Newsletter inside|out - IT news at ETH Zurich (31.03.2016)

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Dear Reader

As announced in the last inside|out, the time has now arrived: the newsletter tool is now available and can be used as a service. More information in this newsletter, which we created with this new tool.

I recently read an article, which stated that only 1% of global electronic data can be found via search engines. I cannot say whether this figure is correct or how it was determined. It surprised me, but it does not seem to be completely wrong. What’s more, found data does not necessarily mean useful data. However, with a data management concept and with appropriate tools, this can be ensured. Further information on this can be found in the article " Research Data Management".

With the new "IT Shop", an important part of the IT Services strategy has gone online: "the comprehensive self-service portal". First, the functions of IDES will be available. Additional services will be added to the portal gradually.

And finally, one point concerning a personal matter: as I will be leaving ETH Zurich at the end of April, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the great cooperation.

Have fun reading!

Reto Gutmann
Director of IT Services

Contents

•	ETH gets a newsletter tool
•	Research data under control
•	After IDES comes the IT Shop


Doris Tomaschewski-Walser and Marcus Möller from the evaluation team took a close look at the requirements of a modern newsletter tool.
A newsletter service for ETH
After the first publication of "inside\|out" we got more and more requests for a newsletter service with a modern tool allowing the gathering of statistics and the generation of nicely formatted emails. After a careful requirement analysis with our customers and a thorough evaluation of several tools we are now able to offer a service covering the vast majority of the required features. Since March 2016, ETH organisational units will be able to create and manage their newsletters using Inxmail with a corporate design template which is rendered nicely on all common mail clients. The majority of the modern newsletter tools are offered as cloud services which do not comply with the ETH legal requirements about data privacy. With Inxmail, the IT Services are offering a powerful tool, hosted in-house (data are stored at ETH) that can be integrated with our databases. Inxmail also offers the possibility to gather statistical data that can be used to perform marketing analyses, to generate personalised texts, to perform link tracking, to deliver in several languages, to perform pre-flight quality checks, to integrate the subscription in our content management system and to use an official adaptive layout in cooperation with Corporate Communication (for desktop and mobile devices). Further details see service description. Doris Tomaschewski-Walser, Project manager: evaluation and service introduction (ITS)


Henry Lütcke, Roland Dietlicher and Thomas Wüst (from the left) have research data under control.
Research Data Management
E-science, research data management and open data are topics in the digital world that are affecting universities. Switzerland is following international initiatives with the funding programme SUC P-2, which will provide 45 million Swiss francs between 2013 and 2016, and which addresses service providers for research and education, IT services and libraries. The know-how of IT Services and the ETH-Bibliothek are providing a valuable contribution for "combining efforts" in this rapidly growing and cost-intensive area. SUC P-2 "Scientific information: access, processing and saveguarding" is being supported by swissuniversities, the Rectors′ Conference of the Swiss Universities. The Scientific IT Services (ITS SIS) department of IT Services is participating in two areas in the CHF 10 million project "Data Lifecycle Management". The work of ITS SIS is focussing on the further development of their data management platform openBIS and making it available to other universities. A second project is to deal with supporting the reuse of research data. The pilot platform openresearchdata.ch is to be further developed over the coming years under the management of Henry Lütcke, as a meta data infrastructure for open research data. SUC P-2 promotes national services in the area of scientific information. Providers and consumers are however needed. It is therefore good news that ETH is establishing itself as a service provider via ITS SIS but also the ETH-Bibliothek. Further information on research data management and SUC P-2 can be found in the ITS blog. Roland Dietlicher, Deputy Director of IT Services and SUC P-2 Programme Manager


Software is available in the IT shop. Paul Signer, Cuno Schneeberger and Alexandros Kamm (from the left) are stacking software boxes, so that you don’t have to.
IT Shop replaces IDES
The software Shop IDES is one of the cornerstones of ITS services within central software purchasing and has existed in various versions for nearly 20 years now. This also means it’s starting to show signs of wear. The outdated IDES was therefore replaced at the beginning of March by the new, modern IT Shop, which in future will also offer hardware and services. The IT Shop will replace IDES, but the successful central software purchasing model will still be used. The old IDES is no longer able to fulfil the requirements of modern IT systems and ETH’s changing regulatory environment. With the new IT Shop we have been able to reduce complexity while adhering to ETH finance rules as well as software compliance. The IT Shop team will continue to be the point of contact for advice when purchasing software. This means nothing will change for the employees and students of ETH Zurich. The IT Shop is currently running alongside IDES. We kindly ask students and employees to use the IT Shop to obtain software. IDES is still available for the purpose of managing existing licences and downloading software that has already been ordered. If you have any questions or feedback regarding the IT shop, please contact the following e-mail address: itshop@ethz.ch. More information can be found in the ITS blog. Fabio Consani, Team Leader Portfolio Management (ITS PPF)

Contact

Editorial office
IT Services, PR & Communication
Address:
Stampfenbachstrasse 69
8092 Zurich
Switzerland
www.its.ethz.ch