UCISA Annual Management Conference 2010
IP Perfrormance were delighted to man our now customary stand at the UCISA Management Conference and Exhibition, which was held at the Harrogate International Centre from Wednesday the 3rd to Friday the the 5th March 2010.
UCISA (the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association) represents the whole of higher education, and increasingly further education, in the provision and development of academic, management and administrative information systems, providing a network of contacts and a powerful lobbying voice. UCISA exists to promote excellence in the application of information systems and services in support of teaching, learning, research and administration in higher and further education. UCISA is an open, impartial and representative association. It provides a national and international presence for the people who make information systems and services work. It helps them to share best practice, maximise cost effectiveness, develop ideas and inform and support policy making within their institution, nationally and internationally.
The IP Performance team spent their time talking to delegates and conference organisers, and chatting to customers old and new about the latest products in our portfolio, industry trends and technologies. Every year, we find that one or two key technology trends or requirements capture the imagination of the delegates, and UCISA 2010 was no exception. Whilst last year data centre power consumption and intelligent metering, monitoring and management dominated, this time around data logging, compliance and IT forensics were of particular interest to the conference attendees. The use of hybrid private/public Cloud computing and shared Data Centres were also hot topics, as were the perennial favourites of bandwidth and P2P control.
As always, IP Performance hosted a prize quiz on our stand: the questions this time were themed on Universities, the Olympics and English Spa towns.
The answers to the 5 questions are:
- James Cracknell obtained a BSc in Human Geography at the University of Reading
- Ruby Wax studied Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley
- Amy Williams, our Gold Medalist, trained at the University of Bath
- Harrogate and Glasgow are the only two places to host two full UCISA Management Conferences
- Lowestoft College is the UK's most Easterly college.
Our tie breaker question proved to be a tough one: there are in fact over twenty spa towns in England.
Our lucky winners were:
1st- 32" TV- Ms Carys Thomas of Loughborough University
2nd - Tomtom- Julian Luttrell of Anglia Ruskin University
3rd- Digital Photo Frame- Chris Parry - University of Nottingham
Congratulations to all our knowledgeable winners!
UCISA 2011 will be held between 23rd March 2011 and 25th March 2011 at the EICC, Edinburgh. The IP Performance events team look forward to seeing you there!
