Dickson College gift

Old equipment is put to new use

Students at Dickson College can now be involved in radio production thanks to a gift from the Division. The radio mixing console from the media production facilities in Building 9 was replaced during the recent refurbishment, and although the old one is obsolete from our point of view it is ideally suited for the College’s purposes.

One-off purchases

Leasing changes the traditional approach to Divisional support for individual purchases of equipment.

In the past when staff have requested a non-standard item (especially computers) in place of the Divisional issue, they contribute the difference in the cost between the standard issue and their preferred configuration. We have then purchased the item as a one-off and spilt the cost across the IT Loan and their nominated cost centre.

With leasing this becomes more complicated. We lease in batches rather than individually for a number of reasons including for convenience of tracking, and we don’t want to take lease payments for an individual item out of two cost centres every three months for the three-year life of the item. Our preferred option is for people wanting non-standard issue items in the future to purchase or lease the item with full payment coming from their cost centre.

2006 IT Loan

The Division has extended its last IT Loan.

Financial Services Executive Director agreed that the Division could extend its 2006 Infrastructure Fund loan (the IT Loan) to 31 March 2007. Commitments against the loan to 28 February 2007 now equal the amount of the loan. No further commitments will be made. Further approved equipment purchases and leases will be funded from the Division’s 2007 budget.

Projects still outstanding for which allowances have been made in the 2007 budget are:

1. New and replacement desktop, portable and server computers (mainly leased);
2. Media Facilities refurbishment (completion);
3. Multimedia Showcase of Student Work; and
4. Autocue

Computer purchasing

Cost-savings in PC purchasing.

ICT Services has been working all year to develop a preferred supplier for desktop and portable PCs: to leverage the University’s buying power to reduce the cost of PCs. An announcement was expected this week on the successful supplier, but last-minute approaches from a number of potential suppliers have delayed the decision.

Stocktake update

Lots of stuff found or written off.

After a long drawn out process only one item of any value from the discrepancy list that originally cited 47 items missing after the last stocktake could not be accounted for.

As a result of the experience the Technical Services Unit is reviewing its asset management approach, including developing a robust system to track the movement of equipment as it gets used around the Division.

As a part of this review of process it would be helpful for Heads of Schools and Centres to reinforce with their staff the need to inform the Technical Services Unit when equipment on the University Asset Register or leased equipment is moved around, as people change offices for example or when equipment is swapped as staff come and go: the TSU don’t always hear about these relocations that had lead to equipment apparently going missing. A simple email to the cehelpdesk citing the asset number, the old location and the new location (room number) is all that is required.

Items on the University Asset Register have a small white sticker saying ‘University of Canberra’ with the serial number and UC asset number on it. Leased items have a yellow sticker with a bar code and a number starting with UC.

More thefts

Stolen equipment continues to concern us.

It appears around $2,000 worth of microphones have been stolen from the audio production area in Building 9 during the last teaching week of Semester.

The production areas are always busy during the last few weeks of semester when many staff and students are involved with audio and video productions. It’s hard to know what to do to reduce the risk of thefts from the area without compromising the access required to support teaching.

Asset audit

This year's audit has not gone smoothly...

A recent Financial Services audit of the Divisional computing and media equipment on the University’s Asset Register has failed to account for a number of items. Most of the items on the list are of no value and in the normal course of events would have been written off anyway, but for a number of reasons still appear on the University’s Asset Register and so need to be accounted for. These items were not in use and it was thought they were stored in preparation for disposal. It appears that they may have been disposed of without the necessary paperwork being completed and submitted to Financial Services.

By far the majority of the list seems to be as a result of the large turnover of staff in the Technical Services Unit, with new staff not appreciating the need to dispose of equipment, or track its movement from room to room, in line with established procedures. The staff have had it impressed upon them that they need to adhere to the University Asset Management policy when dealing with equipment disposal or movement in the future.

What are of concern are six relatively recent desktop or portable computers that cannot be accounted for. While we fully expect these to turn up in due course, that they weren’t where the Asset Register said they were is a problem. It may be that computers were moved without the knowledge of the Technical Services Unit: Divisional Staff must advise the TSU if they move computers around.

Some computers were apparently installed by the TSU without advising the Division’s Asset Officer or the University Assets Officer of the installation. Staff have been advised to ensure the appropriate notifications are sent. Others may have been lent out for off-campus use without the proper paperwork being completed (Authority to Remove University Equipment Off Campus). Again all staff need to be reminded that the Authority must be completed before equipment leaves the campus, and renewed annually.

One shortcoming of the present system identified by TSU staff is the complex process of ensuring asset registers are kept up-to-date. At the moment the process requires staff moving equipment to note the asset numbers (University and Divisional), email both Division’s Asset Officer and the University Assets Officer with the details of the movement, and then ensuring both have entered the details of the movement in their respective registers. The University Asset Register only covers assetable items: the Division’s covers most if not all of our equipment purchased or leased.

The University Asset Register is a part of Prophecy. At the moment there is no information about its replacement once the Prophecy system is replaced with Finance One, except that it is understood Finance One has a module for asset management although no-one responsible for assets has seen it yet, and the timetable for the changeover is vaguely ‘early next year sometime’.

One way of improving asset tracking in the Division is to streamline the process of recording assets movements so there is no multiple handling of the data required to register the movement. Once the transition to Finance One is complete (including the Asset Tracking module), there will be a review of the process to ensure it is most efficient and accurate. It adequate tracking can’t be accomplished within Finance One the Division should develop its own system to a level where more accurate records can be kept easily.

University Assets

A proposed audit of the Division's assets raises the issue of asset management.

Staff need to be reminded that there is a strict procedure to follow in order to dispose of University assets. Items on the University Asset Register must be returned to the Technical Services Unit for disposal if they are no longer in use.

If an asset is stolen or broken irreparably this should be reported to cehelpdesk so the necessary paperwork can be completed to get the asset off the University’s books. Similarly leased items or items on the University Asset Register should not be redeployed or moved without the knowledge of the TSU.

With the move to leasing the University has also entered into an agreement with Macquarie Technology Services (http://www.macquarie.com/mts/) to dispose of University IT assets. Staff wanting to buy second hand equipment are encouraged to purchase the equipment they need from MTS via its eBay store (http://stores.ebay.com.au/Macquarie-Technology-Services).

There will be an audit of the University assets held by the Division between Tuesday 20 and Thursday 22 June 2006. Asset Officers will be visiting all Divisional offices and other spaces to check equipment on the Asset Register.

Leasing IT Equipment

Leasing IT equipment will change the way we operate as a Division.

On Wednesday 10 May 2006 Director of Financial Services gave a presentation on leasing of IT equipment. According to the Director VCAC has approved that the University move from owning to leasing of eligible IT equipment, effective immediately. A paper copy of his presentation is available on request.

Under leasing arrangements, the leasing company (Macquarie Bank) pays the vendor for equipment acquired by the University, and Macquarie charges the University a lease payment every three months for the period of the lease (normally three years). At the end of the lease the equipment goes to the Bank through its Macquarie Technology Services (MTS: formerly known as Reboot) group. MTS resells the equipment to make the Bank’s margin on the arrangement. At the end of the three-year period the cost of the equipment to the Division is almost exactly the same as it would have been had the Division purchased the equipment outright, except that the payments would be made quarterly over the life of the equipment rather than the full cost being paid upfront as is done now. Leased equipment is not on the University’s Asset Register and not subject to depreciation and is therefore easier for Financial Services to manage.

Eligible equipment covers desktop and portable computers, printers, photocopiers, network equipment and servers. While media equipment was not included in the list, it is open to the Division to approach the leasing company through Financial Services to discuss leasing of other items like video projectors, production equipment and studio infrastructure. Last year about 40% of the Division’s IT Infrastructure Fund loan was spent on media equipment.

If an item of leased equipment is lost or stolen, the Division will have to pay out the balance of the lease. Any repairs not covered by warranty will be at the Division’s expense. Leasing does not cover Operating System and application software, except where the software is part of the original purchase. Any upgrades will continue to be the Division’s (or the University’s) responsibility. In some cases original packaging, documentation and disks that come with a leased device will have to be kept in storage and given to MTS at the end of the lease with the equipment. The Division will need additional storage space to keep the required material.

As existing eligible equipment that was purchased outright is retired and replaced with leased equipment, in the first year of lease payments the Division will pay lease payments equal to one third of the capital cost of the equipment leased (only one third of eligible equipment will be leased in the first year, the rest is still owned outright). In the second year two thirds of the eligible equipment will be leased: and by the end of the third year all eligible equipment will be leased.

Assuming that the Division leases the same amount of equipment it currently buys, as much will be spent on lease payments from the beginning of the fourth year on as would have been spent each year in outright purchases: that is, assuming there is no difference in the amount of equipment used by the Division in four years’ time because of leasing, in four years’ time the Division will be committed to lease payments about equal to that which it now spends each year on capital purchases (there will however be savings in the first three years, and there should not be any requirement to replace a piece of equipment after three years when the original item is handed over to MTS so if the equipment is no longer required a saving could be made there).

Leasing does not provide additional funds for purchasing more equipment; it just spreads the cost over a nominated life for the gear. What is lost is the flexibility to vary expenditure on equipment year by year by, for example, reducing the number of new computers purchased in a lean year by keeping old computers for four years instead of three. There is also no longer a store of old equipment that can be sold, or repurposed to provide, for example:

• postgraduate students with computers, or
• staff using Macintosh computers with access to Callista (or Finance One), or
• old gear to host dynamic websites, or
• additional capacity for streaming television services.

These are all things the Division does now that won’t be an option if the equipment is all leased. From a Technical Services Unit point of view leasing is an advantage to us since the TSU is no longer required to look after old equipment and support a variety of services running on older equipment: for the same amount of money there will be less of a variety and extent of equipment and services available. Financial Services will handle disposal, but overall it is difficult to determine how the management of leased assets will differ from managing purchased assets. Certainly some current issues with disposing of old equipment will disappear, but there is uncertainty about how work is involved with any new procedures to be introduced.

It is expected that the IT Infrastructure Fund will disappear next year, 2007. Financial Services is preparing a submission to VCAC proposing that the money the University now spends on the Fund each year ($700,000?) is distributed among the Divisions in their budgets. Since the Division of Communication and Education repays its IT Infrastructure Fund loan each year, in theory this means that each year from 2007 the Division will receive sufficient funding to spend as much as it does now from the Fund.

Lease periods can vary from the three years suggested for IT equipment, but a condition of the lease is that the original manufacturer’s warranty on the equipment has to cover the lease period plus three months: in the case of a computer this would mean negotiating a non-standard warranty arrangement with the supplier (not impossible, just an added complication in the process).

Financial Services is proposing to establish an IT Procurement section to manage the leasing of IT equipment that will, among other things, be responsible for negotiating discounts with suppliers for standard configurations. Financial Services would pass on any savings to the Divisions in the form of reduced lease payments, but it seems these arrangements would be the same if equipment is leased or purchased (after all, the suppliers still get paid the full amount up front, either by the Bank or the University).

Since leasing has been mandated by VCAC (according to Financial Services), the best option for the Division might be a gradual transition to leasing over a number of years by continuing to purchase some equipment but leasing more each year. The IT Infrastructure Fund loan for 2006 is approved and can be spent to purchase equipment outright, or Financial Services has raised the prospect of being able to use the IT Infrastructure Fund loan in 2006 to service lease payments. The Division can purchase outright equipment that can be repurposed for non-core uses after its initial job is done, or equipment like installed media studio gear that is normally kept long after its warranty expires and it maintained by outside providers. The approach could be reassessed each year to see how the benefits of leasing compare with outright purchase and purchasing decisions adjusted accordingly.

Provision of support to Category ‘A’ spaces

Category 'A' spaces are the responsibility of ICT Services and Facilities and Services.

The Division ceded teaching spaces (Category 'A') to central control with the understanding that facilities in those spaces would be maintained at an appropriate professional level. The Division does have some specialist needs, for example flexible replay facilities for playing back videocassetes and DVDs during lectures. These facilities have been provided by the Division in Category 'A' spaces in Building 9 where no suitable facilities have been provided by ICT Services, but if the Division has handed over the responsibility to ICT Services, then should not ICT Services be equipping the rooms appropriately? ICT Services responses generally include that they don’t have the resources, that if they do it for one room they need to do it for all, and that these are specialist requirements for the Division and so we should look after their provision and maintenance ourselves.

In the case of a current request for videocassette and DVD replay in one room, I have proposed the TSU liaise with ICT Services for the secure installation (at our cost) of a suitable replay unit in the room in question.

Assets transfer

New administrative arrangements come into play on 1 January 2006.

In order to transfer responsibility from the Division of Communication and Education for ASP to the Division of Learning and Teaching, and for IELTS/ELICOS and the Customised Language Program to International Division, on 1 January 2006, a list of the assets currently in use by these group is being drawn up with the intention of transferring their ownership to the new Divisions.

Access to Divisional resources for other than assessable work

The University's resources are provided to support teaching, research and administration.

There are requests from some staff asking for students to have access to Divisional facilities and other resources for activities outside of Semester time for other than assessable work: one recent example is for students to have access to facilities to be able to produce ‘show reels’, and another for them to be able to use University resources to produce entries for a competition organised by the ABC.

The media production facilities of the Division are scare and expensive resources, procured and managed to assist academic staff teaching designated units. Student use of University resources outside units where the facilities are required for assessable work should not be permitted.

Prioritising the IT Loan

Basis for giving priority to bids for equipment funding.

When Executive considers the IT Loan bids they should endorse the principle that items purchased through the Infrastructure Fund should, where possible, be made available to the whole Division through the CRC or TSU.

The bids for video and still cameras in this year’s IT Loan bids should only be approved subject to the cameras being available for loan through the CRC or TSU, with demand timetabled through the Media Facilities Users Group (MFUG).

IT Infrastructure Fund

What DOES the IT Infrastructure Fund cover?

The Division borrows from the University’s IT Infrastructure Fund (the IT Loan) to pay for maintaining and growing the infrastructure used in the Division to support teaching, learning, research and administration. The Fund has financed replacement and new desktop computers, media equipment, printers and photocopiers, commissioning costs, software and so on: all the costs necessary to replace old equipment and grow the resources available.

The Loan is attractive to the Division since the Division only pays back two-thirds of what it borrows: a system established six or seven years ago to help the Divisions replace outdated (and expensive to maintain) infrastructure with up-to-date alternatives.

University administration is now enforcing much stricter limits on what loan funds can be spent on: we are advised that funds can only to be used for capital items such as computers, fax machines, printers, desks, workstations and so on that may or may not be “capitalised” depending on purchase price.

A Financial Services Project Team review of transactions in the IT Loan has shown it is being used for consultancy, repairs and maintenance and licence fees: mostly due to the Division replacing, maintaining and building the Division’s ICT infrastructure.

It would be prudent in future to limit purchases from the IT Loan to that which can be categorised in the University financial system as Equipment & Furniture $5000 & Over or Equipment Expensed - Less than $5000. This leaves about $60,000 of expenditure annually on other items traditionally purchased through the IT Loan that will need to be funded from other sources (with no discount).

Update 7 October 2005: The Division's practice (and it seems the practice of the other Academic Divisions and ICT Services) has always been to fund capital purchases, consultancy, repairs and maintenance and software licence fees (items to do with providing and maintaining our ICT infrastructure in the Division) on the IT Loan. These items have not been questioned in the past nor has any dispute arisen.

The Division's position is that it will continue to use the IT Loan in this way.