POST:
ITS Support Officer
CONTRACT:
2 years
DIVISION/DEPT/UNIT:
IT Services
RESPONSIBLE TO:
ITS Support Officer Team Leader
THE LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE & TROPICAL MEDICINE
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is one of Europe’s leading schools of Public Health and
a leading postgraduate institution worldwide for research and postgraduate education in global health.
Part of the University of London, the London School is the largest institution of its kind in Europe with a
remarkable depth and breadth of expertise encompassing many disciplines. The School was ranked one of
the top 3 research institutions in the country in the Times Higher Education’s 'table of excellence', which is
based on the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). In 2009, the School became the first UK institution
to win the Gates Award for Global Health.
The School’s environment is a rich multicultural one: there are almost 4000 students from 100+ countries
following 22 taught masters courses delivered either in London (~650) or through distance learning
(~2700), and undertaking research degree training (~400). Over 40% of these students are from nonEuropean countries. The largest growth has been in distance learning students (>40% over 3 years),
though the London-based student population (where accommodation limits growth) is at its highest level
ever. Alumni are working in more than 180 countries. The School has about 1400 staff drawn from over
60 nationalities.
There are research collaborations with over 100 countries throughout the world, utilizing our critical mass
of multidisciplinary expertise which includes clinicians, epidemiologists, statisticians, social scientists,
economists, molecular biologists, immunologists, ophthalmologists, anthropologists, virologists,
pharmacologists and nutritionists. At any one time around 100 School staff are based overseas, particularly
in Africa and Asia. We have a strong commitment to partnership with institutions in low and middle income
countries to support the development of teaching and research capacity.
The School has expanded greatly in recent years. Its research funding now exceeds £67M per annum, much
of it from highly competitive national and international sources. The commitment of staff to methodological
rigor, innovative thinking and policy relevance will ensure that the School continues to occupy a leadership
position in national and global health, adapting quickly to new challenges and opportunities.
Mission
The School's mission is to improve health in the UK and worldwide through excellence in public and global
health research, teaching and knowledge translation, working in partnership.
Further information is available at http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/introducing/index.html
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IT SERVICES AND THE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE
The School’s systems are delivered on a variety of operating system platforms, choosing the platform best
suited to the application in question. User file, print and email services are currently delivered in a
clustered SLES or Novell NetWare 6.5 environment with plans to move completely to SLES in the very
near future; most external-facing and network security/management systems are provided on a SLES or
RedHat platform, while the School’s Management Information Systems and other services utilise
Windows server. It is IT Services’ policy to virtualise new services, as well as existing services being
migrated from old hardware, provided the application concerned is appropriate for virtualisation.
The School’s directory service is delivered using Novell’s eDirectory, and this platform forms the basis,
along with Novell’s Identity Management solution, of our current implementation of identity management
and automatic provisioning, and our future plans in this area.
The School’s Virtual Learning Environment is currently Moodle, a platform shared with four other
University of London institutions in Bloomsbury – the Bloomsbury Learning Environment (BLE). It is
used primarily at present for taught-course students studying in London, but a small number of the
distance learning students also use Blackboard for learning (these are the Clinical Trials students).
There are in the region of 1500 networked PCs at LSHTM, with Windows 7 desktops managed using
Novell’s ZenWorks. There is a growing community of Mac users, and to a lesser extent, Linux users within
the school.
The School’s network infrastructure, across four sites in Bloomsbury, provides a Gigabit Ethernet
backbone over fibre-optic cable, with switched 100/1000 Mbps to the desktop. There are two
connections to the London Metropolitan Network, both through University College London. The
structured cabling infrastructure that supports the LAN is primarily shielded Cat 5e, but new installations
are now Cat 6.
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JOB DESCRIPTION
Job Purpose
The LSHTM IT teams have undergone a reorganisation where the support structure is arranged around a
central helpdesk which IT support staff rota onto.
The Helpdesk manager and Team leaders will regularly rotate you onto the central helpdesk for a period
doing mostly first line support, spending the rest of the time in the IT Support team doing second line
support and specialist support and projects assigned to you.
The IT Support Officer works with the IT Support Team Leader, the Helpdesk manager and ITS corporate
functions to deliver service and support to users in the faculties and central support functions.
The role holder supports the customer services team in delivering front line services. S/he is a contact
point, providing assistance at all levels to all the faculties and central support functions.
The role holder works with the IT Support Team Leader to develop and deliver agreed small change
initiatives.
S/he works with the IT Support Team Leader to ensure the ITS elements of the faculty or central support
strategy are achieved.
Your role will be a good mix of support and small projects; you will be covering a wide range of activities
and meeting a wide range of people. It is essential that the Helpdesk Service is kept flexible and personal,
and functions successfully to cover all aspects of IT in the School.
As part of Customer Services, it is expected that your office hours will normally eight hours between
8:30am-5:30pm depending on your shift; you will also be part of the rota system having a regular shift on
the helpdesk.
You may be required to help with out of hours work. As a rule any maintenance work which involves
disruption is carried out out-of-hours. This may involve early morning work or evening work on the first
Wednesday of each month. Major upgrades may involve weekend work. Arrangements for time off in lieu
apply.
This is an exciting opportunity for someone committed to delivering a high standard of user support
service, who is capable of delivering support in a flexible and positive manner.
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Responsibilities
1.
Support the relationships/delivery to the faculties/departments in relation to IS strategies,
developments and operations
2.
Capture and document detailed analysis of end to end business requirements across the
faculty/department
3.
Assist in measuring the quality of the ITS management service delivered to the faculties/departments
4.
To support and manage the delivery of secondary support activities in the faculties (eg AV, desktop
and print support etc)
5.
Ensure all centrally agreed policies, procedures and governance are delivered consistently across the
faculties
6.
Work with the central IT core services to ensure a consistent approach to all ITS activity
7.
Work with other IT Support Officers ensure consistency of service and approach
8.
Support the management and communication of service and development plans
9.
Assist in the production of business design specifications for agreed business requirements
10. Ensure the needs of faculty/department management are met through relationships both internal
and external
11. Actively support the faculties/departments to ensure that continual improvement is delivered
through innovation where possible
12. Promote and support effective change
13. To deliver small projects and changes within the school, ensuring alignment with central IT strategy
14. Undertake any other duties as reasonably delegated by your line manager
15. Manage your own continuous professional development, internal collaborations and external
networks, in order to contribute to service quality, research excellence and innovation
16. Demonstrate the School’s values through your behaviour at work, including your duties and
responsibilities in respect of equality and diversity, health and safety, data protection, and any other
legislative requirement
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PERSON SPECIFICATION
Qualifications
The successful candidate should:
Essential/
Desirable
Tested
by*
1
Hold an undergraduate degree or have equivalent professional experience
Essential
A
2
Have undergone ITIL or be a qualified ITIL practitioner
Desirable
A, I
3
Demonstrate ongoing professional development
Desirable
A, I
Working in an IT team for an educational establishment
Essential
A, I
The IT development cycle
Desirable
A, I
Delivering customer facing support activities
Essential
A,1
IT service management and its effective operation
Desirable
A, I
Delivering and supporting AV services
Desirable
I
Supporting business cases for change and delivering the change
Desirable
A, I
Operating as an IT officer within a complex environment.
Essential
A, I
Working with different levels of management.
Desirable
I
Working in a customer focused and results orientated environment;
Essential
A, I
Providing high quality IT support within a business partnering model, and working
with managers proactively to develop their IT capability and capacity
Desirable
A, I
Contributing to the successful achievement of targets and objectives
Essential
A, I
* A = application; I = interview; T = test
Background & Experience
The successful candidate should have a background in, or experience of:
Contributing to resource planning to fulfil current and future business requirements
Desirable
A, I
Desirable
A,1
Interest in leading edge ITS services, principles and techniques, and their application
in complex organisations (and associated issues)
Desirable
I
How the IT Partner model supports an organisation to achieve its strategic aims
Desirable
I
The dynamics of higher education and academic endeavour
Desirable
I
Current IT developments and service delivery
Desirable
A, I
The drive to complete tasks and a focus on results
Essential
A, I
A business partnering approach to IT and the ability to identify business requirements
and successfully apply these to support and change delivery
Desirable
I
Developing a network of key individuals to secure knowledge and support
Knowledge
The successful candidate should have demonstrable knowledge of:
Skills & Competencies
The successful candidate should demonstrate:
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Confidence in operating in an environment of change with the ability to use change
management models/frameworks
Desirable
A, I
Positive communication skills: verbal, written and in presentations. The ability to sell
ideas or benefits and build persuasive arguments based on data, logic and the
objective merits of solutions
Essential
A, I
The ability to build and sustain effective professional working relationships within IT
and wider business environment
Essential
A, I
A strong customer focus – demonstrating a thorough understanding of customer needs
Essential
A, I
The ability to look continuously for opportunities for improvement – adapting thinking
and behaviour to suit the requirements of different situations
Essential
A, I
Positive interpersonal skills
Essential
A, I
Commercial awareness
Desirable
I
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