Intranet gives a boost to work and communication

text Anna-Maria Raudaskoski

Stage three has now been reached in the drive to reform the university’s network structure. It involves building a university-wide intranet to facilitate everyday tasks related to communication, work and employment.

Construction of the intranet is an essential part of a larger network reform project launched in 2010. The first stage consisted largely of revamping the university’s main web pages, while the second stage saw the introduction of a content management system for web pages.

The intranet is designed with a view to making it the university’s main internal communication channel and a personal work tool for staff and students. ”Intranet is a must for a modern work community in this day and age. It serves to facilitate intramural communication and makes all directives and regulations easily accessible”, says Eva Maria Raudasoja, chair of the intranet project group.

Communication and knowledge management will be greatly enhanced by the intranet. News and information at department, faculty or university level will be available through one single communication channel that is visible only to intramural users. Public information will continue to be dissipated via the university’s public web pages.

A cultural shift is about to take place, as the old internal channel of communication, Staff Bulletins, and the customary daily e-mail reminders of news and current issues are being phased out. When everyone uses the intranet as their home page, the latest news will be only a glance away.

Since the intranet will be available in both Finnish and English, all university-level information must be provided in both languages.

Working spaces and the extranet

One of the most eagerly anticipated changes is that internal materials and functions currently on the public web pages will soon be accessible only via the intranet. Moreover, the intranet will reduce the e-mail deluge, as internal dialogue will be conducted largely on it. Another key function is the document management system, which does away with multiple copies files.

”A host of functionalities that the university has so far been unable to provide will be offered via the intranet”, explains Project Manager Laura Kanninen.

Support for group work is another much awaited feature: different units and project can set up their own work spaces, where they can discuss and share ideas as well as manage and file their documents. Other functions of work spaces include task lists, notices and calendars.

Every employee may create their own page on the intranet and post materials and links of their choice. These pages also allow the users to keep tabs on specific intranet contents by means of RSS feeds, for example.

Moreover, the intranet has an extranet function to enable collaboration between research groups and their external partners.

Running also on mobile devices, the intranet allows members of the university community to keep abreast of what is going on at all times. As the platform for the intranet, the university selected the latest version of Microsoft’s SharePoint, which is compatible with other Microsoft applications, including Office, Outlook and Exchange.

Implementation of the intranet will be stepwise, with the next step, system bidding process, taking place in the spring of 2013.

All staff are invited to an information session on the intranet on Tuesday 15th January 2013.
Departmental presentations are also scheduled to start after the turn of the year.

In addition, a wiki work space has been created for topical issues and discussions:
https://wiki.oulu.fi/display/intranet/Oulun+yliopiston+intranet
Finally, the Service Desk address for questions concerning the intranet is: intranet(at)oulu.fi