Kingston University

University Reinforces Excellence in Research with Innovative Blogs and Shared Research Sites

Kingston University wanted to widen awareness of its reputation as a centre for postgraduate study by making it easier for academics to create their own Web sites, or “blogs”—where they could post news about their work to an external audience. It also wanted to give research groups the freedom to set up secure research sites where they could collaborate. To help address these challenges, Kingston University implemented two Web-based solutions that help employees and students to communicate and share information more effectively. Now, academics are posting articles and news to an international online audience, and they can set up shared academic research sites without IT assistance. Administrators say it is one of the most exciting changes on the desktop for more than a decade, liberating academics and students alike.

Scenarios

• Competition for graduates and postgraduates is increasing. Academic institutions need to promote themselves to an international audience to attract student talent.

• Growth in external students and academics makes it harder to collaborate on research. These stakeholders demand resources and tools that help students and academics research and collaborate anytime, anywhere.

• Competition for customers demands outstanding levels of service. Tools and software need to support knowledge gathering and sharing, whatever the location.

Enabling Features

• Personal Web sites for academics.
• Software interface that makes it quick and easy for non-technical employees to post pages and “blog” information to an external audience.

• Online workspaces that can be set up by non-technical employees.
• Ability to share documents, data, and ad-hoc information to a secured group of individuals.

• Sophisticated note-taking software that is easy and familiar to use.
• Integration of the note-taking application with servers and databases.

Benefits to the Business

• Kingston University academics can share their experiences with a wider audience.
• The university demonstrates thought leadership in the way it promotes itself as a commercial organisation.

• Better collaboration drives quality and quantity of research.
• Institution can reach out to leading academics and research teams all over the world.
• Promotes itself to commercial organisations.

• Students and academics can capture knowledge and learning at the point of delivery.
• Notes and information can be translated into structured data and integrated into institution networks using wireless connections.

Measures of Success

• Number of individuals blogging to an external audience.
• Quantity of pages posted per month.
• Applications from graduates and postgraduates.

• Frequency of online workspaces.
• Number of individuals collaborating in online research teams.
• Research partners adopting workspace model for own needs.

• Number of academics and students adopting note-taking solution.
• Volume of data and information transferred to networks and collaborative workspaces.

SITUATION

Kingston University, based in south-west London, is home to 18,000 core students and 2,500 employees. Being an international university with several campuses, Kingston also has an external student population of 25,000.

In an increasingly competitive academic environment, the university is under more pressure than ever to attract high-quality students, especially postgraduates. Because word of mouth plays such a critical role, the university wanted to give academics a platform for promoting research, and thus the university, to a global audience.

“ The 2007 Office release moves any institution out of solitary and silo working to a new realm of collaboration. It is one of the most exciting changes on the desktop for more than a decade and truly liberates both tutors and students.” Ian McNeice Head of IS Technical Services, Kingston University

Ian McNeice, Head of IS Technical Services at Kingston University, says: “Blogging—which involves posting news and information to personal Web sites—plays a critical role in the way many organisations promote themselves to an external audience. We wanted to use this model
to promote the university as a centre of research excellence and attract new students, especially postgraduates.”

The university also wanted to change its approach to academic research by moving away from solitary and silo working to greater collaboration involving students, academics, and other information workers. In particular, management wanted to reduce the time postgraduates spend submitting manual requests for a collaborative research space.

“Until recently, research spaces could not be accessed by users outside Kingston University,” McNeice says. “This was limiting for academics because they frequently collaborate with researchers at partner organisations. Finally, academics had no way to create their own collaborative sites without technical assistance, with restricted internal resources.”

SOLUTION

In early 2006, Kingston University opened talks with Microsoft Education UK and Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Silversands to achieve these goals, with portal solutions for both blogging and the “self-service” creation and management of secure collaboration sites. Kingston University was interested in participating in the 2007 Microsoft Office system Rapid Deployment Programme (RDP) to explore new services well in advance of the release.

In spring 2006, Silversands designed the architecture based on the original functional specification. By early summer, the architecture was in place, leading to the start of pilots for both scenarios.

Of the many applications and new functions available in the 2007 Office release, McNeice and his team focused on the following software and its potential use across the campus:

• Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007: workflow and portal server software, closely integrated with common Microsoft Office system client applications.
• Microsoft Office OneNote® 2007: for note-taking in lectures, running on a new generation of extremely light and portable tablet computers.
• Microsoft Office InfoPath® Forms Services: a Web-based forms application integrated as part of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

The university had one overriding objective for the project. “We wanted to fully investigate how the 2007 Office release could support greater collaboration between academics and to provide everyone with the tools to work more closely with their colleagues, students, and external partners,” McNeice says.

BENEFITS

Kingston University has achieved success with two important projects—the rollout of blog sites for its academics and the creation of collaboration sites to share research with teachers and third parties at other universities. By joining the RDP, Kingston has achieved fast results and is reinforcing its international reputation for educational excellence.

Researcher Blogs Build Reputation for Excellence

The university has built pilot blogs for more than 50 academics and research groups and plans to provide academic blogs eventually to all PhD students and academics linked to their My Sites for ease of access and updating.

“Initial feedback from users suggests that posting information on a personal Web site is straightforward and, above all, fun,” McNeice says. “Little training has been required because most people are familiar with the interface from other Microsoft products.”

Now, instead of wasting time struggling with technology, users can focus on thinking about what to say. “The fact our academics can now manage an interface to an international audience—anonymously or otherwise—provides a new level of freedom of debate and discussion never seen before,” says McNeice. This is just the first step toward using blogs to reach international audiences, create new research networks, and advance enterprise activities with private-sector businesses.

The university is measuring success on direct feedback. “Success will be measured by a visible increase in user and group satisfaction and a long-term increase in research and enterprise activities at an institutional level,” says McNeice. “Ultimately, I would like to see a greater awareness of Kingston as an institution of excellence through direct search results in key search engines, where blogs and research sites are indexed by important
and relevant key words and topics.”

This culture change is being supported through the RDP. “The 2007 Office release moves any institution out of solitary and silo working to a new realm of collaboration,” McNeice says. “It is one of the most exciting changes on the desktop for more than a decade and truly liberates both tutors and students.”

Research Sites Extend “Outside the Walls” to Wider Community

Research sites presented a different challenge that involved working with a specific collaborative group that extended to people “outside the walls” of the traditional university environment. “The key objective was to remove the need for an individual researcher to look to central IT services for account creation and instead to promote self-governance of a specific collaborative sphere,” McNeice says.

The pilot research sites have created a number of exciting possibilities for encouraging collaboration—not only through research work, but also partnerships with other institutions, enterprise alliances, and many other areas. McNeice says, “One of our main private-sector partners Farnborough Aerospace Consortium can work with our enterprise and academic people to develop a collaborative systems hub for aerospace enterprise development.”

The engagement is through a research and postgraduate portal called Post Graduate Space running on SharePoint Server 2007, which will act as the interface or gateway to the new research sites. “We’ll look to make provision of new research sites as an easy request or workflow so that new provision will be swift and timely,” McNeice says.

The university is finding the new workflow features extremely exciting and is using them to reengineer some of its business processes. “The move from manual to electronic processing through new direct workflows will change the way we handle slow day-to-day business processes,” McNeice says. “By publishing data directly into portal environments, our employees and students will be able to see information in real time.”

“ The fact that our academics can now manage an interface to an international audience—anonymously or otherwise—provides a level of freedom of debate and discussion never seen before.” Ian McNeice Head of IS Technical Services, Kingston University

Showing the Way for the Commercial Sector

External organisations working with research teams at Kingston University have taken note of the features available on their collaborative sites and are looking to implement similar solutions for their own organisation.

Farnborough Aerospace Consortium is already considering using similar technology to create a shared workspace where vendors can respond to requests for information and undertake other procurement activities. McNeice says: “Out of the RDP exercise with Microsoft, we can further promote the profile of Kingston University as a thought leader in the use of technology. Even to the extent that other organisations and businesses can follow our lead and adopt solutions and best practices that we have established.”

Enhancing Internal Communications and Collaboration

Through the RDP, Kingston University is also learning to unlock the features of Office OneNote 2007, a note-taking program that allows users to collaborate
in a more organised manner. “We see this as a key ingredient in tutorials, lectures, and library work for note-taking, compilation of facts and dialogue, and research,” McNeice says. “We have already begun trials with the solution running on a new generation of extremely light and portable tablet computers. As a result, we are starting to see the beginning of collaboration on the move, as well as the effective re-use of information.”

For More Information

Partner Details
Silversands
Tel: + 44 (0)1202 36 04 61
http://www.silversands.co.uk/

Customer Details
Kingston University
Tel: +44 (0)20 8547 2000
http://www.kingston.ac.uk/

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at +1 800 426 9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at +1 877 568 2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at
+1 800 892 5234 in the United States or +1 905 568 9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published January 2007.