Bid number (for EG use) | |
Lead bidder | UHI Millennium Institute
Alun Hughes, Director of Learning &
Information Services
alun.hughes@uhi.ac.uk
01463 279324
07796930017 |
Brief description of the aims of the
project | To develop a thin-client infrastructure for
the delivery of
IT services to educational
institutions and other organisations in the
Highlands and Islands, reducing ongoing
IT infrastructure costs, and
also reducing support costs which can be very
high across sparsely populated areas, while
improving the quality of support to service
consumers. |
Clear description of what the
EGF money would be used to
buy | Central costs of establishing the
infrastructure - servers and associated
software; Citrix licences; staffing support for
dispersed sites to enable the rollout of the
technology; staff training to enable support of
the new infrastructure. Thin-client terminals
to provide an initial installed base. |
Partners to the project likely to commit
resources | - UHI Millennium Institute
and its academic partners (see
narrative)
- Highlands and Islands Enterprise
|
Names of other organisations with whom the
project has been discussed (to assist the
introductions process) | Other
UHI Academic Partners (see
narrative) in the context of the completed
pilot project |
Evidence that suggested approach has been
deployed successfully elsewhere | Common in distributed commercial
organisations with well-understood business
benefits. |
Are there any restrictions to enlargement of
the project (
i.e. number of partners) | Technically, no, but the optimum size of the
project may be constrained by organisational
and manageability factors. |
Benefits projected from the project | The project will enable the delivery of a
standardised, up-to-date portfolio of software
applications to a wide variety of users,
improving the consistency and quality of
delivery as well as enabling more responsive
support. Quality of user support is a significant
issue in remote locations This project will
allow learning centres in particular to receive
an equivalent quality of support to a large
institution. This level of service would
otherwise require a suitable number of local
technicians and cost well over £1m a year; this
support is neither available nor
affordable. |
Estimated financial projections | Total | 2004/5 | 2005/6 | 2006/7 | 2007/8 |
Overall project cost | £1.39m | 0 | £1.19m | £200,000 | 0 |
Estimated projected benefits | £2.12m | £430,000 | £530,000 | £530,000 | £630,000 |
Is a pilot required - see guidance notes | We have already undertaken a technical
pilot. |
Additionally: why is
EG funding required | The project requires significant up-front
investment for the projected benefits to be
achieved, and indeed the greater the extent of
up-front investment possible the earlier the
benefits can be realised. As a service provider to its Academic
Partners (
APs) and to its students
located within them,
UHI will incur significant
additional costs but most of the savings will
be realised within
APs.
EG funding is therefore
needed to protect the income stream of
APs while enabling the
necessary central investment to be made. |
Does this project complementary in anyway to
other
EG work | Not that we are aware of. |