This is a blog for IT at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland. Why have we called it “riverbytes?” – because this University has a beautiful riverside setting for it’s Campus beside the River Dee.
Our campus in this setting lies at the heart of our physical university life, complimented by our use of information technology for work, learning and collaboration. Hence, the name “riverbytes” brings together the physical and the virtual.
We have set up this blog as an informal way to keep our University Community well informed on our future plans for IT, to get your feedback, and to make sure you know what’s happening and when.
Welcome even if you have no direct link with RGU – enjoy the blog and feel free to contribute.
This is a time of great change in the world of technology – an exciting and also a challenging time to be working in IT. How can we meet growing user expectations and the opportunities of new technology platforms, how do we keep the myriad of existing systems going, how do we move from the old to the new safely, with constraints of funding, and with a diverse population of staff and students?
We have looked carefully at the future potential for IT in the University to enhance how we work, learn and collaborate and we have a new strategy and some great developments in the pipeline. There’s a lot to tell, and we hope that this blog will be an easy way for you to learn about these changes progressively.
We’ll pitch entries in this blog at different levels depending where we are in the discussion. We’ll try to keep each entry brief, and link to other sites if you want more information.
Direction: At this level, we will share with you our planned overall direction and strategy. We’ll explain the key changes we are planning, why these changes are important, and the timescales we are working to.
Impact: At this level we will explain in more detail how these changes will affect you in your day to day role in the University. Taking a topic at a time, we will explain where this fits in our overall strategy, how the change will help you, and how we plan to introduce the change.
Hands on: At this level, we will introduce you directly to new services, where to find guidance notes and other resources as they become available and ready to use. As part of this, we will have short entries branded on the theme of “small steps” to encourage you to try out aspects of our IT provision that are new, or that you may not have tried before.
Inside: What’s it like behind the scenes in an IT role these days? We’ll give you some insights and will invite some guest contributors from time to time.
Feedback
We welcome feedback at any time and will do our best to respond to you quickly. This blog will be looked after by the IT Management Team at RGU, and you can provide feedback and comments either by posting comments to the blog in the usual way, or if you wish to discuss something offline, e-mail ITBlog@rgu.ac.uk and one of us will respond, or you can contact any of us individually below. You can follow us on twitter at RGU_ITBlog.
The senior IT team in the University looks after this blog, but there are many colleagues within IT Services and across the University who make a huge contribution to the use of information technology in all aspects of our life and there will be many contributions from then as we build up this blog.
The senior IT team is:
Myself – Andy McCreath, Executive Director (IT and Communication)
a.mccreath@rgu.ac.uk
Richard Lynch – Head of IT Operations and Support
richard.lynch@rgu.ac.uk
Dave Hall – Head if IT Development and Projects
d.w.hall@rgu.ac.uk
Keith Fraser – Records Manager
k.fraser@rgu.ac.uk
Follow us on Twitter at RGU_ITBlog
riverbytes 