Richer learning environments pioneered by Middlesex University and IBM

The University is committed to working in partnership to deliver the very best of UK higher education to the world. Hundreds of prestigious academic partners around the globe choose Middlesex programmes for their students or ask Middlesex to validate the quality of their own programmes.

More than 30,000 students worldwide study a range of foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, research degrees and summer school options. More study professional short courses and
participate in work-based learning programmes, where Middlesex is a pioneer.
If it is to continue to deliver high quality learning and attract high quality students and staff, having a robust, reliable and secure communications network is critically important to the University. As a result, the institution committed to a major upgrade of its IT infrastructure.

The project’s aims were to develop more efficient communication and collaboration between students and staff, as well as to support new ways of teaching, learning and delivering services to all students, whether on or off campus and wherever they are in the world.

The University’s previous infrastructure had been formed through opportunistic investments across its campuses. This disparate structure was not well integrated, difficult to manage and not designed to provide, or support, online teaching and learning around-the-clock.

Rather than upgrade its network in a piecemeal fashion, Middlesex decided to approach the project holistically. This was an unconventional approach in the educational sector, as each element of the project typically would have been tendered separately. To support its approach, the University needed to work with an organisation with the breadth of experience, innovative thinking and skills to jointly lead the entire project.

Paula Vickers, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Director of Computing and Communications Systems Service at Middlesex University, explains: "We had a technology architecture that was a blueprint of what we wanted to achieve. However, we lacked the skills to implement it. We wanted to work with an organisation that could bring together a consortium of suppliers and integrate the solutions. This would allow us to maximise on our investment and minimise the project risk."

As Middlesex starts the academic year earlier than other universities, successful project completion by required dates was particularly vital. "IT is increasingly important to students - especially overseas students. Because of our early enrolment, if students were unhappy with the IT environment they could have decided to go elsewhere. We therefore had to satisfy their expectations and deliver uninterrupted high quality learning from day one, despite the upgrade project," says Vickers.

Breadth of experience
The project went to tender and IBM was selected. Vickers explains: "IBM offered us the least risk and the most chance of success. They had consultants with the breadth of experience we were looking for and we were impressed by their competency, knowledge and professional approach."

Financial management of the project was assisted through IBM’s Flexible Enterprise Financing model.

The project began with the replacement of the core network and wide area links and the implementation of a fully resilient and secure LAN/WAN network, based on Cisco technology, which carried voice and data. This took place while students were still at the University with no break in service.

The University then moved its key management information and Web servers to an offsite IBM data centre. Once again, downtime was minimised and there was no unplanned disruption of service.

The move enables the University to provide enhanced levels of support for systems that are accessed around-the-clock by UK and overseas students.

The next phase was migrating from the old network operating system to the new environment based on Microsoft’s Active Directory. Collaborating closely with Microsoft, 880 student desktops were replaced and 650 more were updated over the course of a month.

By working alongside IBM in multi-disciplinary teams, University staff benefited from a great deal of skills transfer over the course of the project. Vickers says: "Thanks to IBM, our people understand the new infrastructure and are able to use the principles of the initial design to develop it as we go forward. That’s extremely valuable."

Moving learning online
Middlesex University now has an integrated, secure, manageable IT infrastructure to support all academic activities as well as future technology and teaching innovations. Both faculty and students benefit from highly available systems and an integrated messaging system that supports communication and collaboration.

The resilience of the network means Middlesex has the capacity to expand online learning. All course modules have been moved into the University ’s virtual learning environment, WebCT. And layering secure wireless networking on top of the new infrastructure has offered staff and students the flexibility to work in a variety of University locations.

"Reliability and resilience have been fantastic," confirms Vickers. "Over the last 18 months we’ve had high availability in all categories, which gives academics the confidence to base their lessons on e-learning materials. Student satisfaction has also increased as we can consistently meet the growing requirement for global access to online learning."

Importantly for an international organisation, the new technologies can also be used to reach out to the University’s Dubai campus and its other overseas partners, offering them the benefits of access to the same virtual learning materials enjoyed in the UK.

A flexible future
"What’s most striking about the infrastructure in its own right, not as an underlying platform for systems, is its flexibility," says Vickers. "For example, it’s enabled us to respond to the University’s estates strategy in a way that our old network never could have. Over recent years, we’ve lost four major campuses in order to consolidate our estate around fewer, more modern buildings. The changes we needed to make to the IT infrastructure to accommodate this have been quick, efficient and seamless to users."

Middlesex University’s new IT environment provides an excellent platform to support future growth and progress. As the University layers new facilities on top - like video conferencing and virtual networks - students and staff will realise even further benefit. One of the main developments currently being considering is the creation of a virtual network that would enable researchers to use technologies like grid computing without the risk of adversely affecting the University’s production network. By virtually separating the network, specific bandwidth can be allocated to research activities like this.

Michael Driscoll, Vice Chancellor at Middlesex University concludes: "The right solution for Middlesex will always be found by working in partnership with fellow experts to find practical, efficient and robust ways forward. There can be no serious modern, global higher education activity that does not both depend on and challenge the right IT infrastructure. At Middlesex we’ve come a long way in a short time, but our students will continue to demand more."

For more information
Please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner. Visit us at: ibm.com/services