Information Committee of the Department of Biology

ICDB 02/09 Apologies for absence. None

ICDB 02/10 Minutes of the meeting 25/02/02. These were accepted with minor corrections. It was agreed that they would be publicly available with a link from the BioHelp Web pages. IJ would take them to Resources Board and LE would ensure that they were on the agenda for that committee.

ICDB 02/11 Matters arising - Time Management Software. RDF reported that the meeting with JCP and AJJ had taken place and it was agreed that the current Excel-based system be maintained (but not developed further) until a replacement had been found. A meeting with the MIS members responsible for the university time management software had also been held and that system was to be evaluated further after PRW had devised a specification for the needs of the Dept. There might be an extra cost in that route due to the need to use later versions of browsers and newer hardware as a consequence. However, IJ accepted that such upgrades were inevitable and need not preclude this approach.

ICDB 02/12 IT Budget. IJ presented the current set of accounts. There were no reasons for concern for the current year. However, the accounts had been drawn up assuming that all new IT resource demands resulting from the expansion of the department (CNAP, TF, Biochemistry, Biomedical, new Biology appointments, etc..) would be met from budgets associated with such expansion and not the current IT budget.

The committee agreed that it would help if the departmental accounting system either set budgets starting from August 1st or allowed expenditure up to 75% of the previous year’s budget in any interim period before a budget was set.

ICDB 02/13 Biohelp Pages. PRW had produced a set of pages that had been accessed by some members of the committee and they had met with approval. It was agreed that these would go live 22nd April 2002. All new members of the department would be made aware of these pages and would be asked to refer to them when they needed IT advice after arrival. OKA would check that the needs of graduates would be met by the pages. PRW would liaise with Robert Partridge to ensure that the needs of the undergraduates were being met.

The committee noted that PRW’s attempt to demonstrate the pages to the meeting had been frustrated by the failure of the AV centre to deliver a working data projector to the meeting. This raised the issue of the provision of such equipment in lecture rooms and this would be discussed at a later meeting.

ICDB 02/14 Room Booking Software. PRW summarised the current situation. There was a need to introduce a new system that was more efficient for all departmental users. It was agreed that the department should not join the university system. PRW would bring back to a subsequent meeting recommendations for a simple room booking software package, not incorporating a diary facility. (Click here to read room-booking software review).

ICDB 02/15 Biology Web Pages. LE informed the committee that she would not have time to oversee all the departmental web pages after October. There had been a request that the pages aimed at Graduates be the responsibility of the Graduate Office. The Committee agreed that a new scheme of responsibility would be established, with each administrative area of the department being assigned defined responsibilities. One person for each area would be responsible for content and another person would be trained to actually implement the content using departmental style guidelines. RDF and LE would bring a scheme to the next meeting.

ICDB 02/16 IT appointments. RDF reported that he and IJ had agreed with AHF that all IT staff in the department or its units would be managed (in terms of IT matters) by IJ. A meeting was being organised to attempt to co-ordinate IT appointments with regards to CNAP and the TF.

ICDB 02/17 Undergraduate Admin. JAL reported the current state of University procurement. She had been most impressed by the SITS presentation. She will report developments as they happen.