eServices Staff

Chris Awre
Integration Architect

Chris Awre is Integration Architect within the e-Services Integration Group, with a remit to examine, advise on and facilitate the integration of existing and future university systems and processes, particularly those being delivered within the university portal. The role involves communication and liaison across Academic Services and university departments to plan such services, and coordination between initiatives to enable efficient and effective use of information. Current effort is focussing on the delivery of library services to further enable the provision of these in the contexts of learning, teaching and research.

A key part of the Integration Architect role is involvement in national and international initiatives and projects to ensure that the most up-to-date developments and standards are fed into local services. Toward this end Chris is Project Manager of the JISC-funded CREE (Contextual Resource Evaluation Environment) project, investigating how users wish to have library-based resources and services presented to them in a portal and non-portal environment.

Chris has a background as a systems librarian at Charing Cross & Westminster Medical School and Imperial College in London, and has most recently worked for the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee as Programme Manager for portals, presentation and repository programmes.

Robert Sherratt
Head of Systems Integration

Robert is Head of Systems Integration for the e-Services Integration Group, responsible for facilitating the development and operation of digital university systems and processes, in particular the services delivered within the evolving framework of the institutional portal. This requires effective management of the development process, the need to maintain an understanding of associated technical issues and standards, and liaison with staff both within Academic Services and across the University.

Robert and his team were responsible for the development of the University portal, launched in 2003, using an open source portal framework (uPortal). The Development Team are also responsible for the University Content Management System. Originally this was an in-house development but is now being transitioned to an open source alternative (HyperContent).

Robert has been working in Higher Education since 1994, initially at Leicester developing eLearning materials and subsequently at Loughborough investigating the potential of online assessment systems. More recently this interest in eLearning has continued through the management of two JISC-funded projects developing new tools for use in teaching and learning.