ICTF Conference 2024

Agenda

Start End Description
08:30 09:15 Registration, Pastries and Tea/Coffee
09:15 09:30 Welcome and Introduction
09:30 10:20 Plenary 1 - Oxford Study of Quantification in Parkinsonism - Chrystalina Antoniades
10:20 10:25 Travel to Breakout
10:30 11:10 Breakout Session A
11:10 11:30 Tea/Coffee Break
11:35 12:25 Plenary 2 - CISO Royal Mail about Cyber Security Incident in 2023 at Royal Mail - Jon Staniforth
12:25 13:20 Lunch - Networking Suppliers and Colleagues
13:20 14:00 Breakout Session B
14:00 14:05 Travel to Plenary
14:10 15:00 Plenary 3 - The Future of AI in Education - Michael Webb
15:00 15:25 Tea/Coffee Break
15:30 16:20 Plenary 4 - Digital Transformation - Natasha Heaton and Dave Smith
16:20 16:30 Conference Close and Thanks
16:30 16:45 Head to Keble College, Hayward Quad for Evening BBQ
Plenary Speakers

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The OxQUIP (Oxford QUantification In Parkinsonism) study is recruiting patients with Parkinson's Disease and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. Currently available treatments for these diseases are symptomatic only, and do not have any preventive or disease-slowing effect. As new drugs are developed, we need to be able to evaluate them quickly, so that precious time and resources can be devoted to those showing most promise.

Jon most recently served as the CISO for Royal Mail, and has over 20 years of experience in constructing and leading security programs and global teams within organisations undergoing substantial business transformations. His passion lies in leveraging security programs to bolster business and technological advancement. Jon has traversed various sectors including Financial Services, Customer Services, Telecoms, and Online Entertainment, leveraging insights from each to enrich customer experiences and organisational security. Jon uses business process change as much as technology to solve security challenges. 

Jon possesses practical expertise in managing public data breaches and ransomware cyber incidents, adeptly navigating interactions with Corporate Communications for press releases, collaborating with regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies, and facilitating engagement with customers, internal technical and business functions, as well as suppliers. Additionally, he oversees Cyber and Forensics activities to effectively respond to and recover from such incidents.

Artificial Intelligence is already having a significant impact on education, and there is much more to come. Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, much of the focus has been on generative AI and the immediate challenges and opportunities it presents. In this session, we’ll look a little further ahead. Will we use AI wisely to enhance human interaction and creativity, or will we find ourselves struggling to manage the vast quantities of AI-generated material, processes, and misinformation? We will examine some of the key areas for consideration and the actions we should be taking to ensure we meet these challenges and maximise the opportunities presented.

Natasha Heaton and Dave Smith

Join Natasha Heaton, Digital Transformation Programme Director, and Dave Smith, Enterprise Architect, in conversation with colleagues as they describe the University's progress along its digital transformation journey.

Breakout Session A

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Presented by Andrew Dixon

IT Services uses practices such as Major Incidents, Problem Management, Change Enablement and Business Continuity, but do they actually result in a better quality of service and should departments and colleges adopt them?
Andrew Dixon will explore what ITIL4 says and why it matters.  He will explore how in a world of Shared Services understanding how we work together makes a difference.
 

 

 

Presented by Sarah Knight and Elizabeth Newall

With 680,000 international students studying in UK HE from over 200 different countries and territories, and the use of digital technologies now embedded throughout the student lifecycle from application to graduation, what do we know about international students' digital experience?   

In phase 1 of our research, we learnt that international students experience 'digital shocks' as well as cultural and learning shocks on transitioning to UK HE, which together can impact students' wellbeing and performance for weeks, if not months.  Phase 2 research set about to explore what is really meant by 'digital shock' by consulting directly with international students.   

By sharing the findings from the latest phase of Jisc research exploring the digital experiences of over 2,000 international students, we will invite you to consider your own support of, or experience as, an international student.  Through engagement with the recommendations and a set of thematic briefing papers, you will explore how Jisc’s research into international students’ digital experience might inform your own institution's policy and practice.   

Presented by Damon Strange, Rowan Wilson and Megan Gooch

The variety of subjects, themes and topics being researched at the University of Oxford is unsurprisingly immense. An equally unsurprising fact is that research projects will have different requirements when it comes to their IT infrastructure and data management needs.

Research Data Management as a support function is provided by a variety of teams from different areas of the University, including the Bodleian Libraries, IT Services and Academic Divisions. Research Data Oxford (RDO) brings together these different services, platforms and services under one promotional umbrella, and offers up a community of experts in supporting researchers store, publish, share and archive their research outputs from the University.

Colleagues from both the Bodleian Libraries and IT Services will offer a whistlestop tour of the Research Data Management Service Stream at Oxford, to hopefully help share advice on where ITSS colleagues could seek advice and route enquires from researchers to at the University.

Presented by Kevin Elliott

Ever given a presentation? 

Did people nod sagely afterwards? 

Did you meet those people a week later, and realise they had forgotten everything you said? 

All your work has gone to waste? 

Kevin gives you six tools for ensuring your presentation stick in peoples mind.  He will show you how to use stories, how to use interruptions, and he will give you tips on using props. 

Presented by Alejandro Ameneiro

Alejandro Ameneiro is a visionary executive and technologist with over two decades of experience in driving technological innovation. As the Director of Innovation at IE University, he has spearheaded transformative projects, particularly in integrating VR in education for programs such as the BBA, EMBA, and corporate training.  Alejandro excels in data management, digital transformation, VR & AR, and big data strategy.

In 2023, IE became one of the first universities in the world to open campuses in several metaverses, including Roblox and Descentraland. As a result, they designer their our own cases with virtual and augmented reality, and students are now able to attend class from anywhere in the world. Life on campus has taken on a new dimension, undergoing transformation from the admissions process itself, to the immersive classroom experience, to recruitment processes with international head-hunters.
This talk will take us through our journey to deploy immersive technologies in our organisation.
 

Breakout Session B

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Presented by Chris Mackie and Andrew Dixon

With IDC predicting a worldwide compound annual growth rate of 21.2%, the exponential growth of unstructured data presents a challenge for all organisations.  This is coupled in a devolved institution such as Oxford with the siloed data repositories we use, each designed for a specific purpose.  The lack of ownership and accountability which arises from joint appointments further adds to this complexity.
Andrew Dixon and Chris Mackie will talk about the challenges we face given Microsoft's decision to shrink the storage allocation associated with our Office365 tenant (Nexus365).  Solutions will be explored, followed by a time for discussion.
 

Presented by Chloe Walker and Sandra Morales Rios

Using generative AI is deceptively effortless. It simply responds to any question it is asked. But the way the question is formulated often matters. Generative AI tools often don’t give their users any feedback on how to better prompt it and sometimes even respond with incorrect tips. This session will cover some of the practical lessons learned in the last year about how to best prompt generative tools. 

•    Key principles of prompt construction
•    How do we learn about what prompts work 
•    Importance of context and iteration 
•    Examples and demonstrations 
•    3 techniques for prompt construction: 
   o    Giving examples 
   o    Adopting a persona
   o    Specifying format, structure and audience
 

Presented by Robert Esnouf, Brian Marsden and Rowan Wilson or Andy Gittings

Research Computing, involving questions that cannot be trivially answered using desktop/laptop computers, is an essential part of researchers’ infrastructure toolbox across the University. It’s also a field that is moving at incredible pace, with the AI/ML revolution providing new and exciting ways to interrogate data and develop new hypotheses and insights which have hitherto been inaccessible. The University has a range of available Research Computing capabilities including ARC and BMRC which provide cutting-edge capabilities and support for researchers. In this session, we will introduce what can currently be done, explain the very significant investments being made as part of Digital Transformation, and how we are collaboratively developing a long-term Research Computing strategy which will underpin our research and teaching mission.

Presented by Adam Berry, Jake Campbell-Beattie and Kashif Mohammad

Network Asset Discovery – an update on the Tanium product that has now been purchased and some shared experiences from colleges and departments/faculties that have rolled it out

Presented by Ronald Haynes

With Linux in continual development over 33 years, as part of the 53+ years of development of the Unix OS family, together (and behind the scenes) they are the major force in mobile, embedded, desktop, and online environments, as well as for data science, machine learning and AI.  Along with an overview of the Linux environment, and basics of the open source and community-driven system, this session will explore some key differences to the Windows environment, as well as how they can interoperate.  As these systems mingle in the cloud environments, Linux leads the virtualisation efforts (e.g. KVM, the Kernel Virtual Machine) and underpins the growth not only of VMs (Virtual Machines), IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), cloud 'serverless' computing, containers and Kubernetes, but also of significant developments in big data, deep learning and AI processing.  This session will introduce the differences between these cloud and virtual environments, glimpse at how virtual and extended reality (VR and XR) might fit in, and why they are important, as well as how they might be used together.  Hope you will join us!