faculty Directors of Learning and Teaching. This has helped us ensure that the AV equipment chosen will meet the needs of faculty teaching staff.

We are currently piloting teaching on laptops in the Faculty of Science as part of our ongoing commitment to develop and adapt the Managed Desktop service to meet the changing needs of teaching.

Teaching Space QualityCiCS has refurbished rooms ME03 and ME04, which form the St George’s IT Centre. This now offers 188 PCs in a large open space, which can be used to teach large groups. For smaller events, the room is equipped with a movable wall, which allows it to be divided into two smaller teaching spaces.

The Perak Computer Suite has also been refurbished to offer students a high quality learning space. Our rolling programme of room refurbishment will ensure that all computer rooms on campus will be updated to equal the quality and experience offered by the Information Commons.

The flexi-space in the IC has also been refurbished with new, movable desks and chairs and collaborative equipment.

To make it easier for teaching staff to book innovative teaching spaces, CiCS has taken on support for the collaboratories developed by CILASS. This brings them into the pool of teaching spaces available to staff.

Doing more with less:A directory of teaching spaces and instructions on using the equipment in each space allow teaching staff to use the equipment without help from an AV technician.

Common Timetabling lets us make more efficient use of space.

To promote interactive learning and teaching, we have introduced the new group response software Turning Point. Academic staff are already using it in a variety of interesting ways.

To support this, and any other applications of innovative teaching we now offer a dedicated advice-line at teaching-tech@sheffield.ac.uk

Student Learning ExperienceThe replacement online learning environment, MOLE2, has enjoyed a very successful pilot. The first stage roll out will begin in September 2011 to around half of academic departments.

To help students with their group-study work we now loan a range of audio-visual display equipment.

We have also made changes to improve the experience of using our learning spaces:

• We launched on-line payments for printing to make it easier for students to top-up and manage their printing credit.

• We made all the computers in the Information Commons bookable so that students can reserve PCs, and IC staff can log people off unattended PCs making them available for waiting students.

Reduced complexity: CILASS collaboratories are now in the pool of bookable teaching spaces with our other rooms.

Students can pay for printing online.

Facts and Figures:

• 36 student computer rooms provided by CiCS

• 1,609 computers available for student use

• 502 computers available 24/7 in the Information Commons

• 218 bookable PCs in the Information Commons and 13 bookable group rooms

• 275 software applications on student computers

• £817,000 p.a. spent on software purchase and licensing

• 201 pool teaching rooms available through Room Bookings

• 30,000 class sessions allocated to bookable rooms and an average of 100 room enquiries daily

• 6 teaching spaces refurbished with new AV equipment

• 20,000 students using MOLE on a regular basis, accessing 3,000 online modules

• MOLE running on 10 servers

• 7,436,869 pages printed out by students

• 48 printers available in the IC, open access rooms and libraries and 38 printers in departments for students

Research and InnovationOur priorities for research and innovation are: to increase support for researchers; to facilitate improved collaboration; and to increase our support for both technical and non-technical researchers.

Support for ResearchCiCS research support staff work on the cutting edge of technology. During 2010 we have been helping research groups move their models on to graphical processing units (GPUs).

GPUs are graphics cards that instead of controlling each pixel on a computer screen have been adapted to perform numerical calculations. The processors on the central high performance computer facility, Iceberg, offer 32 threads of computational operation, whereas GPUs theoretically offer 64,000 threads of operation.

Reduced complexity:Web-based portals allow researchers to run simulations without needing to learn complex software

During 2010 we have been converting existing systems to run on GPUs and we have also been building new GPU systems.

The solar physics group runs large models on Iceberg to study wave propagation and vibrations in the solar corona, and CiCS staff are rewriting the code for GPUs.

The computing biology group in Computer Science is building realistic and useful models of biological phenomena from the molecular level, to the cellular, tissue, organismal and social levels. The group has used a modelling environment on Iceberg, and CiCS is helping migrate this to GPUs.

Improved CollaborationThe Research Computing Advisory Group is being reorganised into the Research and Innovation Service Advisory Group. Academic and Professional Services staff will guide CiCS in shaping our research support. This will raise the profile of our research support and will broaden membership.

Increased collaboration has enabled us to negotiate new models of software licensing. By sharing and centralising platform licenses for expensive research software we are able to significantly cut costs by allocating licenses on demand.

We are also negotiating a new deal for Matlab licenses and have introduced Linux-only platform licenses for the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) collection of mathematical and statistical algorithms.

Non-Technical ResearchersWe have been working with research groups to prepare bids that include funding for dedicated support time from CiCS. Following two successful bids, a member of our research support team spends time each week working with the research group.

In return we were able to recruit two part-time research support staff from different University research groups. These staff are helping us develop web-based support tools which will benefit the entire University research community.

Green IT:Iceberg automatically powers down any processors that are not being used.

Researchers in the CAIMAN (Cancer Image Analysis) project developed a user-friendly web-page where any person can upload cancer-related images and execute analysis algorithms and obtain quantitative measurements. The algorithms are performed on Iceberg and CiCS research support staff developed a toolkit to enable other researchers to control their own models running on Iceberg using web interfaces.

This toolkit is now available for all researchers to share their applications. Many applications developed to run on Iceberg can now easily be controlled by anyone using a web interface.

Doing more with less:Our research support staff spend time helping research groups. In exchange, members of research groups spend time helping us.

New centralized models of software licensing allow us to share licenses and cut costs.

Facts and Figures:

• 1 Gb/s dedicated internet connection for grid computing and scientific computing

• Iceberg processor cores: 568

• Iceberg performance : 435GFLOPs

• Iceberg total main memory: 2.296TB

• Iceberg filestore: 8 TB

• Iceberg temporary disk space: 18TB

• Iceberg power consumption: 36KW

Communication and CollaborationOur priorities for communication and collaboration are: to improve the resilience of the communication infrastructure; and to introduce new technology and services to ensure that staff and students have access to the widest range of cutting edge collaboration and communication tools.

Communication InfrastructureAs part of our continued development we are moving parts of the University over to IP based telephony, with 400 phones now using this technology.

IP telephony means calls are carried over the resilient computer network rather than phone lines. Not only does this require less cabling and hardware than traditional phone lines but also offers efficiency gains. With IP telephony you can connect 400 IP phones to a network card, with traditional phones you can connect just 24.

Over the last year we have improved the quality of Video Conferencing facilities that are used by a wide range of people and groups. We are currently installing a Personal Access Grid system in the Norfolk Room. The aim is to use the existing hardware but to offer both JVCS and Access Grid facilities in one room.

New Technology Softphones have also been piloted in a number of areas across the University. A softphone is a piece of software that performs all the tasks of your deskphone but through your computer. Medicine IT staff use softphones as a means of covering the CiCS helpdesk remotely from their own offices.

We have also changed the way we receive bills for University mobile phone calls. We have moved from receiving 1 paper bill per mobile phone to receiving just 1 electronic bill for the whole University and then recharging departments, as this is a more effective and cost efficient means of processing payments.

We have improved the ease of finding information in uSpace through the simple addition of an individually tailored weekly email detailing relevant changes that have taken place to documents, spaces and groups

Green IT:IP telephony requires less hardware than standard telephony.

Softphones are used for remote CiCS helpdesk cover.

Billing has been moved from 1 paper bill per mobile phone to 1 electronic bill for whole University.

Meetings increasingly held by video conferencing reduce travel costs.

New ServicesThe final preparations are complete for the upgrade to the web content management system. University web editors are being presented with a modern word-processor style editor which allows web pages to be formatted using toolbar buttons and pictures to be inserted from a shared image library.

Similarly, the new email service for staff based on Google Mail is being rolled out. With 7.5 gigabytes of secure mail storage space, it offers a state of the art email interface but still allows staff to use email software such as Thunderbird, Outlook or Mac Mail.

Once the email service has been successfully rolled out we will deploy a brand new calendar service for the whole University. Google Calendar is fully integrated with the new email service and allows people to maintain multiple calendars, making each calendar visible or invisible to different groups of colleagues.

Finally, the development of the replacement portal continues. Due for the start of the next academic year, it will offer a contemporary interface allowing staff and students to add and arrange a host of University and external applications to their personal portal interface.

Facts and Figures:

• 43.9 million email messages sent to Sheffield addresses, of which:

• 2.6 million delivered

• 94.1% rejected as spam

• With IP telephony you can connect 400 IP phones to a network card, with traditional phones you can connect just 24

• 10,000 telephone extensions

• 6,000 voicemail accounts

• 850 mobile telephones provided by the University

• 3 Access Grid Video Conferencing facilities provided by CiCS

Help and SupportOur priorities for help and support are: to improve access to our help and support by providing self-service and remote access facilities; to work more closely with those who provide IT support within the faculties; and to better target our training.

Self Service and Remote AccessThe CiCS helpdesk continues to operate a busy telephone helpline. To further improve access to help and support we have been promoting the use of alternative avenues to IT support throughout 2010.

Our Live Support service offers staff and students an instant messaging conversation with a helpdesk analyst to discuss the problem or issue. Following the chat session each person is presented with a feedback form to evaluate chat service and the response has been very positive.

During the chat session, the customer has the opportunity to transfer control of their computer over to the helpdesk analyst over the network. This allows us to make complicated configuration changes without the customer needing to bring their computer to the Computing Centre.

We have also improved the telephone queuing system so that during an incident the outgoing message can be updated quickly, giving customers the information they need before we even pick up the call.

We have improved the efficiency of the Service Status page and our Twitter service, both of which are now automatically populated from our central helpdesk software. During an email failure last year the service status page received 39,000 visits in a single day.

www.shef.ac.uk/cics/status

We are also promoting self-service, available 24 hours a day on the Staff Applications tab in MUSE. Staff can search a knowledgebase of over 450 frequently asked questions. Queries which are not answered in the knowledgebase can then be submitted to a helpdesk analyst for a personalised response.

IT Support in FacultiesThe strategic liaison service is now well established. It gives senior faculty members the opportunity to meet regularly with the CiCS Executive to discuss current issues as well as long term planning objectives for IT services.

The operational liaison service allows CiCS helpdesk staff to develop links with faculty IT support technicians. This paid dividends during the email outage experience earlier in the year, when faculty technicians working closely with helpdesk staff were able to field problems locally whilst keeping channels open to the helpdesk.

Doing more with less:Self-service lets staff and students help themselves without needing to consult a CiCS Analyst.

The drop-in service and workshop have been streamlined to provide a better service for Staff and Students

Targetted TrainingCiCS is also working with faculties to assess their training requirements.

We have already started a review of training. We will be evaluating how to improve induction, assess training needs and deliver relevant and focussed training.

The first tangible outcome from this is likely to be a tailored training programme for the launch of the new University calendar service based on Google Calendar. A suite of training options will be offered to the different user groups identified within each faculty.

We are also introducing bespoke Customer Service training for our own staff. To improve the one-to-one support that staff receive from the helpdesk we have introduced call monitoring to ensure a consistent, high quality experience for all helpdesk users.

We have also introduced a weekly customer satisfaction survey to all users who have called the Helpdesk in the past week. The feedback so far has been very positive.

Facts and Figures:

• 48,641 phone calls, emails and visits to CiCS helpdesk, IT Centres, the workshop and networking staff in 2010

• 23,422 phone enquiries handled at the helpdesk

• 17,982 email responses sent from helpdesk

• 450 knowledgebase articles written

• 3487 knowledgebase searches

• 412 queries logged through self-service

• 1177 Instant Message and Remote Assistance sessions

• 39,000 hits to service status page in one day during email outage

• 743 followers on Twitter

Infrastructure

Our priorities for the IT infrastructure are: to improve the resilience of key services; to increase data storage capacity; and to improve environmental management.

ResilienceWe continue to improve resilience by moving more services onto virtual servers, in which one physical computer behaves as if it were multiple (virtual) computers. If a fault develops, services can be quickly transferred onto a new virtual server.

Virtualisation is facilitated by two technologies: Windows-based VMware and Linux-based Solaris Zones. This year we introduced new hardware for VMware and upgraded the software. We have also moved major systems, including the main CIS database and SAP onto Solaris Zones.

Resilience:We are steadily virtualising more services

Dual network paths have been implemented further round the campus.

Bringing data aggregation centres into the machine rooms removes single points of failure.

We continue to improve the resilience of the campus network by setting up dual paths around the campus. This means that if a network cable is broken the network connection can continue to function via an alternative route.

We are continuing to remove single points of failure, bringing important network components, such as data aggregation centres, away from isolated areas of the campus in our resilient machine rooms.

In addition many more networked services are now fed via our resilient network load balancers.

Increased StorageResilient, networked data storage is always expensive. For the quantities of data used at the University, commercial storage solutions are no less expensive than the costs we recharge to departments.

However, CiCS has managed to acquire cheaper storage and much more of it and we are in the process of deploying it.

We have also improved the efficiency and reliability of our data backup regime, taking four isolated systems and merging these into a single system.

In addition to storage capacity we have made improvements to network capacity. We are also trying to eliminate illegal file sharing; although the equipment required to achieve this is in itself an expensive overhead for the University.

Doing more with less:As a result of feedback, CiCS has reduced the cost of purchasing additional storage.

Environmental ManagementVirtualisation has reduced our collection of 130 servers (small, thin and stacked like a column of pizza boxes) into only 4 large servers (each built like a washing machine).

Taking into account the reduced hardware, power and cooling costs, server virtualisation has reduced our 5 year energy costs from over £500,000 to less than £150,000.

To further reduce our environmental impact we are restructuring our data centres to make them more efficient. This has involved changes to the physical layout of the rooms, involving more densely racking our equipment and disposing of tower machines to dramatically improve our space utilisation.

This concentrates the production of heat into a smaller volume of air which can be more efficiently cooled using “hot aisle containment”. Containment can be achieved using perspex tunnelling or cheaper plastic curtaining.

We are systematically repositioning servers within the machine room to create hot and cold channels. Servers are moved during scheduled maintenance periods so that no additional down time is experienced. The next stage is to implement the hot aisle containment coupled with an air conditioning refresh to allow us to maximise our potential savings.

Green IT:Virtualisation and hot aisle cooling have reduced our 5 year energy costs by £350,000.

Facts and Figures:

• over 1,500 outlets added to the network this year (5% increase in size of network on last year)

• 390 wireless access points around campus (30% increase on last year)

• 2,000 wireless devices connected at peak times

• 2 Gb/s University connection to the internet, 1 Gb/s on campus and to student residences and 1 Gb/s for grid computing and scientific computing

• Connections into the core have been doubled from 1 Gb/s to 2 Gb/s

• Key buildings, such as the Information Commons, have dedicated 2 Gb/s connections into the core

Corporate InformationOur priorities for corporate information are: to make information available to new devices and in new formats; and to change existing systems to meet external requirements and to comply with legislation.

Information AvailabilityThe CampusM mobile app has been extended to all mobile phones with web access. Following the original iPhone version, we introduced a fully-featured version for Blackberry devices. We then introduced a web-browser ‘lite’ version, offering the most popular features of CampusM, to all mobile phones with web browsers.

Doing more with less:CampusM has enabled us to make information available to mobile phones without rewriting any of our systems.

Next we will introduce another fully-featured version of CampusM for Android-based mobile phones.

In addition to working with the application developers, we have set up a user community so that CampusM users from a variety of UK Universities can work together to shape the future direction of CampusM.

We have also extended the reach of information available via CIS to Macintosh and Linux computers, as well as making it compatible with all versions of Java. This was achieved via a technical upgrade in July. We also launched a ‘look and feel’ upgrade in January 2011 which gave the CIS a more modern interface and made it much simpler to use.

System ChangesMuch work has taken place this year to make improvements to existing systems and services driven by feedback from University staff. Where possible we have reduced the complexity of systems to make them easier to use.

We upgraded the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system across the University, helping Academic Departments and Student Recruitment and Admissions to interact more easily with potential future students.

To further improve our relationship with future students we are developing the Enquirer and Applicants Portal. Based on market-leading LifeRay technology the portal will allow potential students to collate tailored information about the University and discuss options with peers as well as University representatives. A second portal based on LifeRay is also being developed as a replacement for the current staff and student portal at the University.

We have completed the first stage of the SAP upgrade and have rewritten eRecruitment forms A and B to speed up the part of the internal recruitment process in which approval for new posts is sought.

Legal ComplianceDue to changes in the Points Based System (PBS) for immigration all educational institutions must report to the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) any international student who is absent from 10 ‘contact points’. A record of a student’s attendance must be stored and may be requested by the UKBA. The University Senate has agreed to monitor attendance of both home and international students.

Under the Student Attendance Monitoring project, CiCS has provided a full solution for PBS. This not only complies with legal requirements but also helps us support students in general. We are now able to easily identify students who are struggling on courses and who are choosing to miss out on lectures and seminars.

Reduced complexity:The CIS look and feel upgrade offers users a more intuitive interface.

The CRM upgrade lets the University interact more easily with future students.

Facts and Figures:

• £6,000,000+ in student fees processed by CiCS in Freshers’ week, 24-28 September

• 29,000+ student records maintained in a central database

• 2,500 reports in the uReports system, in which staff can now create their own reports from central data

• 40 servers and 40 databases used for SAP

Business ActivityOur priorities for business activity are: to project manage the efficient introduction of new services; to improve the environmental impact of printing; and to invest in the business units to offer the highest quality services in a competitive market.

Portfolio and Project Management CiCS has a broad projects portfolio which is managed by the CiCS Service Strategy Board (SSB) and the user-led Service Advisory Groups. Reviewing and improving business processes is key to the success of a project and we are working with other departments to develop a straightforward approach to supporting this.

Doing more with less:Improving business processes lets us increase efficiency before we implement IT services.

Bringing the Drama Studio and Octagon Centre under the single management of Performance Venues offers efficiency gains.

CiCS is currently managing 16 major projects and has completed and closed several projects during 2010. Notable successes have been New Email and Calendaring for Students, Student Attendance Monitoring, eRecruitment, International Institutions Database and the Abode2 Private Sector Housing system.

Environmental Printing The University Print Management Team is working to reduce the environmental impact of printing and have performed print audits with SOMLAL and Safety Services. They are also working with contracted suppliers and have delivered a trial audit report to CiCS, HR, Procurement and Animal & Plant Sciences. The team have rationalised the range of print devices available to buy and through co-ordinated paper procurement the team have identified savings for the University.

The University Print Service is developing web-to-print services for University staff and students to support 24/7 ordering. The service has also introduced an automated workflow process to reduce costs, increase efficiency and support integration with web-to-print.

Green IT:Departmental print audits are reducing the environmental impact of printing.

Investing in Business UnitsThis year the operation of the Drama Studio and the Octagon Centre has been brought together under the single management of Performance Venues.

Both venues have seen substantial upgrades and refurbishments. Rearrangement of the facilities for the Drama Studio has allowed work to be done on the rehearsal block with the creation of an extra rehearsal studio and an accessible toilet; existing facilities have been expanded and redecorated. The Octagon Centre has seen the first phase of upgrading Convocation Hall with the provision of new steps to improve the visual appearance and access to its stages and new internal doors throughout.

At the end of 2010 Transport Services and Parking Services relocated to fit within the new structure of Estates and Facilities Management. We wish them well.

The number of people seeking access to their own personal information has remained stable but there is a growth in queries regarding personal data collected via the Web, and data being held off-site by third parties.

During 2010, the University Archive has provided material for the centenary of the Department of Philosophy, two Alumni events, an exhibition charting the development of the Western Bank Library and the visit of HM The Queen.

Facts and Figures:

• 50 tonnes of paper photocopied at University Print Service

• 11 million pages printed in total by the University Print Service

• 1,175 network printers in the University

• 6,035 Thesis bound each year

• 2,734 orders taken for customers by the University Print Service

• The Octagon Centre had a turnover of £172,000 in 2009-2010. About 33% was from external bookings

• The Octagon Centre was occupied on 228 days last year

• 42 productions put on at the Drama Studio in 2010

• 16 major projects being run by CiCS

“We will be an innovative and influential department, respected by the University and recognised as a leader in the sector, delivering excellent customer-focused services.”

Corporate Information & Computing Services The University of Sheffield 285 Glossop Road Sheffield S10 2HB United Kingdom

T: 0114 222 1111

www.sheffield.ac.uk/cics

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