Dominic's blog is going coporate

Hi readers,

This blog is now moving to:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ukhe/

As in - Microsoft UK Higher Education.

Thanks - Dominic

Thanks to my colleague Jason Langridge for this

Thanks Jason, another good example of why I should keep reading your excellent blog is this post:

Career Education Corporation wanted to offer mobile computing to all 75 of its campuses worldwide, but, with RIM BlackBerry devices, reliability was poor and costs were prohibitive. The company then switched to devices based on the Windows Mobile® 5.0 operating system. The move is saving 37 percent compared to RIM; e-mail availability is 18 percent higher; and the company can enable mobile access to its student portal, boosting industry competitiveness.

http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonlan/archive/2007/04/13/career-education-case-study.aspx

Career Education was able to state “We wanted to expand our mobile environment beyond a few hundred BlackBerry devices and we couldn’t afford it,” says Story. “With Windows Mobile 5.0, we can afford to deploy thousands of mobile devices; they’re more reliable, and we get more out of them than we could with the BlackBerries.”

 You can read the full case study HERE

It’s Coming: Mac BU Announces Intent to Deliver Office 2008 for Mac

I've been asked by a university recently about Entourage 2008 which I previously knew even less about than Entourage 2004 – not being a Mac user. So this has led onto a number of discoveries for resources both internally at Microsoft and also on the Web including the site that the title this blog post comes from:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/jan07/01-09MacworldPR.mspx

SAN FRANCISCO — Jan. 9, 2007 — Microsoft Corp.'s Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) today revealed at Macworld Conference & Expo 2007 the news Mac fans have been waiting to hear: A new version of Office for Mac is on its way. The Mac BU announced its intent to deliver the first Universal version of Office for Mac for PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs — Microsoft^® Office 2008 for Mac. Scheduled to be available in the second half of 2007, Office 2008 for Mac will allow Mac users to work smarter and more efficiently with new and enhanced tools that are simple, intuitive and easily discovered.

"For more than two decades, Microsoft has been committed to delivering quality and innovation on the Macintosh platform while retaining unparalleled compatibility with PCs," said Roz Ho, general manager of the Mac BU at Microsoft. "Office 2008 is, by far, the most comprehensive, Mac-complementary productivity suite we've developed to date. I've witnessed firsthand the progression of this product, and am excited to think about the possibilities that soon will be available to our customers when Office 2008 launches later this year."

Microsoft conducted extensive customer research to determine which enhancements to make to its Word, Excel^®, PowerPoint^® and Entourage^® applications. As a result, Office 2008 for Mac is packed with new tools to help Mac users better manage the business of life.

There are also some links on this page to Inside Microsoft Office 2008 for Macintosh

REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 9, 2007 — Microsoft continues to deliver world-class technology products for the Mac platform – as it has for more than 20 years. Founded in 1997, Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) is a leading developer of productivity software for Mac customers worldwide. Currently available products include Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac, a productivity suite that is comprised of the e-mail application and personal-information manager Entourage 2004, Word 2004, Excel 2004 and PowerPoint 2004; and Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6.0.

Which is an interview of Roz Ho, the General Manager of Microsoft's Business Unit.

And there's the Entourage MVP website

http://www.entourage.mvps.org/

And this one (which doesn't seem to be updated very often:

http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/

From a background of zero knowledge I've now managed to amass a good deal more.

Ray Ozzie Interview

This is a fascinating insight into how Ray Ozzie views the potential future of technology:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1698

I'm hugely enthusiastic about his vision and description of how technology and the process of making new technologies is going to change.

Great English accent on the audio file too ;-)

How Green is the IT on your Campus? Can Vista help?

You don't need me to tell you that across the UK universities are being encourage to make their Campus more green and to reduce the rather large carbon footprint each Campus has. Paradoxically, as each campus is looking to reduce its CO2 emissions many of its investments in IT are potentially undermining these attempts. Consider the amount of electricity consumed through High Performance Computing for a minute. If a 200 node grid is not being fully utilised to support a research endeavour then its burning fuel unnecessarily (unless it's switched off of course). Similarly, and perhaps more visibly, if a PC is not being fully utilised then it too is causing more Greenhouse gasses to be pushed into the atmosphere but look round most campus sites and you will see hundreds if not thousands of PCs and their monitors left switched on during inactive periods in the day and all through the night and vacations.

Why don't people simply switch their PC off when it's not in use? Well there is more than one answer to this but the usual one is "time". Of course, no one likes waiting while their PC goes through the boot sequence either at the beginning of the morning, after a meeting or lunch break which is why Microsoft has for many years had the concept of Standby and Hibernate. Both of these states can dramatically reduce the electricity supply to your PC without the need for a re-boot. They have been around, from memory, since Windows 95 and for laptop users have meant the difference between an active or flat battery but desktop PC users seem to have been slower to take advantage of these two states.

With the introduction of Vista, Microsoft has taken steps to improve the quality of the less-power states of a PC and has replaced the terms of Standy and Hibernate with Sleep and by default it is switched on. This will no doubt surprise some folk when after leaving their PC for a lunch break they return to find it apparently switched off. Don't call the helpdesk or go looking for power problems your PC has just gone to sleep and can be fairly quickly roused from its slumber to perform as normal.

What are the benefits of and organisation migrating from Windows XP to Windows Vista in terms of carbon footprint? According to the results of an independent survey an organisation with just 200 PCs can expect the following:

• Reduction in the Carbon Dioxide output by around 45 tonnes a year
• Savings on energy bills of around £46 GBP per desktop PC per year

So, to me, that looks like through deploying Vista a university can reduce the amount of CO2 they create and also potentially save a money at the same time.

The advanced power management features of Windows Vista are particularly important to Microsoft customer Brockenhurst College, a Beacon College and one of the most successful in the UK. Situated in the heart of the New Forest National Park, environmental issues have fast become a key priority and Brockenhurst College wants to adopt a more proactive stance in reducing its carbon emissions.

"We currently have an installed base of 1,200 PCs, 25 servers and supporting air-conditioning units and fully understand the impact these have on power consumption. Interestingly, a lot of our energy usage and running costs stem from when the college is shut rather than open, which is where Windows Vista is going to be hugely beneficial," said Robin Gadd, head of information services, Brockenhurst College. "Out of the box, Windows Vista has much better power management capabilities compared to Windows XP and migrating to the new operating system is no doubt going to support us on our quest to be more environmentally friendly."

Microsoft has prepared some information about how this can help your operations here:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/mar07/03-21vistapowermgmt.mspx

Take a look at the Related Links section on the page for more information on how to apply these benefits.

Office Communications Server 2007 - BETA is now public

Just to let you know the beta of Office Communicator 2007 and the Office Communications Server 2007 is available for public download

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F7D34DF9-29CF-4BFC-824F-7A382CE8BA8B&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/uc/ocsbeta.mspx

If you're begining to explore the possibilities that VoIP has to offer or interested in hosting a web conferencing (Live Meeting) system for virtual teaching and learning then this is certainly worth taking a look at.

Are you in control? ... Technet Microsoft Management Summit (UK) 1st May

Microsoft Management Summit (UK): Are you in control? How to manage and secure your infrastructure

The event is in Microsoft's Reading Office, Thames Valley Park in rooms Chicago 1&2 and Memphis, 1^st May 2007.

Details and Registration for your customers and partners at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032334551&Culture=en-GB

Welsh University Improves Document Control and Collaboration with New Technologies

In Preparation for St David's day, I'm posting this recently published case study with details of the project that University of Wales institute Cardiff and Morse Solutions (formerly known as Diagonal Solutions) have delivered.  I am particularly pleased about This Project because it shows commitment to the vision that delivers ‘best in class’ quality using every day familiar interfaces.  Also I think the quotation from Mike James, the university’s IT Director, is extremely powerful and marks a new wave in what many universities are beginning to consider as the next step:

“Microsoft provides us with the platforms to integrate all our university systems and applications and realise our strategic Managed Learning Environment vision.”

Mike James, Assistant Principal, University of Wales Institute Cardiff

The many benefits this project is delivering include:

·         Helping staff to find documents and information easily

·         Students are able to collaborate better in teams

·         Reduces the need to train web publishers

·         Tutors provide detailed student appraisals

·         People become more productive

For more information and to access this case study please visit http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=201106

Sharepoint Community Portal

I received this in an email from my colleague Steve Audis the other day:

Not sure if any of you have seen this site: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/sharepoint/default.aspx

Great place to show the new templates that have been released for SharePoint 2007.  It also has links to other websites, blogs, presentations etc (really good one stop shop for SharePoint material). This is the worldwide site but we do have a UK specific one; lacking content at the moment but managed by Mark Harrison and Rob Gray: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/sharepoint/worldwide/uk/default.aspx

Basically, the there are loads of templates and good ideas about how to use SharePoint, including classroom, social and business scenarios. The including blog entries from many of Microsoft's share point team members including information about how to use Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) to turn MOSS 2007 into a claims aware application with attached information about Single Sign On (SSO) with both MOSS 2007 and SharePoint 2003.

Yours, Dominic Watts

(Published from Word 2007)

More on ADFS and Shibboleth integration

Following the work on Active Directory integration with Shibboleth reported here I am now able to point you to the published paper. This paper describes the work we carried out in the proof of concept back in 2006. To access the white paper please visit to Oxford Computer group's website.

Microsoft - managing users, computers and internet access, Learning Network Manager

What does the student experience mean to you?

A couple of years ago, no, a couple of months ago, if someone talked about the "student experience" they would have been laughed off the campus.  It's the sort of phrase that made listeners squirm and speakers sound pretentious.  However, now - it's all anyone is talking about and the difference is remarkable.  Maybe it's a symptom of the Leitch Report and a realisation that skills in the UK has to be a priority focus for education in order for prosperity to become a reality.  Anyway, I'm all for this kind of terminology and it really speaks to the work my colleagues and I are working on.

I have many theories on how to enhance the Student Experience in a university but I’ll stick to the main educational ones for now.  I believe areas of personalisation will be of increasing importance and this reaches right across the board.  Students will be looking to learn when, where, how and also to choose what they learn

How can technology help?  Well, I’d go for the obvious such as social based learning supported through a comprehensive learning environment that is not oriented around a structural hierarchy rather one that works with the students allowing the flexibility they need.  Communication tools that work with the student and from many different devices and locations.  Also, tools that have real life value and skills in how to use those that can be fed directly in to a CV.

I guess the main question of the Student Experience really has to be  “is this going to enhance my employability?”

What does the “Student Experience” mean to you and what are you doing to improve it?  Please get in touch, I’d love to know but please don’t mention Shibboleth because I’m beginning to feel that not one student on this Island has heard of it (ok, a few might have) and I’ve other posts that address this ;-)

I’m looking for ePortfolio stories, student oriented collaborative environments, social learning technology for example.

Examples of where I believe Microsoft is helping are at the following locations:

Learning Gateway – connecting learners and teachers www.learninggateway.net

Advanced Collaboration and Distance Learning http://research.microsoft.com/conferencexp/

Innovative social learning in developing regions http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/dec06/12-14MultiPoint.mspx

Kingston University speaks about its recent launch of Sharepoint 2007

Ian McNeice of Kingston University has recently been interviewed by Darren Strange (Microsoft's Office Rocker) about his recent experience introducing SharePoint 2007 to the research community in his university.  Ian is the head of Technical Services at Kingston and is known by many for his enthusiasm for portal and information management solutions and the power these can bring to an institution looking to modernise and enthuse students and staff.  The full trasnsript of the interview can be found here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/officerocker/archive/2007/01/15/kingston-university-the-future-s-bright-with-2007-office.aspx

It's worth anybody looking at portals, blogging and, naturally, Sharepoint to have a good read through.  Ian manages to capture many of the current Higher Education evelopments and trends in his answers to Darren's questions such as the fact universities are having to treat students as customers and also that collaboration with industry for research is becoming increasingly important and through the use of common and familiar technology this has now become a reality.

 Happy reading - Dominic Watts

email hosting - further update

Due to the high interest in this, I'm going to run a Webinar on 1 February at 14:30 GMT to discuss Microsoft's options for student email hosting.  For more information:

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join?id=3RKQ63&role=attend&pw=2K%3E%5B-kbxW

  Subject: Windows Live@EDU
  Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join
  Meeting ID: 3RKQ63
  Meeting Key: 2K>[-kbxW
  Role: Attendee
  Audio Conferencing (Toll): +44 (118) 9092000 
  Participant Code: 901985

Click to add to your Outlook calendar:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/meetingICS?id=3RKQ63&role=attend&pw=2K%3E%5B-kbxW&i=i.ics

FIRST TIME USERS: To save time before the meeting, check your system to make sure it is compatible with Microsoft Office Live Meeting: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=52354

For assistance, visit Live Meeting Help and Support:
http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlidLiveMeeting?p1=7&p2=en_US&p3=LMInfo&p4=support

Email - do you host your own?

There's been some interesting discussion this week about hosted email, and in particular Microsoft's Windows Live @ EDU http://www.imagine-wl.com/Education/en-US/ programme.  In the UK there are around a dozen institutions using this programme representing something like 120,000 students.  The discussion is focusing on the following areas:

1. Why wouldn't a university use this facility?
2. What would encourage universities to start using the facility
3. Are the students who already have access to it using it?

So let me give a few thoughts on these points

1.  Why wouldn't a university use this facility?

There may be many reasons for this such as:

• They have not heard about it
• They have some ideological opposition to using it
• They have a fully featured existing collaboration system that integrates into personalised learning environment
• No desire

I could go on but one thing seems to be certain is that the reason why a university carries on hosting its own Student email service is subjective and it is not possible to generalise.

2. What would encourage universities to start using the facility

I'm discussing with many universities some options for providing this service to their students and each one, as you can imagine, has different legitimate objections, fears and reasons for denying or delaying its introduction.  So one of the discussion points is around the possibility of a dual service.  This could enable the university to carry on hosting its own email but to also offer students who require it the potential of having a university branded email address with 2GB of email.  So, for example, a student may have an existing email address which is something like:

dominic.watts@maths07.yorkshire.ac.uk and this is his main university hosted email.  Why not allow this student to also have:

dominic.watts@live.yorkshire.ac.uk as an alternative with the higher levels of storage? 

This way, the university gets to carry on providing an integrated email solution but allows the student some flexibility to store greater levels of data without the university increasing its costs.

 Also, this universities could start with it today for both applicants and alumni.  This can create a powerful draw to keep the university top of mind in these stakeholders.

3. Are the students who already have access to it using it?

Great question!  Of course, we should take a look at how students communicate today.  Do they use email at all or is it just the university that mandates that students must access their university hosted email account to receive official communication?  But, this is the age of personalised learning and treating students as customers; therefore shouldn't universities be asking students how they want to receive communication?  Many students use alternative methods of communication/collaboration now and new media like youtube, facebook, Flikr where (spot the link back to personalised learning) people are involved in a more collaborative/creative method of communication rather than store and forward email.

 To summarise, there are many varied and legitimate reasons why a university is not using hosted email for students today but I believe there is a role for providing an alternative service to students, applicants and alumni in all universities.  Also, let's not forget that by waiting we are potentially missing the boat and today's students already find email is yesterday's solution.