The first question everyone asks is: what does ICTF do? A more useful question to ask might be: what can ICTF do for me? I’ll answer both.
ICTF is a group which is made up of everyone at Oxford who works in ICT. Every year there are elections to nominate members to sit on a steering committee, which spends the subsequent year delivering activities which it believes will be beneficial to the rest of the members. You can read the Terms of Reference at About the ICTF and find out about the current committee members over at Steering Committee.
As to what ICTF can do for you, this year the committee has selected three key activities from the Terms of Reference to concentrate on. They are:
- ICTF for all – ensuring that ICTF recognises the diversity of staff and roles in the university, is inclusive of off those staff and delivers activities of benefit right across the spectrum.
- Technical forum – providing focussed termly meetings with valuable content, organising a well-rounded summer conference, and remaining open to new possibilities such as visiting speakers from outside the university.
- Development – organising workshops, training and seminars that provide technical and personal skills development to staff at all stages of their career.
If all that sounds interesting then there’s 3 ways you can get involved:
- Join in with the mailing list, itss-discuss. Yes, there’s your typical chatter and not everything will be relevant to you, but there’s some really helpful people, important information, and it’s a great way to raise your profile (and if nobody’s told you yet, that’s really valuable here).
- Come to our termly meetings and summer conference, and let us know if there’s something you really want to see there. Both are advertised on itss-announce and we’re aiming to use lecture capture for everything in case you can’t make it.
- Think about putting yourself forward for the committee next year. If you’ve got some ideas or really want something different then you really can make a difference. Remember – ICTF is what we, the members, make of it. Nothing is written in stone.
I hope that’s enough to convince you that there’s something here for you. If you’ve got more questions or ideas of your own then by all means get in contact with one of the committee members, or feel free to drop me an e-mail directly. I hope we’ll see you at one of our events this year!
All the best,
Duncan Tooke
ICTF Chair, 2018 – 19
