A UCISA Managers' Forum held in November 2005 gave insight into how some have addressed the issues and problems involved in the delivery of Anytime, Anywhere Computing as well as taking a further look at what the future might bring. As part of this event a 90 minute 'Think Tank' session was held and the outcomes of these group discussions are represented in this publication.

Abstract

Delivering 'Anytime, anywhere computing' was identified as the top concern in the UCISA Top Concerns survey of 2005. Delivery is a difficult balancing act - staff and students require access to office tools and applications, filestore and business applications from a variety of devices and locations (mobile phones, PDAs, laptops as well as home desktops).

Service heads have to try and provide this securely to protect their institutions' assets, but in a way where authentication does not compromise ease of access and where managing connectivity does not come at the cost of a heavy demand on resources.

Governance and security issues require appropriate policies for remote use of corporate information and applications, particularly on systems that may not be owned by the institution, and maintenance of security patches and antivirus software on remote systems add to the complexity. The growing use of mobile devices, increasing student ownership of 'cutting edge' devices, growth in the use of online learning and demographic changes in the student body have all contributed to systems resilience and availability becoming the major new concern for IT Directors.

The expectation that services, particularly e-learning, are available 24x7 brings new demands - achieving this is a significant investment in infrastructure and maintenance and operational resource. Network security continues to be a concern - although many institutions have external antivirus and spam filter mechanisms in place, there is often a threat from within from poorly maintained systems.