Waikato Institute of Technology(MIS100 2010)

By Jess Meyer | Thursday, May 27 2010

2009 ranking: 47

Senior IS executive: Ramon Scurrah, director IT Services
Reports to: Director, support services
Size of IS shop: 28

PCs: 2047
Mobile PCs: 210
Terminals: 138
Hand-held devices: 27
Total screens: 2422

Industry: Educational services
PC environment: Lenovo; HP; Mac; Windows 7, Vista, XP; Mac
Server environment: HP; Windows 2003, 2008; Mac; Linux
DBMS: SQL, MySQL
Address: Tristram Street, Hamilton
Website: www.wintec.ac.nz
Key IS projects this year: Video/web conferencing upgrade; lecture capture and distribution; SAN upgrades; backup/recovery upgrades; systems redundancy/failover; completion of Windows 7 rollout; staff intranet portal; including document management (MOSS 2010).

A significant number of projects at the Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), both strategic and operational, have a technology component says Ramon Scurrah, director IT services.

Wintec’s IT services department has 28 staff and is responsible for supporting technology throughout Wintec’s teaching faculty and all the business units, including seven satellite campuses and offering a range of IT services to four external clients — Sport Waikato, Kaute Pasifika, Western Institute of Technology and the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, making resource and budget planning incredibly important. The economic environment has meant that, in 2010, operational ICT budgets have been reduced again, as have project and staffing budgets. Despite budget cuts, Wintec has several significant ICT projects in place for 2010. Upgrades of the tertiary institution’s video and web conferencing systems have taken place, whilst SAN and backup/recovery upgrades are underway. Wintec has a continued focus on redundancy/failover continuity and will complete its Windows 7 rollout across campuses in June.

To enhance learning and student access, a project is underway to capture and distribute lectures. For staff, an intranet portal will be developed and deployed, which will include SharePoint 2010 document management functionality, whilst also addressing Public Records Act compliance. Wintec will also deploy Office and Exchange 2010 later this year. It will also further invest in VoIP, wireless and mobility solutions, while a new focus on knowledge management systems and cloud computing will be introduced.