Member Article

Teesside University helps social enterprise resolve computer problems

Experts from Teesside University have helped a social enterprise operate more efficiently after resolving problems with its computer network.

Stockton-based Community Campus turned to the University to try and work out what was causing the difficulties with the current IT infrastructure that was in place and to assist the organisation in overcoming these difficulties.

Community Campus works to reduce homelessness in the Tees Valley and also helps young people achieve their potential by offering training courses and mentoring.

It is supported by the Vice-Chancellor of Teesside University, Professor Graham Henderson CBE DL, who is a patron of the social enterprise.

However, the diverse nature of Community Campus’ work coupled with multiple locations for its IT equipment put a strain on its servers and resulted in it having numerous difficulties with its computer network.

Downloading files was extremely slow and sharing information between computers was also very difficult as the connection frequently dropped off.

With a limited budget to address the problem, Michelle Shaw, the Development Administrator for Community Campus, turned to Teesside University for help.

Michelle said: “We were aware that the ICT infrastructure was operating inefficiently.

“We approached a lot of external providers who gave us lots of different options but we were nervous about committing to one solution as we were limited to what we could do without spending a lot of money.

“We really needed to get a fresh pair of eyes who were able to give us an unbiased opinion on what was needed.

“The work the University did helped us to make significant savings and has had superb benefits for us.

“The knowledge and skills which they’ve imbued in our staff has also saved us massive amounts.”

Andrew Gibbon, a senior server technician from Teesside University, worked with Community Campus to carry out an audit of its computer usage to diagnose what was causing the problems.

He monitored the connections between sites, and showed that the communication links needed upgrading.

He has also worked with Anthony McHale, an employee of Community Campus, to develop his skills and confidence so that he can deal with computer issues the social enterprise might have.

Andrew said: “The audit showed up the problems with the bandwidth and we were able to make an impartial recommendation to Community Campus.

“I’m delighted that we were able to help them save costs allowing them to spend more money on the incredibly important work they do in the community.”

Community Campus is now considering further IT projects with Teesside University, including the implementation of a new human resources database and Microsoft Sharepoint bespoke training.

Gillian Baker, business development manager for the School of Computing, added: “Community Campus does fantastic work and we’re very pleased to have been able not only to resolve their immediate difficulties but also to work with them on the implementation of an in-depth IT strategy to enable on-going system stability, efficiency and future growth.

“We’re very happy to work with clients and their external providers to provide the necessary skills and expertise to help organisations such as Community Campus make an informed decision about the work they need to do.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Teesside University .