Category Archives: fote

FOTE12 Goes Hybrid with Mediasite by Sonic Foundry

Posted by nicolew on 04/10/2012 No comments

One Company’s Use of Webcasting Brings Employees Together
Photo credit: Sonic Foundry, Inc.

The Future of Technology in Education (FOTE) conference in London, England always sells out fast to IT directors and managers, learning technologists, practitioners and anyone else interested in educational technology.

But if you weren’t able to secure a ticket to this week’s conference, you can still participate and feel like you’re actually there, because FOTE is being webcast for the first time to a remote audience via Mediasite by Sonic Foundry. That way, even more people from all over the world will be able to watch online from the comfort of their offices or homes.

All of the sessions will be live streamed via Mediasite 6, which will allow attendees, both on-site and online, to watch sessions from their mobile devices in real time. The recordings will also be archived for on-demand viewing, creating an instant online video library of knowledge about IT trends in classrooms that can be reviewed at any time.

To join remotely all you need to do is register on the Mediasite events website using the ‘FOTE2012‘ passcode. If you are planning to watch the FOTE12 live stream from a desktop computer please make sure you install the latest version of Microsoft Silverlight.

Making FOTE a hybrid event this year by simultaneously offering face-to-face and online experiences, allows the University of London Computer Centre, the conference organizer, to reach and engage a much larger audience.

Worldwide, 1,100 colleges and universities use Mediasite and its video content management system to quickly and cost-effectively automate the capture, management, delivery and search of live and on-demand streaming videos and rich media presentations. Sonic Foundry has been named Frost & Sullivan’s Global Market Share Leader in Lecture Capture Solutions for six consecutive years.

Check out www.sonicfoundry.com/mediasite to learn more.

– Nicole Wise, Sonic Foundry

Privacy Policy

Posted by Nuwa on 17/05/2012 No comments

From May 26th 2012 EU law requires websites to ask for permission before setting nearly all cookies and equivalent technologies. The list below is of the cookies we use on this site and why.

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Collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.

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Mailchimp cookies are used when you enter your email address into our mailing list sign up form. Once you fill out the form, it sends your details to our FOTE mailing list.

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Shrinking Budgets = Increased Outsourcing?

Posted by Frank Steiner on 14/06/2011 1 comment

This was the theme of the second FOTE Round Table session which took place last Friday (10 June 2011) at Microsoft’s offices in Central London. A more detailed report will be published shortly but here are our key take-aways from the day.

  • Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and financial flexibility are key concerns for IT directors
  • Yet, cost is often not the main reason for outsourcing but support & business continuity are
  • IT services (in HE) often can’t be or aren’t costed properly which can lead to over-optimistic cost-saving estimates
  • Some institutions will always consider outsourcing as part of an IT service review
  • ‘Opportunistic outsourcing’ being suggested as tactical tool to use outsourcing on a short-term project basis
  • The point for ‘insourcing’ services was made to manage risk and realise savings
  • Re-educating staff in vendor management is a key issue when outsourcing services
  • Aim for a mutually beneficial partnerships within academic circles to find suitable vendors, negotiate SLAs and take advantages of economies of scale

Towards the end of the round table session the need to collaborate more actively, by for example combining resources and secure competitive SLAs with external service providers was raised. The JANET (UK) broker service was mentioned as sector initiative, yet it seemed unclear to what extend it would address the issues raised by the panel members and what service would be catered for.

What is your experience in outsourcing services to third parties? What would your top tips for vendor management and SLA negotiation be?

If you would like to take part in future FOTE Round Table session, please contact us.

 

 

Shared Services: ‘It’s a no brainer. Why can’t we get it to work?’

Posted by Frank Steiner on 22/02/2011 1 comment


As part of our series of FOTE Round Table discussion sessions, kindly supported by Microsoft, we gathered some of the leading IT professionals within the HE sector to debate the big issues impacting the sector over the coming 24 months.

Kicking off with the not uncontroversial topic of shared services, we expected a lively discussion and that is exactly what we ended up with!

With passionate feelings both for and against shared services within the HE sector, our facilitator did a great job in channelling the conversation to generate some interesting conclusions on the subject as a whole.

Touching on definitions, business cases and the practicalities of managing and implementing a shared services initiative, our round table session summary report presents a unique take on what the likes of Kings, Imperial, JANET(UK), UCL and Kingston University think about the topic.

“It’s a no brainer”, “We’ve got to stop talking and do the business” and “I have no particular interest in whether or not it’s a shared service, so long as it reduces my costs” are just a few of the statements shared during the session.

The full report can downloaded for free from our FOTE website. We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Alternatively, connect via Twitter at @FOTiE.

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