Investigation into the use of Microsoft SharePoint by Higher Education Institutions

The final report from this Eduserv funded project is now freely available for download at www.northumbria.ac.uk/sharepoint_study It shows that most UK HEIs are using SharePoint to some extent (78% of the 40 HEIs interviewed in a telephone survey of mostly IT Directors). The report includes findings about types of use, drivers for using SharePoint, critical success factors for implementing SharePoint, lessons learned and thoughts on the future. It also features views from three case studies at Cranfield, Imperial College and Kingston University. The project team who conducted the work was: James Lappin (Thinking Records Ltd), Gavin Siggers (Healdan Consulting), Sue Childs and Julie McLeod (Northumbria University).

2009 Emmett Leahy Award

The Emmett Leahy Award Committee has announced that Mariella Guercio is the recipient of the 2009 award “because of the impact her work has had on the management and preservation of electronic records”. It seems fitting therefore to post the news to our blog. Given in honour of Emmett Leahy, the renowned USA pioneer of information and records management, the annual award recognizes an individual whose contributions and outstanding accomplishments have had a major impact on the records and information management profession.

Mariella Guercio, the 39th recipient of the award, is currently Chair of the Master of Records Management and Archival Science Program, Vice President Technology, and Provost at the University of Urbino, Italy. Her many achievements include work on the drafting of MoReq 1 and 2, co-director of digital preservation projects for the European Commission Electronic Research, Preservation and Access Networks (ERPANET) and the European Union Cultural, Artistics, and Scientific Knowledge for Preservation, Access, and Retrieval (CASPAR) - the latter is intended to establish a digital preservation infrastructure for Europe.

A full announcement can be seen at http://emmettleahyaward.org

SharePoint in UK Higher Education - Community Consultation

A reminder of the deadline for the community consultation that is part of a project commissioned by Eduserv on the use of SharePoint in the HE sector (www.northumbria.ac.uk/sharepoint_study) – Monday 9 November 2009.

The aim of this online consultation is to capture the reactions of a wide range of UK HE stakeholders (i.e. managers, students, researchers, learning technologists, lecturers, administrators and vendors) to SharePoint. This will build on the data from a literature review and telephone survey of IT Directors. We would welcome responses to three questions about the IMPACT and potential FUTURE USE of SharePoint in HEIs.

Details of the consultation are at: http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/ceis/re/isrc/themes/rmarea/eduservsp/SP_HE_cons/

The questions and how to contribute are at:
http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/static/worddocuments/ceis/SP_cons.doc

New SharePoint study

Members of the AC+erm project team and two other colleagues outside the University have just started work on a new project to investigate the uptake and use of Microsoft SharePoint by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK.

The study is being funded by Eduserv under their Research Programme because there is evidence that interest in Microsoft SharePoint solutions is growing within the UK education and wider public sector. (Interest in SharePoint has also emerged from the AC+erm project). The two main reasons for the project are:

- to improve HEIs’ understanding about the level and nature of interest in SharePoint and whether it is justified in terms of accepted good practice
- to enhance Eduserv’s understanding about the uptake and usage of SharePoint solutions in the UK HE community and influence their 2-3 year plans for service provision in line with their charitable mission.

The study, which began on 27 July and ends on 13 November 2009, will include a mix of telephone interviews, face-to-face meetings and an online public consultation. The final report will be made freely available to the community under a Creative Commons licence. Please see the project website for further details. http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sharepoint_study

Eduserv is a not-for-profit IT service provider with a charitable mission to realise the benefits of ICT for learners and researchers. Eduserv is dedicated to developing effective technology solutions that meet the needs of universities, colleges and public sector organisations. http://www.eduserv.org.uk/research

Julie McLeod

An illustrious forebear

Last week, I paid a lunchtime visit to one of the many jewels in Newcastle’s cultural crown, the Laing Art Gallery, which is currently hosting the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2008, on tour from the National Portrait Gallery.

As an adjunct to the photographic exhibition, the gallery had devoted a room to a parallel display of painted portraits from its own collection. Among these was the striking image of the old lady pictured here, holding the eye with her piercing and watchful gaze.

Imagine my delight when, on closer inspection, she turned out to be none other than Judy Dowling, ‘Keeper of the Town Hutch’, painted by Henry Perlee Parker in or around 1820. Who?, I hear you ask; keeper of the what? I’ll quote from the gallery’s explanatory notice:

“This portrait shows Judy Dowling, a well-known figure in 19th-century Newcastle. She was the Keeper of the Town ‘Hutch’, a chest where the records and archives for Newcastle had been stored since medieval times. … Judy can also be seen in Parker’s picture ‘Eccentric and Well Known Characters in Newcastle (private collection), which was widely known through prints.”

So not only was this grande dame a distant professional ancestor, and gatekeeper to our city’s trusted pre-digital repository; she also had a public profile that her modern equivalents would happily sell their souls for ...

The picture shown here is made available through the Tyne and Wear Museums website, and can be found in that context through the link below, along with other works from the collections.

http://tinyurl.com/obsatq