UniDesk recognises a decade of providing shared information technology services across Higher Education

UniDesk, the shared service management solution, celebrates its tenth anniversary this Wednesday November 18^th, 2020. Delivered in partnership with TOPdesk software, UniDesk offers streamlined service management across the higher education sector.

Founded in 2010 by University of Edinburgh, University of St. Andrews and Abertay University, the UniDesk solution incorporates information technology (IT) processes, guidance and support tailored to further and higher education. Its members collaborate to share costs, administrative knowledge and best practices with one another.

Service Owners Dawn Dodd and Catherine Hetherington are proud to be a part of the UniDesk community, helping to shape its future. “Higher Education needs are more complex than logging calls just for an IT function. Our service is used by different groups across the institutions and we need to ensure that UniDesk evolves to meet the needs of an ever changing and expanding community. UniDesk is scalable which is vital for our large operator base and even larger user base,” said Dawn.

In the past ten years UniDesk has grown its user community to 11 member institutions with almost 969,000 registered users and over 1.4 million calls logged collectively in 2019-2020. In recent years, the membership began hosting annual in-person conferences, pre-conference socials and forums as an opportunity to share their UniDesk experiences, continually improve the service and connect as a community.

To further enhance the partnership, UniDesk also launched the UniDesk Share space for members to support one another and share resources. The Microsoft Teams site includes a repository of videos, start-up guides and quick reference documents for members to rebrand and use in their local settings.

“It feels the UniDesk community has really moved forward in the past 2 years since we joined and there have been some rapid developments. The launch of UniDesk Share to encourage collaborative discussions on common problems has been a very positive step forward,” said Mike Burns, Learning and Information Services Manager at University of Highlands and Islands. “The conferences have been useful to bring teams together and put faces to names, especially for the institutions we work with outside of Scotland.”

Underpinning UniDesk’s continued success is the ethos of sharing and collaboration as part of the solution developed for Education by Education. Members often request advice from other members with years of experience as they develop in their service management journey. UniDesk also benefits from regular support and knowledge shared by an experienced team of dedicated University of Edinburgh staff. Additionally, each of the member institutions is given a seat on the UniDesk governance board and is involved in the future direction of the solution.

“UniDesk for us was ultimately a very neat solution in procuring a compliant system for our needs in a relatively short space of time, but also in the full knowledge that the wealth of experience and skills behind the product would provide us with continued ongoing support. Utilising the experience of the other institutions has led to some great collaborative working and new relationships which have proved fruitful,” said Mike.

UniDesk remains committed to growing and evolving with user needs and a changing education environment. UniDesk has recently moved to TOPdesk’s software as a service (SaaS), enabling Chat functionality and opportunities for improved Asset Management. Looking ahead to the future, UniDesk aims to ensure continuous service improvement through streamlined upgrades, provision of the API and improving overall resilience for the service.

“The move to TOPdesk SaaS will help us on our continual service improvement path. Our membership can look forward to seeing new features as we develop the service for the future,” said Catherine.

UniDesk’s current member institutions include: University of Edinburgh, University of St. Andrews, Abertay University, Sheffield Hallam University, Ulster University, University of Stirling, Edinburgh Napier University, Durham University, University of the Highlands and Islands, Royal College of Art and University of Malta.

To learn more about UniDesk, stay up to date on the latest news and engage with members visit the UniDesk website or UniDesk Twitter.

L-Universita ta Malta to join the UniDesk Service taking our membership total to 11!

UniDesk is an unique offering within the Education Sector. We provide a fully managed ITIL based shared service management solution, extensively tailored for Higher and Further Education, delivered in partnership with TOPdesk and backed by specialist support from the University of Edinburgh. The value realised by our members from being part of the UniDesk service is much greater than the functionality delivered from the modules on offer. As a managed service we provide the ITIL-aligned processes for the core modules and a streamlined implementation process.

Lying at the cross-roads of the Mediterranean the University of Malta with its 400-year history is the hub for international academic exchange on the island. The University is composed of fourteen faculties, a number of interdisciplinary institutes and centres, three schools and a junior college. Besides the main campus, situated at Msida, there are three other campuses: Valletta, Marsaxlokk, Gozo.  There are in excess of 11,500 students, including around 1,000 international students from 92 different countries and 450 visiting overseas students, following full-time or part-time degree and diploma courses.

“We were particularly excited to join UniDesk because of its focus on the University environment. Having the opportunity to share best practices and learn within a community of member Universities was also important for us”    James Cilia, Head of User Services, University of Malta

The service, which will celebrate its 10^th birthday in 2020, has grown from strength to strength since it originated in 2010.   In addition to the founding Universities of Edinburgh, Abertay and St. Andrews, other members benefitting from sharing administrative knowledge and working practices are Sheffield Hallam, Ulster, Stirling, Edinburgh Napier, Durham, the University of the Highlands and Islands and the Royal College of Art. We have developed user groups to share best practice and for the past three years have held very successful conferences to bring our members together with guest speakers and great guidance from our community.  UniDesk is now also endorsed and promoted as a shared service through UCSS which simplifies procurement paths for membership.

Dawn Dodd & Catherine Hetherington, Service Owner For UniDesk said

“We are delighted that the quality and reputation of our shared service management solution is being recognised beyond the UK education sector.  This is an exciting time for our service and we look forward to working with University of Malta and welcoming them into our UniDesk family.”

More information about our shared service can be found at unidesk.ac.uk