Steve Williams became the IT director at Newcastle University earlier this summer, moving into the education sector at a time when technology is playing an ever-more critical role in supporting - and attracting - students.

Williams talked exclusively to Computing about the challenges of IT in higher education.

What have been your main priorities since starting this role?

Priorities have included understanding the dynamics and priorities of the university, determining how the department can meet these, and assessing where we are in delivering them. I’m determining whether the structures we have are right for achieving these goals, but I’m not about to rush into ill-considered reorganisation. I’m also looking at the people we’ve got and what skills and competencies they have, and I’ve shaken 157 out of 160 hands in my department so far.

How is IT offering universities a competitive edge and to what extent is it a differentiating factor?

From a student perspective, they expect the IT to "just work" and it’s right that they should. It just works in Starbucks, so why shouldn’t it at university? It’s our responsibility to provide stable, effective and imaginative facilities. Newcastle University has been ranked 19th out of 120 in the national student computing survey, which is a good place to start, and we aspire to be in the top 10.

But from a research point of view, it’s a real determinant. I’ve spoken to three pro-vice-chancellors and six professors from different disciplines and they are unanimous that effective, secure computing is an absolute determinant in getting the right research staff.

Is there any progress with shared services in higher education, and what role should this trend play in the future?

All organisations need to always be considering different ways of delivering services. The need to demonstrate commercial efficiency is higher for the education sector than it was 10 years ago. All sorts of delivery models, including shared services, need to be kept in mind.

But there are areas where sharing is more appropriate than others. Effective IT provision is in some dimensions a competitive advantage, which can make shared services problematic.

But sharing helpdesks or guidance on information security works. We have looked at the web sites of three or four other universities for information sharing best practice, and we were visited by a Mexican university that wanted to learn about how we use SAP software. Universities in the north-east are working in partnership to run an out-of-hours helpdesk, headed by Northumbria. It’s a great example of effective shared services, because no individual university can justify having a couple of people on the phone all night.

What has impressed you so far and what would you like to improve from now on?

Remote access is very good and some of the quality of thinking around middleware and interoperability has impressed me.

I’d like us to move to a position where we are automatically called in on large programmes. I want people to say: “Let’s get IT involved in this”.

To further improve customer service, I will probably put in place key account managers for specific departments and functions within the university. This will be structured either by faculty, or by function.

And we have staff with specific areas of expertise who have been contacted by PhD students for advice. They say they wish the students had contacted them earlier in their studies, so I want to give people access to expertise at an earlier stage.