Meeting : Directors of Computing Services forRussell Group Institutions
Date : 28th March 2012
Venue :
Imperial College
Room 741
Blackett Laboratory
London
SW7 2AZ.
Agenda
11.00 / Introductions and apologiesAttendees :
Name / Institution / Deputising for ….
Mike Roberts / University of Warwick
Steve Williams / University of Newcastle
Paul Allat / Imperial College, London
John Shemilt / Imperial College, London
Jean Sykes / LSE
Brian Gilmore / University of Edinburgh / Jeff Heywood
Tim Phillips / University of Bristol
Ian Lewis / University of Cambridge
John Gormley / Queen’s University, Belfast
Pete Hancock / University of Southampton
Paul Potter / University of Leeds / Rhys Davies
Alison Clarke / University of Nottingham
Simon Vaughan / University of Cardiff / Eileen Brandreth
Chris Sexton / University of Sheffield
John Cartwright / University of Liverpool
Carole Goble / University of Manchester
Paul Harness / University of Manchester
11.05 / Minutes from previous meeting and matters arising
Minutes were approved; no matters arising
11.15 / Guest Speaker – Prof. Carole Goble, University of Manchester
- Provide a good base; collaborate on the middle layer then ….get out of the way
- Don’t try and reproduce all the variety that’s already out there – there are hundreds of useful tools, tailored to specific researchers needs
- Flexibility wins with researchers
- Everything we develop or implement should fit to the ‘open’ model – that enables researchers to build the point solutions
12.15 / Top 3 issues – general overview on themes; brief discussion on UKBA
Group agreed to curtail this discussion to accommodate previous item. Steve Williams headlined an interest in discussing approaches to interpreting and implementing UKBA requirements and invited attendees to contact him if they wished to compare approaches.
12.45 / Lunch
13.15 / JISC update – discuss note about ‘new shape’ and reflections from away day conversation
There was a brief discussion on progress of the JANET 6 procurement – a written update was provided explaining that the procurement process was proceeding as expected and a further update would be provided at the next meeting.
In addition to the obvious interest in charging models and rates, the relationship between JISC and JANET is of interest. If we take JANET and JISC collections out of the service what value is generated ? What value does JISC provide to JANET ?
13.45 / Effective IT Architecture – Opening comments from Dr. S.P.Duffy, University of Birmingham leading to further contributions and open discussion
Three views were presented, slides will be published on the website.
14.45 / Russell Group – update and discussion on new members
New members of the Russell Group will be invited as guests
14.55 / “Show of Hands”questions to the floor
Agreement that next Rugit away day will be hosted in Edinburgh
15.00 / Close – the group expressed sincere and ‘well earned’ thanks to Jean Sykes for her valuable contribution and support to RUGIT over a number of years.