HEIDS

Higher Education Information Directors in Scotland

Minutes of HEIDS Meeting 
Held on Wednesday 2 May 2001

University of Strathclyde
Ross Priory, Loch Lomond

Present:-

Chair		Tom Mortimer		Queen Margaret University College		TM
Secretary	Paul Dean		Napier University				PD

Jim Buchan		Northern College				JB
Stuart Brough		University of Strathclyde 			SB
		Pamela Chambers	UHI						PC
Fraser Greig		University of Abertay				SG
Brian Gilmore		University of Edinburgh			BG
Linda McCormick	University of Glasgow			LM
Andrew McCreath	Robert Gordon University			AM
Richard Murphy	University of Dundee				RM
Tony Osborne		University of Stirling				TO
Jean Ritchie		SHEFC C&IT	Programme			JR
Tony Shaw		University of Paisley 				TS

1.	Apologies
Malcolm Bain		University of St Andrews			MB
Stewart Gardiner	University of Abertay				SG
			(Following a reorganisation Fraser Greig 
will now be the Abertay member)
Bill Harvey		SHEFC/Digital Scotland			BH
Gordon Hunt		RSAMD					GH
Peter Kemp		University of Stirling				PK 
John McKay		Glasgow School of Art			JM
Graham Prior		University of Aberdeen			GP
David Rundell 	Heriot-Watt University			DR
Ian White		Glasgow Caledonian University		IW
					BELL

2. 	Minutes of Previous Meeting
Accepted as a correct record.

3.	Matters arising
As previously decided TM has invited Bell College to join HEIDS as they as are now a SHEFC funded institution.  The representative has been unable on this occasion but will join the group.

BG reported that some members had responded to his request as to whether we wished a closer local relationship with Microsoft.  As a result some members attended a meeting with the company.

JR had emailed members to remind them of the current UCISA VLE survey hence there was no reason for us to carry out our own.

RM noted that the University of Dundee are to continue to charge departments for the use of centrally provided PCs for booked teaching sessions.  The rate will be £1 per PC per hour.

There had been another theft of Sun equipment.  This time the target was the University of  East London and the theft was of components rather than systems.

The University Secretary’s group had had a meeting on computer theft that was attended by Sun who were urged to take some ownership for the continuing problem. 

4.	MAN Issues
a)	Re-procurement	
				
The Scottish MANS Interconnect - The last meeting of SMCG had been presented with 3 proposals for the interconnect but as only one was within budget only that option was being pursued.  JB reported that the exercise is currently on schedule.  The technical group has worked with the main procurement group to produce the ITT that will be issued around 11 May.  

The new interconnect will be fully part of SuperJANET and operated by UKERNA.

MANs - As offered at the last meeting MB had circulated the FaTMAN re-procurement RFI to HEIDS.  Suppliers have responded, hence the MAN now knows what supplier can offer, but the ITT has still to be issued.  FATMAN are also considering future governance in particular whether to set up a company.

FE Involvement - JB asked for information on progress with the re-procurement of the MANS with particular reference to how FE were being involved, as required by the Funding Councils.
•	AbMAN are involving their 2 FE Colleges (Aberdeen College has always been part of the MAN)
•	EaStMAN have written to all the FE colleges and asked them to nominate 2 representatives to join the MAN management group.
•	ClydeNET are waiting to hear about funding before formally involving FE.
It was noted that the number of FE colleges varies significantly between areas with some, such as Glasgow, having many small ones while others, such as Aberdeen, have one big one.
 
The issue of speed of connections to FE colleges was discussed particularly from the point of view of remoteness (hence high connection costs) and the speed of previous connections.  

The FE budget will be distributed to MANs using the normal FE funding formula which does not consider remoteness. This means MANs, with FE representation, will be responsible for deciding how the money is spent.  The meeting felt more detailed SFEFC guidance was required if equality of connection was required otherwise the self interest of the less remote institutions would work against this objective.

JB indicated that a statement on funding for both FE and HE is imminent from the funding councils.  The councils will hold a significant amount of funding back which may be used to help with some of ‘geographical difficult’ FE sites.

The members had significant concerns hence it was proposed that HEIDS writes to the funding councils indicating that the money was welcome but asking for guidance on how it should be used to produce an equitable provision for the FE sector.  It was felt this letter should be sent before the announcement
Action:- TM

Overall Funding – It was felt that at MAN level the HE portion of the funding would only be sufficient to replace current provision at a similar level.  Even this may become a problem if the expected consolidation in the supplier market eliminated some of the suppliers of dark fibre.  The HE central funding is expected to be £1m for the interconnect and £1m to be shared between the MANs.  There was concern that the interconnect budget was not increased at the expense of the MAN budgets but JB assured the meeting that this was impossible due to different funding routes. 

Scottish MANs Video Conferencing Network (SMVCN) – The current network will cease to work in July 2002 and there is currently no additional funding for its replacement.   Support for many of the Cellstack Codecs is already being withdrawn although they could be upgraded to the later still supported models, but more fundamentally the essential ATM protocol will be unavailable following re-procurement of the Interconnect/MANs.  The alternative current option of joining the JANET ISDN network is a retrograde step.  Some institutions, such as Dundee have funded additional suites, while others, such as Glasgow have already decided to retain ATM within the institution.  SMCG is to set up a group to look at the options for the future of SMVCN.

The concerns over the future of SMVCN are to added to the letter to SHEFC already actioned
Action:- TM

b) Scottish MANs Co-ordinators Group (SMCG)		
All items included above.

c) MAN Reports
All items included above.

5. 	Digital Scotland
BH submitted the following update to the meeting.

1. Still aiming for a cabinet paper in June which will set out the full forward strategy.
2. A very constructive meeting was held with Highlands & Islands Learning Grid people on 23 April. DS is likely to write to HILG to explore ways of taking this forward.
3. Continuing to meet with Telcos to explore ways of expanding infrastructure in Scotland.
4. Robert Craig and I are meeting with the Modernising Government group to promote interoperability, standards, etc and ways to seek common solutions between central govt, local govt, and other parts of the public sector.
5. Robert and I are developing ideas for regional forums which might take an overview of infrastructure projects on an ongoing basis (since we increasingly feel the solution lies not in some big-bang process but in continuing liaison over future cycles of procurement). MANs could play a big role here, potentially. 

BG reported that BH had indicated at SMCG that now there will not be any integration between Digital Scotland and the MANs during this procurement.  It is anticipated that this integration will take place at the next re-procurement in 4 to 5 years.

6.	Virtual Learning Environment
TM and JR notified the meeting of the 2 day JISC events planned for London and Manchester in late May.  A recent JISC newsletter to FE had indicated that now is not the time to invest in VLE technology due to rapidly changing products.

TM reported that QMUC is moving from 12 to 40 modules on Webb CT for next session.  QMUC accept they may have to change product base in the future but they need to make progress now.  The introduction of this approach has increased PC lab demand but reduced classroom demand.  

It was noted that Web CT licence fees have recently doubled.

AM reported that RGU are seeing the PC demand move to the student’s home.  They are unusually using a product that came from a US Geographical Information System supplier.  Once again they accept there will be better products in the future but they need to progress now.

TS reported that Paisley are committed to Blackboard.  TS surveyed standards and believes the IMS standard may not succeed hence there is no point in delaying implementation.  Paisley are investigating integrating their student records system using web portals.  They are hoping to proceed with the Novell product range as other portal systems would involve significant additional expense of around £100k.

7.	Supporting Disability
TM reminded the meeting of the JISC event on supporting disabilities scheduled for 5th May is in Edinburgh.

It is thought that one institution (not within Scotland) is being threatened with court action for not providing a ‘disability friendly’ web site.
 
BG reported that at a recent meeting a person from the RNIB  had talked about how easy it was to make web sites ‘disability friendly’, i.e. the most important point is to always provide a text alternative to graphics.

RM reported that Dundee had hosted an interesting presentation from the BCS.   There is also a group within Dundee that will advice on making sites suitable for disabled clients (this is a chargeable service although the work started as part of a ScotCIT project).  Disability support is a major concern at Dundee and RM is hoping to get approval for a post specifically to look at these issue.

It was felt that HEIDS needs to know more about this subject hence a presentation should be organised for a future meeting of the group.
Action TM 

8.	Business of Related Groups/Activities
a) SHEFC/SFEFC 	
BH submitted the following update to the meeting.

1. SFEFC has earmarked £1M for AY 2001-02 to enhance connectivity of FE colleges, with an 'aspiration' of 8-10Mbps for 'most if not all colleges' - ie the sum is cash-limited and not a guarantee that we will purchase this connectivity if it is not affordable from the £1M. The sum will be distributed via Ukerna on a volume-related basis, with a top-sliced element held back for strategic issues.
2. SHEFC have agreed with Ukerna a basis for distribution of the HE funding for MANs.
3. Ukerna will be writing to MANs in May to detail both allocations. Although we will need to demonstrate accountability in the use of the FE funding (and this will require MANs to develop appropriate representation mechanisms for the FE sector in their areas) the FE and HE money will be available to MANs for collective procurement of some optimum network. SFC will be writing to MANs soon to spell out the detail.
4. SHEFC Learning and Teaching Committee meets on 17 May and will consider papers on both reprocurement and the processes for 'winding down' of the SCOTCIT projects. A key issue will be ensuring that the outcomes and lessons learned from these projects are preserved for the future.

JR noted her concern over on going support for the servers hosting materials developed as the result of the recent initiatives.  She hoped SHEFC would fund the maintenance support but if any other support is required institutions should notify SHEFC with copy to JR. 
Action:- All

b) Universities Scotland
TO noted, on behalf of PK, that there was nothing to report

b)	JISC 
BH submitted the following update to the meeting.
1. Implementation of the Follet report continues, mostly in background planning of new structures.

c) Scotland and Northern Ireland JANET User Group (SNIJUG)
BG noted that he is now a member of the JANET National User Group (JNUG) due to being the Chair the UCISA Networking Group hence, if HEIDS wished, he was willing to also represent HEIDS.  It was agreed that he should do this hence there was no longer an action on TM to consider attending.
Action:- BG  

d) SCONET
No report.

e) JISC FE Regional Support Centres
LM reported that there had been successful joint launch, at Perth College, the previous week for the 2 Scottish RSCs attended by around 100 delegates.

9.	Report from Meetings Attended
a) UCISA
LM presented a report on the UCISA Management Conference.
It was noted that the presentation on data protection by Elizabeth France, now Information Commissioner, was excellent.  She had stated that for web based directories student should opt in while it was acceptable for staff to opt out, it was thought this was a change in approach.  TM noted that QMUC have added a phrase about ‘use of personal information’ to their employment contracts.  RM reported that Dundee has written to all staff on the subject.
 
PD reported that Napier was considering deleting non-archived email after 30 days.  No other institutions are proposing this at present. TS reported that Paisley delete emails after 90 days and also that they add a disclaimer to all outgoing messages.  These responsibilities are now being taken over by their personnel department..

A new innovation at the conference had been ‘Bird of a Feather’ sessions.  It was felt they had been useful but some had been far better than others.   The one on 24 by 7 working had been useful and it was noted that the Open University had significant out of hours support but this was formally included in employment contracts.

b) Other Reports 
The group was alerted to the seminar on Human Rights/Privacy Issues scheduled for Warwick on 8 June.

10. 	Any Other Competent Business 
a) QAA Guidelines on Programme Specifications
TS introduced this item asking how other institutions are handling this issue.  Some institutions delegate this to departmental level.  TS asked for any other views by email.
Action:-  All

b) Data Protection and Emails	
Discussed above.

c) Laser Printer Charging
Not discussed as UCISA statistics should contain the required information.  
(PD subsequently carried out an email survey as the data for many HEIDS institutions was not included in the last UCISA report) 

11.	Dates & Locations of Next Meetings

Wednesday 29 August 2001			 		University of Stirling
Tba in November						Robert Gordon University