Hello, I am Tom Smith, IT Advisor - Collaborative Tools, University of York
I work on a consultative basis with individuals and departments around the University of York normally to help in the area of collaboration. I also help people make their ideas real, often people want to improve their processes and the way they work with each other.
I cannot offer a software creation service as such, and I always work with people who want to get their hands dirty with online tools and ultimately they will own the project we work on together. The approach is constructivist in essence, and rather than attempt to interpret your needs, we work together so that you will have the skills needed to make the project yourself.
I firmly believe that anyone can learn to work with the tools available if they are willing to give it a go. Often we will work on your project together regularly, occasionally I will need to create portions of functionality alone. Sometimes we need to run workshops, where a team or department are taken through a new tool, process or site. Or maybe the team are given new skills and ideas to work with.
I also firmly believe that you are exactly the person who can best make your ideas real, because you can do it now, with very little budget and you have the domain knowledge needed to make it work properly.
I am a fan of small experimental projects that make the best use of the best tools available. Because York have Google Apps, small lumps of code that work with these wonderful collaborative environments can combine to be very powerful systems, that you have made yourself.
I am available, and thoroughly enjoy, talking through your ideas. I work with lots of academics who want to use online tools and innovative approaches in their teaching, as well as support staff. Often we run small pilots to evaluate whether or not a tool and approach will work.
Unfortunately, I cannot teach you to code, instead I can hopefully teach you how to not be scared of code. I can show you that it's not that difficult. I am here to share the common pitfalls and show you the ropes, and for some people, this alone is enough to get them confidently creating.
Many people I have worked with have found that, for their needs, they only need to be able to make minor changes to a script to really extend their use of Google tools. Others have absorbed enough to go on to become experts in their own right and now teach me new tools, ideas and approaches.
You can see from a list of this year's projects some of the sorts of things that people have made with me.
If you would like to work with me on a project idea, please submit your idea or need to IT Support, where more people than I will see it and be able to offer assistance.