A new not-for-profit group will help universities to maximise
benefits derived from their software spend
Academic institutions in the UK and the Republic of Ireland are
being offered collaboration and knowledge management software under
special licensing terms to help them to create a Web-based
environment for the development of intranet, extranets and
e-business applications,
writes Karl Cushing.
The software, which has been packaged specifically for the academic
community, is an entirely Web-based application and it delivers an
integrated set of enterprise services to users' desktops. Its core
functionality includes document and knowledge management,
information retrieval, virtual team collaboration, business process
automation and event notification.
The browser-based system helps to remove institutional and
geographical barriers by providing students, teachers and
administrative staff with a set of collaborative tools such as
interactive whiteboards. Teaching and administrators benefit from
having access to a single repository of information where ideas and
knowledge can be exchanged in a secure user-friendly environment.
According to one user, Nigel Kirkman, project design manager at the
University of Manchester, the system helps to address one of the
key problems in such a knowledge based environment - that of paper
overload. "The implementation of a robust document management
system is highly overdue," he says.
An early application at the university involved using the software
to provide electronic access to student records, where it reduced
the time required by the staff of the registrar and secretary's
departments to file, store, retrieve and collaborate on these
documents. As well as being more efficient, this approach has saved
significant amounts in terms of administration and stationery costs
- a key consideration for cash-strapped academic institutions.
However, for Kirkman the system is not just about managing and
storing its mass of documents more effectively. The system enables
the university to harness the power of the Web to bring together
every member of the academic community for greater communications
and interaction, he says.
The software - a collaboration and knowledge management software
product called Livelink Campus Collaboration from supplier Open
Text - is being offered to the institutions by the Combined Higher
Education Software Team (Chest), a Bath-based not-for-profit
organisation that promotes itself as "the educational shop window
for purchasers of software, data, information, training materials
and other IT-related products". Chest negotiates and manages
licence agreements for its members and aims to provide the best
possible value in technology to higher education institutions.
Chest chose to supply the product to its members following an
evaluation of existing Livelink implementations at the University
of North London and the University of Manchester. It is offering
its members the change of purchasing the product and its associated
services under three different licensing options - for
administrative staff, student access and student one-year terms.