Manukau Institute of Technology(MIS100 2010)

By Jess Meyer | Thursday, May 27 2010

2009 raning: 18

Senior IS executive: Simon Gillson, IT director
Reports to: Jo-Ann Day-Townsend, executive director
Size of IS shop: 28

PCs: 3669
Mobile PCs: 415
Terminals: 557
Hand-held devices: 178
Total screens: 4819

Industry: Educational services
PC environment: Mac; Lenovo; Windows 7, XP, Vista, Cyclone
Server environment: Sun; Cyclone; AMD; Intel; Windows 2003, 2008; VMware; Mac
DBMS: Oracle, SQL, MySQL
Address: Gate 1 Newbury, Street Otara, South Auckland
Website: www.manukau.ac.nz
Key IS projects this year: Service desk; virtual desktops.

Virtualisation of desktops across Manukau Institute of Technology’s 4000-plus PCs in 2010, will address power consumption issues and the enhancement of security of data in the work space. An increase in mobile devices and wireless access will assist in the flexible delivery of IT services and learning technologies to students and staff. Overall, there will be a greater emphasis on customer service capabilities of IT, rather than a technical focus, says IT director Simon Gillson.

Social networking tools are commanding more attention at MIT, and the institute has increased internet capability and removed restrictions to social networking websites, such as Facebook, and video content providers, such as YouTube, due to the potential of collaborative learning and value of content available. These enablements have introduced new challenges in security, monitoring and reporting capability, which will be carefully addressed by Gillson’s team.

Key projects for 2010 will include a focus on the service desk, as explained by Gillson: “We are planning to transform our helpdesk into a customer service team who will engage with staff regularly to anticipate needs and look for opportunities for continuous improvement. Project management principles will be a key focus of this team, who will provide visibility into service requests and ensure service targets are met. The potential of a combined service desk function will be explored to ensure customer needs for any service department are logged in one place. This will be particularly beneficial to IT operations and facilities management teams, which often work together on new initiatives.”