Whitireia Community Polytechnic (MIS100 2012)

ICT budgets at Whitireia NZ are marginally down this year and are committed to supporting key projects, such as the unified communications project involving the full deployment of Microsoft Lync telephony and presence, and desktop image development and remote deployment using Microsoft System Centre toolsets. The move of external web services and internal records management to SharePoint 2010 will also receive strong focus over the coming months. “IT enables quality education delivery and provides proactive business system development and support,” says Hylton Tuckett, ICT manager. “It provides significant business value as the key enabler of innovation and change in the business, with the three most recent examples being a new 1 G E network to the desktop using Hewlett Packard’s H3C network systems across seven campus sites, managed wireless access with Aruba systems, and enablement of more digital content capture, development and delivery across all campus sites.”

Cloud computing continues to be a key focus. Its entire server, system and mobile infrastructure solution is fully cloud enabled. This, coupled with strategic ICT investments, have reduced risk to the business through a tested disaster recovery solution based on the Karen WAN and Microsoft Data Protection Manager technologies.

Like other educational institutions, Whitireia NZ ICT strategy continues to support the growth of “blended” learning, where wireless enabled campus sites become a key enabler. Shared services are now formally on the table with the recent government announcement of the institute’s strategic partnership with WelTec.