Emerging Leader
Outstanding leadership in a professional role and supporting diversity in the cyber security industry.
Nivedita (Nivi) has led the establishment and embedding of a mature cyber security governance and risk management practice at the University of NSW (UNSW), recruited an additional 6 team members (trebling the size of the team), and fostered a highly professional and collaborative culture through mentoring and coaching. Nivi has also established a pathway for UNSW cyber security students to gain experience within the broader cyber security function as part of their degree courses. Beyond her professional leadership at UNSW, Nivi has also shown industry leadership through its conception in 2021 to the establishment of the Tangible Uplift – Women in Cyber Security program, that is coaching approx. 50 women across Australia to pass the CISM exam in 2022, broadening and deepening their understanding of the diverse roles available within the industry and assisting them with career progression.
Jackie has a long track record of leading and supporting her colleagues. Her role in the CDIO Office often requires her to be the face, voice and representative of IT executive leaders as well and take carriage of a lot of the initiatives that come out of the CDIO office. In the last twelve or so months, following a significant organisational change, Jackie has led many initiatives that have supported the continued focus on People and Culture.
On behalf of the IT Management Team she led development, coordination and rollout of: • a new IT staff onboarding program (a requirement of all staff after the organisational • change), • a capability and skills initiative to determine training needs across the IT department to continue to drive up staff value, and • an initiative to focus on cultural growth to ensure that it maintains its currency.
Jackie has been instrumental in not only driving these initiatives but also supported both the IT executive team and IT staff in helping them navigate the process and affect the change.
Sri is a wonderful example of an emerging leader at La Trobe University. She has a breadth of experience and a degree of maturity that allows her to communicate, influence, engage and lead by leveraging her credibility, technical and business acumen and genuine empathy. I have been able to observe Sri’s quiet and understated leadership style first hand during my time at the University. I have observed Sri in many situations where she is considered with her opinion, capable of listening to all sides of an issue and make sensible and sound decisions based on the strategic imperatives of the University. Her ability to lead others to achieve great outcomes is first class. I have observed her create a new function within our Information Services Division around stakeholder management. She has been able to clearly articulate the value proposition of the work she is doing and through her quiet and engaging style, has managed to bring a disparate group of IT leaders along the journey with her. Equally, her unique style has meant that she has been able to influence to achieve her outcomes right the way across the IT workforce.
Transformational Leadership in leading Digital Workplace through disruptions
Sri inherited the Digital Workplace team, as Manager Digital Workplace, in the middle of the pandemic, a team of 15 that provisions and supports Audio Visual, Communications and Collaborative services and is the first point of contact for all AV-related incidents/requests relating to learning, teaching, and meeting spaces across the University.
Like the rest of the world, the University had pivoted overnight to online teaching and remote working. Sri led the Digital Workplace team through transformational, thought and servant leadership, effectively managing self and the team with empathy, grit, and bringing the team on the journey with resilience and instilling a mindset of agile to adapt to the changing and challenging environment which led us to embrace, thrive and set for success.
Following the implementation of a new operating model within IT Services, Luke Shaw has championed a series of initiatives to improve the operation and effectiveness of the IT Service Desk for staff and students of the University.
These initiatives include: • “Students as staff” - providing on campus job opportunities for current students • Implementation of a cloud-based contact centre (AWS Connect) • Development of a Self-Service strategy and roadmap • Launch of new physical walk-up service point – TechBar • New virtual agent and Live Chat options to deal with common student enquiries
Supporting students through provision of online learning materials It would be easy to assume that by now all textbooks would be available online. Unfortunately this is not the case; the UK Copyright Agency found that only around 10% of current academic titles are available online. Most are available by license, which restricts access to single use, or removes access at the end of the license period. This causes significant frustration for students, especially now when much of their learning is done online.
Recognising this problem, Veronica led a project to deliver access to online resources at no cost to Flinders University students. Leading her team to work intensively with topic coordinators, they delivered better access to online textbooks by understanding learning outcomes for each topic and sourcing appropriate online materials as alternatives to print textbooks. Not only has this work enriched topics and provided a better learning experience for our students, it has also saved them money.
One of University of Auckland’s (UoA) strategic priorities is to enhance customer (includes students, staff, researchers and alumni) experiences and ensure that solutions are designed with the customer in mind. Sanit has led out on numerous transformational activities to deliver this priority.
One such activity was to support students and staff that visit sites which is not part of the main campus ie. remote sites. The students and staff had network connectivity challenges whilst carrying out their teaching and learning which disrupted their work and they had to come back to one of the main campuses to synchronize their work, delaying any outputs and missing deadlines.
Sanit’s leadership to navigate and partner with faculties and services divisions allowed UoA to migrate towards a leading-edge software defined wide area network solution which provided flexible, reliable and seamless network connectivity for students and staff. Aside from solving the challenges, the solution narrowed the digital equity gap and contributed towards a savings of approximately $400,000. Case study can be viewed: https://www.sparkdigital.co.nz/case-studies/au
Excellence in Research Support
Modern research is increasingly reliant on access to computation beyond that of a standard computer. Cloud computing promises ample resources but is often too technical for many researchers, forcing them to either procure expensive workstations, limit their computation requirements, or wait a very long time for their results.
The Researcher Desktop project aims to empower researchers of any technical ability to create and manage their own virtual machines with ease. Researchers don't need to understand how the virtual infrastructure works or perform system administration. This significantly reduces the barrier to entry to cloud computing in research. Boosting an instance provides 4 times the power with a single click.
For service providers, Researcher Desktops provide far more efficient use of compute resources than unmanaged virtual machines. Instances start small, and only boosted when required. And unlike other VDI solutions, the creation, use and termination are all easily performed by the user.
With the proliferation of video content and increased preference to utilise it, there is a need to manage and enable discovery of video content. The University currently lacks search and sharing functionality to enable efficient use of this medium. The implementation of Linius Whizzard aims to unlock the potential of video content at the University of Newcastle. Linus Whizzard makes it possible to enable users to search, create, save and share personalised/targeted video compilations on the fly. The Living Histories (GLAMx) has a repository of historical video content, which is archived digitally in multiple storage areas. Users (Staff, Librarians, Researchers, Students and Public) currently access the video content manually looking at each video’s content or reach out to GLAMx to provide the relevant video content. This is time consuming and a inefficient way to get the desired research outcome. The Living Histories NBN Archive (1981-1995) supplied to University of Newcastle researchers will be unlocked through easier access for the researchchers, self-service and efficient search and sharing by the Librarian.
As the demand of computing and storage resources increases with the growth in computational research and availability of data, The University of Newcastle has partnered with Kablamo to create a new set of cloud-based research solutions. The aim is to provide a set of solutions which reduce time to research output, improve our sustainability posture, create greater visibility over research costs and build stronger relationships between IT and our research community. The target audience for the first iteration of the initiative is the School of Psychology, with the outcome being the transition away from traditional on-premise HPC to the new AWS Service WorkBench. This service has quickly enabled the Psychology researchers to access on-demand compute services that meet their specific research requirements, leading to faster research outputs. This was achieved over a six week engagement between Kablamo and the University.
The Research Technology Services (RTS) division of University of New South Wales (UNSW) embarked on an initiative to improve governance of data created and shared by researchers. Central to this initiative was to explore how to improve the researcher experience of data management and to drive adoption of official platforms that have been provisioned by the University, such as OneDrive, Teams and UNSW Data Archive (MediaFlux). ResToolKit is a one stop Research Data Management solution that improves governance of data created and shared by researchers. Through managing the metadata of Research Data Management Plans (RDMP) ResToolKit automates provisioning of official data storage solutions of UNSW (Teams, OneDrive, UNSW Data Archive (MediaFlux); including metadata and data classification) to research projects based on information from Grants Management, Graduate Research, and HR and Student Information systems and data requirements researchers provide; saving valuable researcher time and eliminating risks associated with manually provisioning data storage.
The EcoCommons Australia team is leading the development of a world-first collaborative commons that will become the platform of choice for analysing and modelling ecological and environmental challenges. EcoCommons will empower Australian practitioners and researchers to use trusted datasets, modelling tools, and training resources to produce high-quality research that will inform and accelerate evidencebased policy and decision-making for the environment. Twelve months ago, Biosecurity Commons partnered with EcoCommons to leverage the core platform architecture and infrastructure the team had developed and build the world’s first virtual laboratory for the biosecurity sector. This new Biosecurity project will build on and extend the functionality of the existing workflows in EcoCommons and deliver a cloud-based decision-support platform for modelling and analysing biosecurity risk and response.
UQ’s Research Computer Centre (RCC) team have achieved what we weren’t sure was even possible and have developed and implemented ‘CAMERA’, following a successful Proof of Concept. CAMERA is a novel research computing infrastructure that facilitates the CApture, ManagEment, stoRage and Analysis of data from scientific instruments, like microscopes. It unifies a range of otherwise disparate and independent software and hardware components and allows researchers to store and process data uniformly, regardless of the type of instrument. The integration and technical feat achieved through CAMERA is seamless meaning that researchers are not adversely impacted and can focus on the importance of their research and findings, while the software manages the storage, cataloguing and saving of data for them in a central repository. Not only does this support excellence in research right now, but the enhanced storage of data and structured meta-data now captured will support research of the future.
Improving Student Success
Students are required to establish their Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status before accessing specific support resources at the University. Historically there was no systemic way to track a student's application to establish status or capture the outcome in a centrally accessible location. By leveraging our Enterprise CRM platform, we solved these problems by giving the students a digital portal where they could lodge an application and monitor its progress. The CRM is used by administrative staff to receive the student’s application, assess the applications, record the outcome and communicate with the student. The outcome is also propagated to other university systems for use by front line staff. The outcomes achieved by the project included increased satisfaction from students. With the data managed in a structured manner, the University can now target it efforts more efficiently and provide support resources to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students.
With establishment of an ‘Industrial Digital Innovation Hub’, RMIT is positioned to take a nation-leading role in transforming the Australian professional workforce in supporting Australian industry for the transition to cyber-physical production systems (CPPS). To enhance our teaching offerings, engineering company Siemens have a suite of software tools for use by industry worldwide in adapting to CPSS. The product suite (Teamcenter, NX, MindSphere and Mendix) will support virtual product design, modelling, low-code application development tools, and collaborative cloud-based open internet-of-things operating systems enabling real-time data feedback. The STEM and Vocational Education (VE) Colleges at RMIT have embedded this software suite and are offering courses to its engineering students at Diploma, Associate Degree and Degree levels, equipping them with real-world skills and practical work-ready industry experiences.
The StandOut Program focuses on the opportunity to take advantage of IT Services as a professional services provider of the University, as they represent corporate functions of a typical and modern organisation with deep relationships with global technology partners and suppliers. IT Services aims to deliver exceptional student experience by preparing graduates for life in an increasingly interconnected society, as well as inspiring student experiences to ensure that students develop life and career skills that will make them stand out in the workforce.
Life-ready students need a range of transferable skills that will enable them to work collaboratively across professions and transition between careers. The StandOut Program is about ensuring that students graduate with a clear understanding of their value and skills, knowledge, and capabilities to prepare them for life. Experiential workplace learning opportunities promote skills development, build self-awareness, fosters innovative thinking, assists in career planning, and support student transition into the world of work.
The future of Charles Sturt University is well supported through the delivery of online experiences based on current technologies, that surprise, delight, and are persuasive and engaging to students, these experiences are now expected parts of higher education. The centre point of information, communication, and collaboration at Charles Sturt, the ‘Student Portal’ provides a personalised and adaptive online experience giving the enrolled student the right information and access to services when they need them, and how they need them. The Charles Sturt University, Web Office ndertook this significant enhancement of the student portal website via the Student Portal 2021 project. The project discovered, developed, and released multiple features and capabilities for students utilising an introduced and improved continuous development methodology. The Student Portal is integrated in real time with core university systems, services, and data sources. The Student Portal services approximately 40,000 students of which approximately 27,000 are online.
The project was implemented in 2020-2021 by an IT/PVCESE team to provide a 24x7 University-wide Work Integrated Learning (WIL) platform for students, staff, and industry partners. The project aligned with the UNSW 2025 Strategy by supporting increasing students undertaking WIL, improving the student experience, and driving improved graduate outcomes through industry pre-experience, networking opportunities, and development of skills desirable to employers. Students benefited from their SSO portal, safety from improved risk assessments, trackable and rapid issues management and clarity of responsibilities in formalised WIL Agreements. Their feedback will drive WIL course improvements and partner performance. Productivity efficiencies for administrative staff include integrated student and course data from the student system, dashboards, pre-filled templates, and workflows. UNSW received accurate enterprise reporting, cost savings by retiring multiple systems, and reduced IT support of the vendor-supported, cloud-based solution. Industry partners accessed 24x7 portal, improved approval workflows, survey feedback, less duplicate requests, and consistent systems experience.
COVID-19 created a huge influx of Academic Consideration requests where students request adjustments to coursework, assessments and exams as a result of changes to personal situations that have impacted their study routines. Each one needs individual assessment. The University urgently needed a solution to alleviate the immense workload and high stress environment that this process resulted in for both staff, and the students who submitted requests. After consulting with the Current Students team, a robotic process automation solution using artificial intelligence (AI) was deemed most effective and now:
• Applications are reviewed throughout the day by a robot. • AI is used to categorise requests to assess student support requirements as either High, Medium, Low or No • support. • High and Medium applications are referred to a Welfare Co-ordinator to co-ordinate appropriate support. • Low rated applicants are sent a flyer outlining support available. • Applications deemed not assessable are transferred to a staff member.
UQ is committed to improving student success and the UQ Digital Workspace (UQDW) has achieved this by providing approved students and staff access to software applications using any device, from any location with an internet connection. The project has revolutionised the IT offering and learning experience for our students, including those abroad by providing a full on-campus style experience anytime, anywhere. The project accelerated at the commencement of the COVID-19 Pandemic onset in 2020, however, has evolved since with further applications being made available. Recent efforts across 2021 have included support for GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) applications which enable 3D processing software such as ArcGIS mapping and other rendering tools available to students for teaching and further, significant application inclusion Without this technology in place, students did not have access to discipline specific, specialised and niche technology needed to support their academic pursuits unless they were on campus.
Innovation in Teaching and Learning
Positioned in the growing field of learning analytics, iLearn Insights is an active and innovative tool for addressing the challenge of engaging and supporting student learning. It enables teachers to monitor student engagement in iLearn (Macquarie’s Moodle-based LMS), by identifying both high-achieving students, and those whose level of activity may put them at risk of failure. The iLearn Insights tool facilitates learning reinforcement and early intervention, triggering a range of automated communications to commend high-achieving students and offer additional assistance to lower performing students. With just three clicks of the mouse, academic staff can instantly send a personalised email aimed at re-engaging students who might have otherwise dropped off the radar. In session 2, 2021 iLearn Insights was used by approximately 542 users across 40 departments, learning support areas and 917 course units (subjects), sending over 225000 targeted emails to encourage students to engage with the learning or offer support.
Building 360 (B360), is a key project spearheading Murdoch University’s (MU) Strategic Plan and is scheduled to be operational in February 2023. This building will accommodate approximately 60% of the teaching and learning activities and will be the foundation for a move to a contemporary collaborative learning pedagogy. In Semester 1 2022, Murdoch launched a Sandpit and subsequently a Pilot Teaching space to establish and refine the eventual Teaching and Learning technology deployment in B360. This has allowed Academic and IT Support staff to be trained and familiarise themselves with the technology within B360. The Technology Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) Strategy implemented within the Pilot space enables a student-centred learning environment, focusing on interactivity, collaboration and flexibility across different learning and teaching styles and pedagogies. The technology within the Pilot Teaching space enables active learning, enhances student engagement and deepens learning outcomes.
The Hybrid Learning Mode Pilot was initiated and driven by the Hybrid Learning Project team from the Pro Vice-Chancellor Education & Student Experience Portfolio (PVCESE) which engaged stakeholders across the UNSW community i.e., AV/IT teams, Timetabling, Faculties/Academics. The pilot of the Hybrid Teaching spaces started in 2021 T2 for 4 weeks before another lock-down started and then recommenced in T1 2022. The initial pilot involved 9 active learning spaces and was later expanded to 12 teaching spaces, including the addition of 3-tiered lecture theatres to the suite of Hybrid Teaching spaces. The project was led by the Hybrid Learning Mode Pilot team with support from the AV team in IT and the timetabling team. The project addressed the direct need for academics and students to continue teaching and learning in room and online during and beyond a worldwide pandemic.
The SCU Grades Project was initiated with the aim to make marking and final grade release more efficient and less time-consuming for academic staff, eliminating non-value-add activities. It's expected to provide visibility of grade quality issues sooner and improve the ability to release grades to students on time in the Southern Cross Model, ultimately enabling them to progress in their studies.
The University of Queensland under a program to improve the digital experience for staff and students have designed and implemented an enhancement to the learning interface to improve student engagement with a product called Learning Pathways. The Learning Pathways is a LTI in Blackboard that provides students with a clear visual roadmap of their learnings to help keep them on track. It serves as a scaffold to make the concepts and curriculum of the course transparent for the students.
Operational Excellence
Transformation of the digital landscape for the organisation. Included consolidation of 3 SISs into one spanning HE, VET, HDR and TULC cohorts, SOX compliance, enhanced self-services, and visualisation and analytics. The project covered implementation and integration of a new SIS (Banner), CRM (Salesforce) and case and enquiry management system (Dynamics 365), all integrated with Informatica as middle-ware, an Operational data store on SQL Server, combined with operational and analytical reporting on Power BI. Several other systems were integrated through automation processes encompassing optimized timetabling on Syllabus+, learning management on BlackBoard, agent commissions management on SAP and digital experience on Sitecore, all tied together with Peoplesoft Financials, and Workday for human capital management.
In 2022 Victoria University (VU) has consolidated its city campuses into one new precinct known as the City West Precinct, incorporating the VU City Tower. The new precinct has been purposefully built without traditional general or specialist computer labs to encourage a modernised learning and teaching practise – one which supports VU’s unique Block Model and champions collaboration, engagement and flexibility. As a result, VU implemented a new Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) technology and infrastructure that enables staff and students access to VU specialist applications any time, any place and on any device with internet. BYOD enables delivery of these applications and course materials (that were traditionally only be available on-campus via VU's computer labs) via MyWorkspace. MyWorkspace is a cloud-based hosting service that allows course-related software applications to be virtualised, offering greater flexibility and continuity of learning, teaching and working.
UWA IT have been enhancing their IT Asset Management capability over the last few years. The program reached maturity in 2021 in the completion of automation of hardware and software asset discovery, delivering benefits to all IT staff. We are now able to track all UWA managed assets and the software installed on them, which allows us to reconcile against license details to ensure compliant use. We can see how assets on our network are being used and can also determine how often and for how long software is being accessed. We now have full visibility of our assets under management in one central system, producing the ground work for a functioning Configuration Management Database (CMDB). This has led to the implementation of a new IT Asset Management team to effectively manage the data and processes that UWA IT relies on.
Access to timely, consistent, and accurate information is critical to La Trobe University, however data is found spread across multiple disconnected and siloed systems, a plethora of duplication, caused by multiple single use, ungoverned and manual solutions. Accurate information is critical to enabling the delivery of La Trobe University’s Digital Strategy, so the initiative was commenced to build a SHED Shared Enterprise Data. Bringing data together as a critical asset to enable a single source of truth for enterprise data. It was achieved with people, uplifted processes, and technologies which includes building an Enterprise Data and Analytics Platform (EDAP), uplifting integrations, standardising data models, self-service platforms and aligned design for master data management and data governance which is being deployed this year. This has ensured we can efficiently and effectively achieve a core goal of the digital strategy as “Data Led” supporting the University’s Strategic Plan 2020-2030.
As part of the UNSW Network Strategy, the Campus Core Network Project (CCNT) transformed the ageing core and distribution (Campus Core) network. The core network is the hardware, devices and software which make up the services for the Universities IT requirements and is how people access other networks, devices, and the internet in the University. The Campus Core in UNSW was at End-of- Life and End-of-Support and there was a major risk of hardware failure. The CCNP removed this risk by the replacing the Campus Core in 35 buildings across the campus and to improve reliability, speed, and operational efficiency. This mitigated and delivered two key parts of the Network strategy: 1) Maintain Stability and Reliability and 2) Deliver High Speed bandwidth capacity (for Research). The University now has a new Open standards Software-based network core that will serve the university community for the foreseeable future.
CQUniversity has recently implemented an innovative new ‘Student Pulse’ system that delivers highly targeted and personalised engagements with the institution’s more than 30,000 students. The system allows the University to leverage prospect and student data to create highly personalised interactions that are relevant to an individual student’s’ study plans and circumstances. The integrated analytics and insight features, available in the system, enable engagements ranging from automated personalised SMS engagements and reminders to highly targeted outbound calls offering study advice and support referrals.
The implementation of the new system has so far been used this year to assist with student recruitment, enrolment conversion and now student support, allowing student engagement teams to significantly streamline and amplify their proactive engagement activities, saving hundreds of hours of administration time. The outcomes of this project have also significantly improved Executive visibility and control over student recruitment activities.
The scope of this project was to simplify the results recording and assurance process by removing the requirement for academics to populate CSV files. The project built a solution whereby results are entered into LMS Gradebook by academics then automation maps and transfers these to a Results App for their review, assurance, and approval. Finally, automation transfers the approved results to the Student Information System (SIS1), where they are released to students. The project removed over 13,500 of manual work annually across the university, increased the accuracy of results and created visibility where required. This provided a much-needed consistent approach across all schools, a clear audit trail and a vastly improved experience for staff and student alike.
As part of La Trobe’s University Digital Strategy and the transformation goal to provide a “seamless user experience”, Contact Centre and Digital Assistant services have been implemented to provide an omnichannel customer experience linking previous individual touch points, over a variety of channels that now seamlessly connect. The scope of the Contact Centre Transformation Project was to migrate all existing contact centres, consisting of 25 teams and 454 staff from an on-premises legacy telephony technology to CXone, a new scalable omnichannel cloud-based contact centre solution. The Digital Assistant Project was tasked with enhancing the existing chatbot from a static Covid announcement tool into a dynamic multifunctional tool to provide both staff and students throughout the university, including key business areas, with a wide range of subject matter. The successful delivery of these initiatives produced a seamless experience for our customer base and provided significant efficiencies for staff.
The Intelligent Automation (IA) initiative was established to automate manual processes using ‘Robotic Process Automation’ (RPA) and other IA technologies. The key objective was to automate high volume, repetitive manual tasks to achieve operational efficiencies and return time back to the business. Time retuned can be invested in high value activities, including business transformation, student and staff relationship management, research, and teaching. In addition, achieving operational efficiencies through Intelligent Automation supports the economic and environmental sustainability at Deakin. The initiative is business area agnostic and engages with all operational areas of the University including Student, Financial, People and Faculty Services. This wide scope and cross University engagement allows University wide operational efficiencies to be gained, identifies and encourages inter-departmental collaboration, and in turn, the opportunity to establish common business practices. The use of common automation technologies and repeatable, scalable patterns provides a framework for implementing IA across diverse business areas.
Students are required to complete a pre-enrolment questionnaire before enrolling in a program for the first time. The project scope was to redesign the questionnaire to modernise the user interface and make it mobile responsive. The team was tasked with making the solution configurable so that minimal development effort would be required for on-going changes and maintenance. The project aimed at streamlining processes for our colleagues in student business services and making the end user experience better for our students. Due to the agile nature of the project, the scope did vary throughout the life of the project. The benefit of the varying scope was the ability for the team to deliver a configurable framework not just aimed at successful implementation of the Pre-Enrolment Questionnaire form, but one that could be used to create other student-facing forms.
The new student portal was gifted the name Pūaha, which means “mouth of the river”, and is the new digital entry point for students at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellingon. It was developed as part of the Student Success Programme sponsored by the University Provost and provides students a personalised place where they can find all the information and services they need on a day to day basis. Pūaha follows students through their journey at the University, starting with prospective students applying for admission, scholarships and accommodation all the way through to graduation. Once a student starts studying, it provides a single timetable for all lectures, tutorials, labs and exams along with important notifications, a record of their study and access to new digital services. Pūaha provides students with a digital experience that is personalised, empowering and second to none. Pūaha has been built using Microsoft PowerApps talking to Dynamics CRM and integrated with over ten different university systems. It took 18 months to complete starting with a codesign sprint involving staff and students.
This initiative has enabled the implementation of operational improvements across desktop and software investment. This has been possible with the deployment of Sassafras (our chosen asset management tool) and development of corresponding business processes, which triggered two improvement projects:
- Computer Laboratory Review - cross functional working group setup to analyze timetabled computer laboratory usage, with planned reduction of 250+ computers and closure of 6 out of 40 computer labs.
- Staff Asset Utilisation - identified computers that were purchased, and not used within a 12-month period, which will see a further 200+ computers from our overall fleet.
This represents a 10% reduction in our computer fleet.
Prior to this initiative the University of Waikato was reliant on old purchasing records, a static fixed asset register, basic scanning tools, guidelines for desktop computing and a legacy of varying business processes associated with the management of computer labs and deployment of staff devices.
In a unique and innovative partnership, professional staff from the Data Strategy and Governance team at the University of Queensland are leading a collaborative research project with academics. In this, the aim is to understand stakeholder expectations about ethical data use in higher education. The research team actively engaged staff and students throughout the University; in an effort to initiate and facilitate a dialogue about the plurality of ethical issues encountered within the complex data landscape.
This research project (Human Research Ethics Approval 2021/HE000465) aims to understand the experiences and understandings of ethical data use by university staff and students. This is to say the project aims to understand the meaningful and varying ways the university is viewed to manage data; whether in an ethical way, or not.
At the time of writing, the research is undergoing a peer review process to publish the outcomes of this project in a scholarly journal. One of the foundational motivations for journal publication is to foster a more ethical standard of community practice in the higher education community. In conjunction with this, Data and outputs of data analysis will be used in internal reports; as a means for continual growth and advancement of the Enterprise Data Ethics Framework and supporting material.
The Curriculum End-to-End Program (CEEP) was established in 2019 to improve the design, approval, publishing, delivering and review of curriculum and has successfully delivered on significant initiatives, including implementation of a new core curriculum management system named 'Jac’. The name Jac is inspired by the iconic and much-loved jacarandas which are prolific at the St Lucia campus. Jac supports academics by enabling collaboration in the evolution of UQ’s comprehensive curriculum, supporting continued teaching excellence at UQ. Jac provided the game-changing capability to codify program rules. In 2021, the project team supported School and Faculty staff to transition their program rules from pdf’s to the Jac rules engine. As well as delivering a revitalised web presentation, as soon as program rules pass through the governance process within Jac, the team delivered a powerful student facing planning tool, Program Planner. This tool leverages the codified rules to help students to plan their enrolment. The initiative will also enable the automation of significant graduation and progression checking processes – the ‘holy grail’ of university process improvement!
This project automated the daily delivery of insights relating to financial and contractual aspects of research grants. This enables the Flinders research community to actively monitor and manage their project health, encouraging good data governance and enabling trust in the use of data for decision making. The project team used the Microsoft ecosystem including Azure, Databricks, PowerBi and Powerapps technologies to bring together data from multiple source systems across the university, deliver insights to the research community and enable the community to delegate access to the insights. This project was delivered for researchers, research support staff, College Executive, senior research staff and the Finance division.
CAUDIT acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands where we live, learn and work. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and celebrate the stories, culture and traditions of all First Nations people.