Twice each year, all the CTI Centres meet at a CTI Forum to review their work and plan for the future. At the Forum in April we learned that Jonathan Darby, Head of the CTI Support Service since 1989, is leaving CTI to take up a new project with the University of Oxford Extension Studies encouraging the use of computers for life-long learning. CTI as a whole will miss Jonathan's insight and we at CTI Music wish him well with his new work. There is, as yet, no news on the manner or timing of Jonathan's replacement - though it seems likely that a one-year appointment will be made in the first instance. The Funding Councils will be conducting a review of the whole of CTI in the coming year (96/97) which will determine the extent and style of CTI activities in the longer term.
A new requirement this year is for us to formalise the way in which we evaluate the benefits of the services that we provide for the Music community. In the past, we have relied largely on informal feedback from you, our clients, during and after visits and seminars, and by letters and personal contact throughout the year. Our formal reporting has been fulfilled by the extensive and detailed annual report we make to the Funding Councils through CTISS. We are now drawing up an evaluation plan for CTI Music which will come into effect in August. We hope to be able to gather information about our effectiveness without putting too much extra strain on either our time or, more importantly, the time and goodwill of our contacts in Music Departments around the country. The main part of our evaluation will take the form of an annual questionnaire which will be sent out to a representative group of Music academics, asking about the way our services are seen and how useful they are.
We intend, additionally, to use this annual mailing to gather information about current patterns of use of computers. This will enable us to write a report over a two or three-year period about the ways in which new technologies are being put to work in Music Departments and any changes in their patterns of use. We hope that you will find both our greater accountability to the Funding Councils and our information-gathering about the use of IT both painless and beneficial. These formal methods do not, of course, preclude informal communication and we are always pleased to hear from you with ideas, requests and suggestions of ways in which we can be useful to the HE Music community.
Lisa Whistlecroft