The University of Sheffield - Overview



It’s uSpace - But Not As We Know It

Coutesy of iStock 

uSpace has been upgraded and it seems a lot of people like it.  The majority of uSpace users haven’t been affected by the changes and CiCS are working with Space administrators who have.

At the same time CiCS have been receiving some very positive feedback.  A lot of colleagues seem to have nothing but praise for the new look and feel. Even an unexpected uSpace quirk has turned out to be positive; the weekly digest came as a bit of a surprise but it is seemingly encouraging more people into uSpace with the number of concurrent users increasing, and a significant number of daily document creations for non-term-time.
Some of the new uSpace features include:

  • Viewing the structure of uSpace has been improved so locating Spaces / sub-Spaces is much easier. You can now follow Spaces of interest, similar to following Groups. Which makes access to relevant content much easier.
  • You can have Private Discussions not associated with a Space/Group, and restricted to the people you want.
  • Search is more streamlined to enable quicker access.
  • Social Bookmarking has been added. This means that you can bookmark content for easier future access and also share bookmarks with others, so similar to Delicious.

The installation of uSpace has positioned the University ahead of some other universities who are just beginning to consider a collaborative approach to working. It’s this radical change in concept and working practice that has been and continues to be the significant impact of uSpace.

CiCS have added new dates for their monthly course which helps new users get to grips with uSpace.  This 2 hour, tutor led programme will ease you into uSpace covering: What it is, how you can personalise it and guiding you through its uses.
You’ll also be given a chance to explore some key spaces and see how people are using them.

The courses will run from 10am to 12pm on:

Wednesday 22 September
Wednesday 27 October
Wednesday 10 November
Thursday 9 December

To book on to the course, log into the Learning Management System (LMS)  with your University Username and password. Click on the Search button and add the course code CIC309. If the session is full place your name on the Interest list.