London Business School to give web-based document & file management to students
Tag: Education Print article: Email article: This was published: 9 Mar 2006 - 06:40 am
London Business School is to give its 2,500 students and faculty secure web-based data storage, file access and simplified document management from locations on and off the campus.
The Web File Service combines two proven elements - Xythos' standards-based 'WebFile Server' technology which is already used by 200 US academic institutions and over 2 million users and InTechnology's data management service delivery model, with 2500 Terabytes of data currently under management.
Users can access files and manage documents from any web-based device and are presented with a familiar Windows tree-style layout to their private folders and files. Institutions are centrally provided an SLA-based service and charged according to a per user, per month model. The new service offers an alternative to traditional campus-deployed file storage and functionality that can be incorporated in an e-learning / portal environment. Other benefits include the facilitation of multi-institution research and, crucially, the ability to better connect to the alumni network.
In the case of London Business School, the service complements the existing London Metropolitan Network (of which they are a member) InTechnology VBAK automated offsite data backup and online recovery services, already being delivered to 14 UK academic institutions including the British Library, King's College London and University of Westminster.
Russell Altendorff, Director of Information Systems at London Business School comments: "We wanted to be able to deliver more services to more users - London Business School have an extended community of over 22,000 alumni who could also benefit from this service. The institution itself will benefit significantly too, as it seeks to deliver more technology-based services to students and remain better connected to alumni.
"InTechnology is a trusted provider of services to the London Metropolitan Network and an aspect of this relationship is to develop new services which will be of direct use to member institutions such as ourselves. The launch of Web File Service marks the delivery of that promise and we are very excited about the benefits it will extend to our students and wider network."
"The demand for secure and easy to use document and file collaboration solutions is expanding rapidly around the globe and service based software delivery will represent an important part of this market," stated Ed Miller, CEO of Xythos. InTechnology has introduced an impressive combination of Xythos based services and a flexible delivery model that should appeal to a wide variety of UK customers," he added.
Anton Murphy, Head of Public Sector Managed Services at InTechnology adds: "The Web File Service is standards-based, making for easy integration with portals and eLearning environments. We are initially aiming to complement rather than replace existing campus-based file store services, with a secure 'anytime, anywhere' service. We are therefore offering an evaluation service to institutions - typically 50 users for up to 3 months - so they can trial the benefits at no cost.
"Many academic institutions are unable to determine just how much file space they require, especially those specialising in art and design. Many art students don't require PC's and yet others are storage intensive. By using the Web File Service, these institutions completely transfer this storage management headache to InTechnology and assist students to build 'ePortfolios'.
"We will initially focus on the education sector but Xythos operate successfully in other sectors in the US - from life sciences to financial services - and there's no reason why we cannot seek to extend the value of this service to other markets in the UK".
Related links to this article: London Business School Xythos InTechnology Winners of the e-Government National Awards 2005
The e-Government National Awards 2005, winners were presented with their awards on 25th January - a series of organisations which have transformed services for their target stakeholders.
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