research it at the university of bristol

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Research IT Dr Simon Price Academic Research IT Manager, IT Services

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Page 1: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Research IT

Dr Simon PriceAcademic Research IT Manager, IT Services

Page 2: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Research IT team in IT Services:

• RIT = 11.5 staff: 3.5 FTE core + 5.5 FTE consultancy-funded + 2.5 FTE BOS

• Work with ALL of IT Services + HPC, Research Data Service, Finance, HR, ...

• Governed by academic-led Research IT Executive (RITE)

Page 3: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Overview of current services and challenges

1. IT staff skills requirements

2. Realistically costing specialist IT support

Page 4: Research IT at the University of Bristol

1. Research IT needs

• Faculty requirements survey

• IT Services skills survey

Page 5: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Faculty requirements survey

• Conducted by Research IT and RITE Faculty reps.

• Mostly via face-to-face interviews of:

• Faculty Research Directors

• leading researchers (individual or groups)

• RITE Faculty reps. responsible for validation

• some used an online survey to solicit comments

• others used discussion at Faculty meetings

Page 6: Research IT at the University of Bristol

THIS TOOK A WHILE

TO BE CONTINUED...Image by Bristol's much

loved graffiti artist Banksy

Page 7: Research IT at the University of Bristol

1. Research IT needs

• Faculty requirements survey

• IT Services skills survey

Page 8: Research IT at the University of Bristol

IT Services skills survey

• Ran in August 2014

• 20 questions (mix of MCQ and free text)

• Aim: to better inform Research IT support

• Response rate: 124 / 193 (64%)

Page 9: Research IT at the University of Bristol
Page 10: Research IT at the University of Bristol

• Launched in 2003

• Used by over 85% UK HEIs

• Major update 2014

www.onlinesurveys.ac.uk

Page 11: Research IT at the University of Bristol

11

17 March 2017

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Page 13: Research IT at the University of Bristol

• Visualising the data to answer questions.

• e.g. In which research IT skills do we have the most people at Advanced level and how does that compare to numbers for Competent or Basic?

Page 14: Research IT at the University of Bristol

• What are the rarest skills (at Competent or Advanced levels) and for each skill, what percentage have current experience (i.e. more recent than 18 months)?

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Page 16: Research IT at the University of Bristol

• What are the rarest skills at Advanced level and for each skill, how many people have current experience?

Page 17: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Immediate outcomes of skills survey

• Research IT team – use data to find experts and help support research proposals and consultancy.

• RITE – communicate skills summary to faculties.

• IT senior management – guided by RITE priorities:

• Urgently address single points of failure (SPOF)• Tune skills profile by training and better utilisation• Recognise need to train and trust academics too

Page 18: Research IT at the University of Bristol

MONTHS LATER...

ALL 6 FACULTY SURVEYS COMPLETED!

Page 19: Research IT at the University of Bristol

1. Research IT needs

• Faculty requirements survey (part 1)

• IT Services skills survey

• Faculty requirements survey (part 2)

Page 20: Research IT at the University of Bristol

General issues identified

• Need for greater flexibility in way IT Services policies are implemented

• e.g. admin rights; custom hardware/software; ...

• Preference for local support in group or School

• possibly by local 'secondment' of IT Staff

• Need for more academic input to formulating and communicating relevant IT policy

Page 21: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Faculty IT needs synthesis and actions

• 6 x Faculty needs synthesisedinto a single report (4 pages) and actions list (20 pages).

• By Chair of RITE, Research IT, IT Senior Managers and CIO.

• Submitted to University Research Committee (URC) for approval.

Page 22: Research IT at the University of Bristol

2. IT costs in grant applications

• Guidance to Principal Investigators

• Changes to process

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Specialist research IT support

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University press release:

"The Bristol team greatly benefited from its Advanced Computing Research Centre and Research ITat Bristol who co-ordinated and developed the analysis on BlueCrystal."

e.g. Unplanned work to Ebola outbreak analysis

Responsive support costs

Page 25: Research IT at the University of Bristol

e.g. Bespoke software development included in bids

Planned support costs

Page 26: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Guidance to Principal Investigators (PIs)

• Document scope:• Hardware

• Storage

• Software

• Services

• Document structure:• Standard IT resource PIs do not need to bid for

• Specialist IT resource PIs will normally need to bid for

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/it-services/research/bids/costs.html

Page 27: Research IT at the University of Bristol

2. IT costs in grant applications

• Guidance to Principal Investigators

• Changes to process

Page 28: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Process change #1: Proposal stage in FEC tool

• Project Checklist

• Staff and Student Costs

Page 29: Research IT at the University of Bristol

FEC tool: Project Checklist

Enhanced IT Support

Does you project require specialist IT resource?

More information link:Research Proposal IT Costs webpage

Page 30: Research IT at the University of Bristol

FEC tool: Staff and Student Costs

Page 31: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Process change #2: Award stage

• School discuss use of resource with Research IT

• e.g. allocation of 20-80% of a Zonal team member

• e.g. range of skills provided by multiple IT staff

• Reviewed annually by:

• Finance

• Research IT

• School

Page 32: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Almost...

Banksy

Page 33: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Closing comments

• Further considerations:• IT staff skills survey – useful but repeat regularly

• Academic needs survey – informs IT Strategic Plan

• Costing research IT – requires behaviour change

• RITE is a partnership between academics and IT

Joint ownership of process, all the way through initial idea, planning and deployment etc. is seen as crucial to the way that RITE operates.

Page 34: Research IT at the University of Bristol

Any questions?

Otherwise please...

Banksy