University of Waikato(MIS100 2009)

By CIO staff | Friday, July 24 2009

2008 ranking: 27

Senior IS executive: Kevin Adamson, director of ITS
Reports to: Head of corporate services
Size of IS shop: 94

PCs: 4950
Mobile PCs: 350
Terminals: 471
Hand-held devices: 85
Total screens: 5856

Industry: Educational services
PC environment: Dell, Linux, Windows XP, Mac
Server environment: Dell, HP, Windows, Linux, Mac
DBMS: Oracle, SQL, Jade
Address: Gate 5, Hillcrest Road, Hamilton
Website: www.waikato.ac.nz
Key IS projects this year: Information management strategy;
campus service desk software; project accounting; website development; campus infrastructure plan; campus desktop management; datacentre design; records management.

The University of Waikato is focussed on delivering quality, research-led education that meets the needs of and contributes to the economic wellbeing of the region. In 2009 the university will increase post-graduate research output and quality, and implement a more efficient and cost-effective organisational structure.

Director of ITS Kevin Adamson says IT initiatives are planned to improve the core ICT infrastructure, disaster recovery and business continuity capability of the university, as well as enhanced collaboration within teaching, learning and research. This will be achieved via wider adoption of the university learner management systems, utilisation of advanced network and cloud computing facilities, along with identification of opportunities to apply ICT in an innovative manner to support the objectives of the university.

ICT, project and IT staff budgets are all down by more than 10 per cent in 2009, but include continued investment in software and server virtualisation. The most significant projects, according to budget allocations, are the development of an Information Management Strategy to support management decision making and the initiation of a records management project to more effectively manage documents throughout the university and facilitate compliance with the Public Records Act 2005.

As well, there will be a new Service Desk software from Touchpaper, a Campus Desktop management system utilising Microsoft MDOP and SCCM and the design of a new purpose-built datacentre for the University.