OXFORD UNIVERSITY COLLEGES IT GROUP

 

A meeting of the Colleges’ IT Group was held on Tuesday 1st May 2007.  Jo Ashbourn, the Chair of the Colleges’ IT Group, chaired the meeting and the following people attended the meeting:

 

 

Name

College

Jo Ashbourn

(Chair University Colleges’ IT Group)

St Cross

Richard Wain

All Souls

Ian Plummer

Balliol

Jonathan Marks

Exeter

Esther Aguti

Kellogg

Ben Bridle

Lady Margaret Hall

Saroj Shrestha

Linacre

Mike White

Lincoln

John Veness

Magdalen

Lee Wootton

Mansfield

Simon Thomson

Pembroke

Chris Bamber

Somerville

Mike Hayward

Somerville

Mike Lakatos

St Edmund Hall

Stephen Gower

Wolfson

Karen James

Worcester

 

In Attendance:

 

Tony Brett

OUCS

Fran Jackson (Minutes)

OUCS

Dave Price

OULS

Richard Saxton

OUCS

 

Apologies for Absence:

 

Matt Jennings

St John’s

David Rischmiller

OUCS

Jeremy Worth

ITSS

 

401 MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING

 

The Minutes of the meeting held on 1st February 2007 were accepted as correct.

 

402 MATTERS ARISING

 

Minute 397 – Proposed Web Managers’ Conference

 

There was nothing further to report at this stage.

 

403 CHAIR’S REPORT

Jo Ashbourn produced a written report.  She added that the CITG will not report to the Conference of Colleges' Finance and General Purposes Committee as previously stated, but it will report instead directly to the Conference of Colleges' Estates Bursars’ Committee since the Conference of Colleges felt that this would be a more practical way of reporting for prompt actions, and since reports would be referred up to the F&GP in due course. Jo Ashbourn also reported that at the time of the meeting, the web-managers mailing lists were now up to date for college representatives.

404 COMPUTING SERVICES REPORT

 

Jane Littlehales produced a written report.  There was nothing further to report.

405 LIBRARIES REPORT

 

Dave Price produced a written report.  He stated that the continued implementation of the New Library Management System was going well and that OULS were very confident that this would go live on 3rd September 2007 as stated in his report.  He also reiterated the fact that there would be a large support team ready when it went live for any problems which might arise. 

 

It was reported that the Oxford Research Archive (ORA) was now live and flourishing and that it already included e-prints and e-theses.  Jo Ashbourn raised the issue of data protection.  Dave Price stated that there were a number of copyright issues that had to be overcome, especially since the information would generally be available worldwide, although there would be limited access to anything from the Oxford University Press.  WebAuth would be the most likely mode of authentication for the limited areas.

 

Jo Ashbourn also asked about the Intellectual Property issues regarding students' theses and articles.  Dave Price could not confirm how far advanced they were on this point, although he was confident that it would certainly be addressed in the project managers' remit.

406 REPORT FROM OTHER COMMITTEES AND GROUPS

 

406.1 IT Support Staff Group

 

There was no report produced although a link to the minutes of the last meeting of the group were placed online with the agenda.  Tony Brett, who was representing the ITSS Group, stated that the ITSS Conference booking facility should be available by the end of that week and that they were keen to promote the Mentoring Scheme - more information relating to this would be available soon.

 

407 JOINT MEETING IN MICHAELMAS WITH COMMITTEE OF COLLEGE LIBRARIANS (AND ANY RELEVANT ARCHIVISTS)

 

It had been a suggestion from the Chair of the Committee of College Librarians (CCL) that they might meet with the CITG once a year in Michaelmas Term to share any relevant information of interest to both groups.  After an initial meeting with the Chair of the CCL which included the Chair of the CITG, Jo Ashbourn, and two other CITG representatives, John Ireland and Jonathan Marks, it was agreed that it would be a good idea to meet once a year and that the CCL would join the CITG at the beginning of the Michaelmas CITG meeting to discuss anything of joint relevance.  Once all such items had been discussed, the librarians and archivists would leave and the CITG meeting would continue with its own independent business. 

 

John Veness wondered why a joint meeting with the Libraries Committee was needed any more than one with any other committees, but as Jo Ashbourn had explained, the librarians had approached the CITG and the proposal would be tried to see if communication would improve and to see whether more knowledge could be gained to pass on to IT users regarding the Libraries' services.  She also stated that if there were no joint matters arising, then there would be no need for the librarians to join the CITG meeting. Everyone was in agreement to try such a joint meeting in Michaelmas Term.

 

408 SOFTWARE LICENSING GROUP

 

Steve Kersley had suggested that it would be a good idea to have representation on the Software Licensing Group.  Jo Ashbourn pointed out that Sarah Lawson of Harris Manchester was already a member of that committee and that perhaps Sarah might be prepared to report back on anything relevant to the CITG.  Richard Saxton, the Chair of the Software Licensing Group, stated that Sarah had already indicated that she would be willing to do this.  Jo Ashbourn agreed that she would formally write to Sarah and ask her to do this. [Sarah has now agreed to do this.]

 

409 UNIVERSITY-WIDE WEB REVIEW

 

Jo Ashbourn stated that the feeling within the University is that its web presence needs a massive overhaul, particularly the Central Administration pages, and that a more coherent structure to the main wesite is needed.  There is therefore to be a scoping survey to decide whether this is in fact desirable and practical and if so, to obtain ideas and feedback.  Tony Brett suggested that this should also include other central service-providing units and that it may be that the University wants a unified way of presenting resources.  Hopefully this scoping survey will be a way of seeing whether such a web review would be both feasible and practical.

 

410 ITEMS RAISED BY REPRESENTATIVES

 

There were no items raised.

411 ANY OTHER BUSINESS

 

There was no other business

412 DATE OF NEXT MEETING (FIRST PART JOINTLY WITH LIBRARIANS/ARCHIVISTS)

 

Tuesday 16th October 2007, Isis Room, OUCS, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6NN at 14.15.