The NUICTS Directorate is mandated to develop, maintain and continually improve an ICT environment that is suitable to ensure effective and efficient delivery of University services. We are keen to know how well we are in satisfying the staff, students and other stakeholders with respect to this mandate. We ensure high and sustainable availability of ICT resources through quality management, control and maintenance processes that are customer oriented.
Mission: Our mission is to support Nkumba University to reach strategic goals in both education and research and to enhance the student experience through the use of information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)
Vision: To become a centre of excellence where the potential of ICT is harnessed to serve as a catalyst for effective teaching, research and learning.
Duties and responsibilities
The overall responsibility of the NUICTS Directorate is coordinating the development of ICT Infrastructure and services in the University so as to enhance the quality of teaching, learning, research and support activities. The following are the main duties of the NUICTS Directorate.
- Plan and develop strategically responsive Information Communication Technology projects and programs in support of the University’s goals.
- Set up, operate and maintain a wired and wireless network infrastructure.
- Administer and update the Official University website.
- Setup, operate and maintain Communications/Telephony infrastructure in the University.
- Setup, operate and maintain a storage- and server-infrastructure supporting communication and collaboration between students-lecturers-administration including a web-server.
- Setup and operate user support services /helpdesk Services and provide periodic introductory courses on how to use the University ICTs.
- Design, acquire or develop and maintain academic and administrative management information systems and support tools according to the needs of the University.
- Safely administer user accounts.
- Establish and enforce ICT use standards and policies in the University.
- Develop a standard for procurement of ICT resources and/or services.
- Advise on procurement and implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the University.
Services:
NUICTS was officially established by the University ICT Policy in November 2012 and provides among others the following services to the University:
Email is provides to all students and staff of Nkumba University. This was made possible by using the Google Gsuite service to provide unlimited free email accounts.
Repair and Maintenance
NUICTS provides repair services to the University by using own technical staff and by involving IT students that apply to participate in order to improve their skills.
Network Administration and trouble shooting
Network administration and troubleshooting services ensure that the users access to the internet and network resources is reliable. NUICTS uses open source monitoring software to achieve successful provision of this service. We use Cacti for network monitoring and Daloradius for wireless access authentication
Network Installation
NUICTS carries out on its own the work of installing new network connections. Students are also involved in order to build networking skills. A good number of Nkumba University and other university students have been trained through this service on internship training.
Software Installation
The installation of software on servers, desktops and laptops is done by NUICTS. Students and lecturers are offered this service for free. NUICTS ensures that the required software is available.
Managing IT projects
NUICTS provides expertise in the design, management and implementation of IT projects such as systems development and network installations . This can be done solely or with the help of outside expertise and other professions within the University
Professional Services
Professional services in the form of skills, resources and knowledge are provided to support complex needs that require elements of; needs analysis, advice and solution design.
Included are Project Management services, general consultancy services in the areas of training, standard operating environments, application and teaching space design and conference/seminar support.
Managing computer labs
The University operates many computer labs that are located in different buildings. NUICTS ensures that these labs have functional computers and software needed for use in teaching and research. NUICTS also ensures the safety of the computers.
Systems and other support services
NUICTS provides ICT support services to both students and staff. The support includes assistance on how to use certain applications, how to access resources on the LAN and elsewhere, hardware troubleshooting, access to systems and training among others. Of recent the university has adopt cloud services for hosting and providing systems. We partnered with Zeenode U Ltd to provide a number of Software as A Service (SaaS) systems to the university.
Internet access and availability
NUICTS ensures that all University campuses have access to adequate internet services. NUICTS controls access to the internet service and provides bandwidth management services to ensure that legitimate University services are not affected by undisciplined users. Internet provision is provided by the Research and Educational Network for Uganda (RENU). NUICTS was very central in the establishment of RENU, an endeavour which has contributed in a big way to the reduction of internet access costs for Universities and research institutions in Uganda.
Security
NUICTS ensures that the university data, systems and infrastructure are secure by deploying a number of measures including an up to date Antivirus for all computers, availability of appropriate security policies, user access control and management and a host of other measures both logical and physical
Advice on IT related issues
NUICTS provides consultancy services to the University on all matters concerning IT
Staff of NUICTs Directorate:
Currently, the Directorate has a workforce of 5 members of staff, who work as a team.
