Workshops

Room key: (1st Floor, level with the plenary room, the Quadrangle Suite, except where noted)

BR: Boardroom (2nd floor)
CC: Christ Church (2nd floor)
LS: Landmark Suite
ME: Maurice Evans Lounge
ML: Manor Lounge
QS: Quadrangle Suite

The exhibition area is on the ground floor, connected to the main level by a large staircase near the entrance.

01 Multiplatform Mobile Phone Apps Development - Without Programming Greg Jennings, Hertford College pdf
14:10
QS		 This session will walk through development of mobile App using HTML5, javascript and CSS for multiple mobile phone operating systems including for iOS and Android . The methodology will be to use the same content for all platforms to minimise development time. It will be carried out by virtue of open source frameworks and libraries and advice on how to keep the costs low. The workshop will cover aspects of design, creation, testing and deployment to the relevant App stores/ Marketplace with the emphasis being on rapidly deployed low cost Apps without traditional coding.
02 IAM who IAM (but who the heck is alic3000)? John Ireland, OUCS pdf
11:00
QS		 Delivering secure and personalised IT services depends heavily on effective Identity and Access Management: identifying who your users are and ensuring they can do what they are entitled to do (but no more) with a minimum of fuss. This session will provide an overview of OUCS services that can do some of the hard work for you (including an update on Web SSO for Windows web servers), and look at current OUCS projects to offer additional support (including Core User Directory, Multifactor Authentication, and Active Directory).
03 zero to hero - your first podcast in 20 minutes Stephen Eyre, OUCS  
14:10
ME		 This talk will demonstrate in real time how to create a media file (in this case an interview) and podcast it worldwide in under 20 minutes.
04 Using New Media for PR Carolyne Culver, Public Affairs Directorate pdf
11:00
LS		 A presentation about the collegiate University's successful use of podcasting and social media: an update about progress and information about how you can get involved if you aren't already. Our sites on iTunesU and Youtube provide a window into life at Oxford for potential applicants to the University, and make our lectures and other academic and research related events available to a wider audience. Our Facebook and Twitter sites enable us to push news out to a sizeable audience, and pull them towards our website www.ox.ac.uk The presentation will also explain the audio and video recording services that are available to members of the collegiate University.
05 An integrated approach to student data management Julia Palejowska, Brasenose College
Ned Ramsay, Jesus College
Emma Potts, Student Administration		 pdf
11:00
ML		 This session will provide an update on the progress of the Student Systems replacement programme and developments across Colleges of a common ERM solution. It will also provide a forum to discuss areas where a coordinated approach to student systems development would provide opportunities for reducing duplication of effort and lessen the requirement to develop local solutions, alongside an enhanced user experience for staff and students through better integration.
06 Supporting charities with IT technical acumen Lyn Waddington, OUCS pdf
15:00
ML		 IT support for charities often requires significant input from those who do know. This talks springs from one such endeavour, and the technical results might be of interest. The goal was to provide email, file and web serving, help desk, and various cooperative activities for staff located round the world using a low cost server. Emphasis is on extremely low cost, and a hidden goal became turning most management over to non-IT volunteers and self-service facilities (which posed yet more problems to be solved). Several commercial systems were investigated, each had obvious benefits but also very substantial costs. The alternative was to use fully open source software plus a hand made server or two, to approach the qualities found in the commercial systems for about the price of an iPad. The end of the story is that we did get there, this talk is about the process of how.
07 Everything You Wanted to Know About Negotiating a Deal in IT Stuart Forster, OU Corporate Expenditure Purchasing Team  
15:00
ME		 This session is designed to introduce you to the University Purchasing Department, and to equip you for the negotiation process. Covering the stages to achieve success, helpful hints and tips to get what you want from a supplier, the small print in contracts and quotations and why you should read them, the benefits of using University preferred suppliers and an opportunity for your questions.
08 The Python Scripting Language Bruce Beckles, CUCS pdf
11:00
CC		 Python is a scripting language that is cropping up in more and more places and it seems to be replacing Perl as the typical glue language, after the shell. Furthermore it is a clean enough language and library set that learning skills in Python leads to immediate gains in a whole range of areas. Cambridge have settled on Python as the "power scripting" language for a great many courses offered as part of our Scientific Computing suite partly for that reason. We will review where Python is used and why it looks like it is going to become increasingly important in our work.
09 Google Apps at Cambridge Jon Warbrick, CUCS pdf
15:00
LS		 Cambridge has an instance of Google Apps for Education using its local authentication system (Raven) and available to all the University. This session will cover why we did this, how we did it, why it was harder than it looks (or than we thought it would be), and what people are doing with it (e.g. shared University Term calendars, software schedules, meeting planning, etc.)
10 Conferencing & Collaboration from Desktop to Robot Ronald Haynes, CUCS pdf
16:10
ME		 A look inside the (not so) secret world of desktop collaboration and conferencing, with a hint of the larger goal of unified communications, which increasingly aims to link desktops, with telephones and various messaging systems and even mobile platforms - including robotic ones. Desktop conferencing and collaboration systems have the potential to radically transform (or break) the Internet, as well as the way we meet, teach and interact with each other and our desktop and mobile devices. It also holds the promise (or hype) of unifying our electronic communications. This session will provide an overview of this still-emerging area, along with a brief demonstration of a few desktop conferencing systems and (hopefully) a robotic unit.
11 OxPoints and data.ox.ac.uk: Linked open data, and how it could work to your advantage Alex Dutton, OUCS pdf
14:10
ML		 With recent developments by the UK Government, Ordnance Survey, and the appearance of institutional open data repositories at a number of UK HE institutions, open data, linked data and the semantic web have been very much in the spotlight. The University is currently developing a repository for institutional data called data.ox.ac.uk, with the aim of enabling re-use of institutional data, both within and beyond the University. In this workshop, we'll explain how to use the data in your projects, and how to contribute data for reuse by others. We'll also focus on OxPoints, a dataset available through data.ox.ac.uk that describes organisational structure, buildings, rooms, and the relationships between them.
12 Using open data to help achieve the university's ambitious sustainability objectives? Alex Dutton & Howard Noble, OUCS pdf
15:00
BR		 What can we do with open and linked data to help achieve the University's highly ambitious and yet essential 2020, 2030 and 2050 targets? In this talk we explain why IT's most important contribution to environmental sustainability will be in creating services that support behaviour change initiatives. We will illustrate this by discussing ways to use the new pilot data.ox.ac.uk service. Come to this talk if you are interested in green IT, open/linked data, altruistic punishment and generally re-envisioning the world in terms of public goods!
13 Bodleian Libraries - Strategic Vision and Challenges ahead Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s Librarian pdf
11:00
ME		 The Bodleian Libraries are in a period of historic change. More than 6.5 million volumes are being moved into its Book Storage Facility in less than a year, and every book transferred is barcoded. The construction phase of the renovation of the New Bodleian Library begins in August and will be completed in 2014. At the same time, the Libraries are implementing a new integrated library system and are actively digitising collections and developing new services, such as delivery to the desktop and BodReader apps. Dr Sarah Thomas, Bodley's Librarian, will describe the strategic vision for the Bodleian and the challenges ahead.
14 Conducting Surveys with WebLearn plus recent and future developments Adam Marshall, OUCS pdf
16:10
BR		 This session will offer a basic introduction to the WebLearn survey tool and will also cover recent additions to the platform with a brief outline of what is to be expected in the new academic year.
15 Securing Public Webservers: How and Why David Ford & Mark Duller, OUCS pdf
15:00
QS		 This workshop is intended to give you a practical example as to how to apply the the policies and principles of the Information Security Best Practice (ISBP) project, make use of the ISBP toolkit, and apply them to a real world problem.
Over the last 6-8 months OxCERT have observed an alarming number of webserver compromises some of which exposed the personal details of hundreds of users, many of these due to SQL injection vulnerabilities. David and Mark will begin by highlighting the risks of failing to properly secure public webservers before going on to give practical tips on preventing this happening to you!
16 University Shared Data Centre Pete Jones, OUCS pdf
14:10
LS		 An overview of all that has been happening in provisioning Oxford University's new University Shared Data Centre and the development of the virtual infrastructure underpinning Oxford's private-cloud.
17 Chewing the CUD Rob Hebron, OUCS
Lyn Waddington, OUCS		  
16:10
CC		 The Core User Directory (CUD) is in the early adopter phase. This presentation will:
  • Give a brief overview of CUD and how it fits within Identity and Access Management
  • Show the benefits to data managers and owner supplying data to CUD
  • Demonstrate the process of registering with CUD
  • Show how data is processed and stored
  • Demonstrate the different formats of query results
  • Show the protocols offered by CUD to submit and retrieve data
  • Demonstrate how to query as a CUD data consumer
  • Show the process of querying the consolidated data store and examples of how data is presented
18 Apple Technology Update Stuart Anderson, Apple  
16:10
QS		 See and learn about the latest with iPhone, iPad and Mac OSX.
19 Social Sciences Division Department Activity Information System (DAISY) Bridget Taylor, Divisional Projects Officer
Matthias Opitz, Web Developer, Social Sciences Divisional Office		  
11:00
BR		 DAISY is a database developed for Social Science departments to record and report information about their teaching and research activities, not held in any University information system. It uses certain information from OpenDoor (staff and posts) and OSS via the data warehouse. DAISY is used by departments for the University Review of Teaching, and supports cross-charging for teaching and departmental activity-based costing. With WebLearn, if forms the Student Enrolment System also used by MPLS, for doctoral training in the DTCs. Functionality is being developed to show research information on departmental websites and staff profiles. An academic interface is currently being tested, for academics to view and amend their individual teaching and research records.
20 The Oxford Nexus SharePoint service Mark Norman, OUCS pdf
15:00
CC		 Mark will address the new University-wide SharePoint service now available to all users. The service can be used for collaboration with documents in the context of research teams, committees, clubs and societies and for personal projects. As well as document libraries, it contains wikis, blogs and much more. Mark will describe the service and talk through how the service came into being. There will be time for questions at the end.
21 Exchange 2010 Matthew Gaskin, OUCS
Thomas Mill, OUCS		 pdf
14:10
CC		 Matthew and Tom will describe why the Oxford Nexus Service is moving to Exchange 2010 and how the team have designed the new service. This will include some history of Nexus and Exchange 2007 with lessons learned and a fair amount of technical detail. This is intended as a technical talk that looks at the nuts and bolts of Microsoft Exchange at Oxford.
22 Bonfire of the Humanities: The boom of Digital Humanities in the age of austerity Cheryl Bresnark, History Faculty  
  Cancelled due to unforseen circumstances.
23 A brief update on voip and the SMS options available from Telecoms Alan Hillyer, OUCS
 pdf
16:10
ML		 Our Telephone system was installed in 1986 and has served us well but what does the future hold in terms of ongoing telephone services? Over the last three years we have started to deploy a new voip telephone system. This session will give a brief overview of why, some benefits and futures. To finish, we will look at the SMS message service, how Telecoms use it and how it may be of use to other Departments, Research Groups and Colleges.
24 Managing Macs in Oxford Marcus Saunders, James Partridge,and Marko Jung, NSMS pdf
16:10
LS		 In response to the rapid growth of Macs in Oxford, the NSMS Mac team has developed and refined the Managed Mac Platform (MMP) for deploying Macs on a large scale across the University. This platform enables us to build and maintain Macs in specific, customised configurations. In this talk we will discuss the architecture of the MMP and explain some of the solutions we have found to common problems with Mac management. We will also demonstrate deploying and automatically updating software packages, including Adobe Creative Suite. Finally, we will discuss the lessons learned from implementing this management framework across a range of units in Oxford.