The Department of Biology currently has: 4 central servers + 5 research servers 400 PCs LAN is a mix of shared 10Mb/s and 100Mb/s connections The central network runs under Novell Netware Expected 2004 The Department of Biology currently has: 5 central servers + 10 research servers 550 PCs LAN comprises 1Gb/s backbone with 100Mb/s dedicated desktop connections The central network will run under Novell Netware
One IT manager Two IT support staff Electronics technical staff (serving all electronic needs of the Dept. Estimated 25% time on IT) Expected 2004 One IT manager One IT data manager Two IT support staff Electronics technical staff (serving all electronic needs of the Dept. Estimated 30% time on IT)
A recently constituted committee, the Information Committee of the Department of Biology (ICDB), has been formed to try to ensure that there is better co-ordination of information gathering, use, analysis and distribution within the department. It is expected that this committee will improve the efficiency of operation of all areas of the department. There is clearly an opportunity to improve the way in which the various streams of information are managed. The various administrative "units" within the growing department operate independently with some duplication of information and little consideration as to the need to access data from more than one administrative area for overall departmental management. Too much reliance is currently placed on the use of independent Excel files to maintain and manipulate data. While that methodology was convenient and cost effective some years ago, there was little planning as to the longer term needs. A new integrated approach is needed and ICDB will be establihsing the needs of the department, suggesting a strategy and implementating the delivery of that strategy within the next 2 years.
The MAC system did not serve the departmental needs well. ICDB hopes that the new university MIS has been selected with departmental needs more clearly in mind and that the implementation of the new systems will be undertaken so as to meet the needs of all users. (The recent experience with the implementation of the central timetabling software has not been encouraging. The imposition of extra costs on the department, with no gains, was hardly aimed at winning support for the imposition of university-wide software solutions). Until more detail is available as to the capability of the MIS suites, the implications to the department’s own strategy will remain unclear. It would seem sensible to assume that the university MIS will not meet all the needs of the department and that departmental resources will have to be used to meet the department’s needs.
The expansion of the department as a result of the JIF process and the new Medical School must require increased resources. The way in which the enlarged CNAP, the Technology Facility, the SBL and the Medical School will relate to the departmental IT infrastructure is yet to be planned. This planning must be completed as a matter of urgency so that the resource implications can be established. Some of these demands could well become apparent before extras IT staff are in place in Biology. Such expansion without extra resources would inevitably place existing staff under stress - IT staff being asked to do too much and other staff being left with inadequate IT support. Richard Firn (Chair ICDB) Ian Jennings IT manager