News
January 2010
Summary of IT and Library developments in recent years
John Sotillo, Director of Information Services, summarises the most recent developments to IT and Library services.
December 2009
Box of Broadcasts (BoB) launched
BoB, a large online repository and recording service for TV and radio programmes, is now available to staff and students at Kent for educational use.
November 2009
Sharepoint launched
Sharepoint services for staff at Kent.
October 2009
Wireless in academic schools/departments
Extending wireless networking across our campuses.
Instant messaging for staff
Kent's instant messaging service that enables communication and collaboration using a range of different communication options.
September 2009
Canterbury lectures come alive with 3-D images
Upgrades to equipment in refurbished teaching rooms.
Refurbished Canterbury student PC rooms
Updates to Rutherford College student PC rooms.
August 2009
Degrees Cooler
Information Services is participating in a national environmental project seeking to promote green initiatives and reduce our carbon footprint.
July 2009
Staff email disruption
John Sotillo, Director of Information Services, explains the current disruption to the email service for staff.
June 2009
Reading lists update 2009/10
The reading list system now contains empty lists ready to be populated for the academic year 2009-2010 (shown on the system as ‘2009’).
Information Services would like to invite all academic staff to begin adding their reading lists for next year.
Developer happiness: IS staff win JISC competition
Congratulations to the Information Services team who recently picked up £5,000 prize money after winning first prize in a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) ‘Developer Happiness’ competition.
Sharing with Sharepoint
SharePoint is a new web-based service for staff, which enables team collaboration, workflow automation, discussion and information sharing with an easy to use web interface.
May 2009
Support for international students
Kent students took part in the biannual International Student Barometer Survey. This national survey is taken by international students from the UK’s higher education institutions, with the aim of finding out about their experiences and opinions.
ConnectMail migration progress
Email for most staff has now moved from Kentmail to the new ConnectMail staff email service, and we would like to thank all staff involved in the migration for their cooperation and support over the past few months.
Awards ceremony celebrates staff success
The annual Staff Development Awards Ceremony took place on 8 May
in the Darwin Conference Suite. Vice-Chancellor, Professor Julia
Goodfellow, presented the awards, which saw a bumper number of
staff across the University achieve IT-related qualifications.
April 2009
Do you download content from the web?
If you intend to connect your laptop or computer to the University network and have previously used peer-to-peer software (referred to as P2P) on it, you are strongly advised to remove the software.
March 2009
A Templeman Library for the 21st Century
Information Services has been working with users and a team of architects to help identify how the library should develop to support the University’s changing needs.
Web workshops
A series of free web workshops held on the Canterbury campus are available to staff responsible for web authoring or development.
Keep in touch
To help improve the way that staff keep in touch with one another, Microsoft Office Communications Server is currently being piloted by Information Services.
February 2009
Services to higher education recognised with MBE
Anna Miller, Academic Liaison Librarian in the Templeman Library, has been awarded an MBE.
January 2009
Managing the Templeman Library collection
A review of the policy regarding the management of the Templeman Library collection, which comprises of physical and electronic resources, aims to ensure an appropriate and accessible mix of material across all subject ranges.
December 2008
New email and calendar service for staff: ConnectMail
In the new year staff Kentmail (email) accounts will be migrated in stages to ConnectMail, a new email and calendar service for Kent staff.
Times Digital Archive
The University has a subscription to the Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985. Create your own customised version for a specific day - an idea for those difficult birthday (or Christmas) presents?
Templeman Library: unattended PCs and personal possessions
Following feedback from students that their access to PCs for academic work is restricted because other students are reserving and leaving PCs unattended, Information Services is taking a firmer approach to unnattended PCs and personal items in the Templeman Library.
November 2008
Developing the Student Portal
During its first week of launch, the new Student Portal website had 52,535 visits from 16,854 unique visitors viewing 169,503 pages. User feedback is directing priorities for development.
New British Cartoon Archive website
A grant by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has given the British Cartoon Archive the opportunity to update its website to significantly increase its accessibility, usability and teaching-related resources.
IS student satisfaction survey 2007/2008
The 2007/2008 IS annual student satisfaction survey took place earlier this year with nearly 1,200 students responding. The results are helping to refine and focus services for the coming year.
IS staff satisfaction survey 2007/2008 results
Approximately 20% of University staff participated in the annual IS University staff satisfaction survey which took place during the summer term.
October 2008
VERDI: a framework for digitising special collections
The VERsatile DIgitisation framework project (VERDI) is developing a technical framework to enable digital collections to be catalogued, searched and presented on the web.
Audio tours of the Templeman Library
Newly available this academic year, students can download audio tours of the Templeman Library.
Laptop Loan Service
Students can now borrow laptops for use within the Templeman Library on two-hour loan periods.
New services for developing departmental websites
The relaunch of Kent on the web, a website for Kent web authors, features new services for departments using the University template
September 2008
Templeman Library new Core Text Collection
In response to user feedback, an open access Core Text Collection for high demand material has been created on Level 1 West within the Templeman Library.
Easier management of Reading Lists
The upgraded Reading List Management System makes it easy for teaching staff to manage lists, and ensures material is made available to students in line with demand.
June 2008
New collection in Templeman Library
Implementation of a new Core Text Collection will involve reorganisation of stock this summer, and provide an easier way for students to find reading list material from September.
PCs to run Office 2007
The Public PC service for 2008/2009 will run XP and Office 2007.
College PC rooms (Canterbury) are being refurbished
Students focus groups helped define the requirements for the refurbishing of PC rooms in Keynes, Darwin and Eliot.
Moodle at Kent
Implementation of Moodle, a system for managing e-learning, is due for completion in the next 18 months.
May 2008
Office 2007 for staff
Latest updates about the implementation of Office 2007 at Kent.
Accessing online resources update
Changes to accessing e-resources via Athens and new ways of gaining online access.
Email account migration
Planned migration of University staff email account to Microsoft Exchange 2007.
News archive
Earlier news announcements are available from the IS news archive.