Introduction

Brief Description of the Global Lounge

The Global Lounge, located at the ground floor of the Fong Shu Chuen Amenities Centre, opened in November 2005, is an academic department under the HKU Registry. The Lounge aims to be an international hub, providing information, services, and a platform for students to meet each others from different cultures. The function of the Global Lounge is similar to a SME (Small and Medium Enterprise). It is defined as an organisation whose headcount or turnover falls below 50 employees and turnovers of less than 10 million Euro (Wikipedia, 2006).
Click here to see the virtual Global Lounge.

The Global Lounge relies heavily on the University' s funding and donations, which used for installing several facilities.

Global Lounge is partly donated by Ms Serene H.C. Yang-->

The following are the state-of-the art facilities that it has:
• Television links to around the world (one large 60" plasma TV and 12 smaller plasma TVs, featuring news and other TV stations from different countries).

• A Library corner that provides travel and overseas universities' information.

Library corner-->

• An office and meeting room that deals with enquiries and support.

• A fitness room and 2 changing rooms

• An outdoor eating area

• Newspapers and magazines available from around the world every day.

• Pacific Coffee

• Wi-Fi connection

• 2 public PCs that enable internet access

Besides, the Lounge organises a number of international events regularly, such as recitals, film festivals, talks, plays, shows, talks and exhibitions.

Gig in Global Lounge-->

Information Technology Issues

IT Infrastructure

The Global Lounge has the IT infrastructure that helps with the development of the organisation as well as for the users.

Computers

Hardware:
Overview

There are approximately 8 computers in the Global Lounge, where 2 computers are for public use, and the rest of them are for staff use. There is only one type of hardware, computers itself, available for public use, whereas printers and scanners are available for staff use only. All computers were purchased through HKU Computer Centre.

2 public computers in Global Lounge-->

Maintenance

Computers are bought through HKU Computer Centre's annual package from the tender. Since the Lounge was opened just one year, all computers are still in warranty period. The staff do not take the responsibility to maintain the computers within the warranty period, but they shift the maintenance responsibility to the tendered company—Dell Inc., and HKU Computer Centre.

Security

Public computers are physically sealed in a box by the Global Lounge, which does not allow users to use the USB drive. So far the computers work just fine with good internet connection speed. Staff and student ambassadors of the Global Lounge, as well as HKU Estate Office are responsible to take care of the computers’ safety, not to be stolen by any party.

Purpose and user needs

The purpose of having such hardware is to satisfy users' information needs. There are totally 3 types of users in the Global Lounge.

1. Staff—their information needs is mainly for facilitating their work. For instance, they need to create posters, communicate with their responsible departments (Registry in HKU, which runs the Global Lounge) and other departments through e-mails. Hence, the existence of computers, printers, and scanner in the office area can help them facilitate their work.

2. Students—their information needs are mainly for completing their assignments and projects, using e-mails to communicate with their friends, surfing the net for leisure purpose. Therefore, only public computers can help with satisfying students' needs to a certain extent.

3. Outsiders—their information needs are mainly surfing the net, and e-mailing with known people. In this sense, public computers are able to satisfy them.

Critics

The hardware may not be enough for public use. Since the mission/vision of the Global Lounge is to connect people in different nationalities together, it does attract a lot of students and staff to come along. However, I observed that users often had to wait for using the computers, and some of the students admitted that the number of computers were not enough for them. Although students are welcome to bring their laptop computers here (the Lounge supports HKU Computer Centre wireless internet access), students will be benefited of having more computers available in it, especially when the Computer Centres (located in Run Run Shaw Building and Old Library Building) are far away from the Global Lounge.

As student's information needs are mentioned above, completing their assignments and projects is one of their purposes to stay in the Global Lounge. Students usually may need to print out or scan their assignments into hardcopies/softcopies, but only desktop computers are available for them to use. This might bring inconvenience to them. It also implies that the Lounge cannot fully satisfy students'needs. Therefore, it will benefit the students if it can install printers and scanners in the near future.

Software:

Overview

All computers in the Global Lounge use Microsoft products. Take the 2 public computers as an example, Windows XP, the operation system is preinstalled; other basic programs such as IE, Mozilla, MSN MESSENGER, GOOGLE TALK and GOOGLE EARTH are also preinstalled with Guest mode (no password is needed to login the computers). However, word processing software like Microsoft Office, graphics and web development software like Macromedia are not available in public computers at the moment, because the management is reluctant to purchase the license. Furthermore, the Global Lounge allows users to install any software from the internet. It shifts the flexibility of using software to users.

User needs fulfilment

Users, especially students would like to produce normal files in Word, PowerPoint, Excel and so on. However, public computers in the Global Lounge are neither preinstalled Microsoft Office nor Macromedia products such as Flash, Firework, Dreamweaver, etc. Therefore, it requires updating the variety of software in computers regularly to fulfil users' continuous needs.

Controls

The Global Lounge has set the integrity control in all computers to a certain extent. For staff computers, staff can make their own integrity control measures inside their own machines, like backing up their computers, making password and access block, and having administrative control. On the other hand, public computers have been set the password/access control only. There are 2 groups of passwords available in the public computers to distinguish the different access and use between administrator (Global Lounge staff) and users.

Furthermore, there is no effective security control in all Global Lounge' s computers. For example, firewall like Norton is not installed into the computers, which can cause security threat (being hacked by other computers) to them; computers are allowed to download and install any software into the local machine, which is also possible to cause virus infection. Hence, personnel in the Global Lounge can consider setting security controls like installing firewall, blocking the software installation from unknown companies; and having contingency control such as installing some hard disk recovery software like Ghost for disaster recovery (bring the hard disk back into uninfected state).

Database

There is no database available in the Global Lounge. Although there is a database for making statistic analysis of the number of users entering, it did not make such analysis anymore after the opening of Pacific Coffee inside it. Security gate-->

Computer Network
The Global Lounge uses the star network topology provided by HKU Computer Centre. Star network, a computer network topology, consists of one central switch, hub or computer which acts as a router to transmit messages (Wikipedia, 2006). Students and staff who have registered for the service can enjoy free access to the internet, and communicate with other computers (staff only) through cable or wireless/Wi-Fi in this type of network topology. The wireless signal received in the Lounge area is always good or excellent. The management does not need to pay a single cent to receive this service.

The advantages of using this network topology are:

1. Computer Centre can support the maintenance and cost of carrying out this network, where the huge cost and new hardware of creating this network can be ignored.

2. The performance of this network is good, as it can transfer the data faster than other network topologies like bus or tree network.

3. It is reliable for the Lounge to use, because the broken/disconnected computers cannot affect others' works and performance.

4. Replacement of hardware is easy, as installing or removing hardware does not affect other computers within the same network.

Gym Facilities

Overview

There are totally 9 gym facilities for users. All of them are high-end products and very expensive. There are treadmills, dumbbells, weight lifting machines, lockers and shower facilities. The purpose of having such facilities is to satisfy users' need of having exercises within the main campus. Beside the Global Lounge, the nearest gym room is in Flora Ho Sport Centre. Some of the facilities are from donations, and others are from Institution of Human Performance (IHP) in HKU. Equipments there will be maintained by IHP staff from a time to time basis.

<--Only qualified users (trained by IHP) are allowed to use the facilities.

Click here to view the gym room virtually.

Maintenance

All facilities are co-maintained by IHP and the Global Lounge. The cost of maintenance is from 2 sources: IHP and the HKU Registry. The reason of having 2 sources of financial support is due to the fact that these facilities are co-owned by IHP and the Registry.

Other Facilities

Televisions:

There are currently 12 medium 25 inch display TVs and one large 41 inch LCD (liquid crystal display) TV. All of which are primarily owned by the Registry. The Lounge is responsible for running and controlling the use of the machines, where TVs are set to mute. If anyone wants to enjoy the channels with sound, they can borrow wireless headphones from the student ambassador. The maintenance will rely on the source of purchase, and there is currently no cost of maintenance (all of which are still under warranty). There are 6 paid TV channels such as Star, ESPN, Phoenix, CCTV, Fashion TV and NHK sponsored by the television channel providers. This type of facility helps to satisfy users' information needs of knowing updated news in all aspects.

Development of IT Infrastructure in Global Lounge

Present:

Since the mission of the Global Lounge is to connect different nationalities' HKU members together, the present development has been done very closely with users' needs like the availability of 2 computers for public use, gym facilities and televisions. To cope with the ever-changing demands, it requires updating its IT infrastructure to meet new challenges.

Future:

In the near future, a new website for the Global Lounge will come to life to announce upcoming events in the Lounge, to provide an online communicating platform for HKU members, etc. Although this does not focus on the development in hardware and software, it is still a benefit to the future development of the Lounge in terms of IT infrastructure.

People

People Issues

Organisation Structure

The Global Lounge is under the University Registry. The majority of office staff members came from the Registry. Besides, the Registry hires some University students to run the Lounge. They are responsible to answer users' queries during opening hours. There are currently about 22 staff working for it. They are the manager, 17 student ambassadors, 2 cleaning helpers and 2 security officers.

IT Staffing

The Versatile Manager:
The current manager is Ms Ung Lee-Ling. She has quoted that to work in the Global Lounge; it is an added advantage if one is a bilingual. English is the most important language of all due to the fact that the Lounge provides the space for internationalisation interaction. Ms Ung is the CEO of the Global Lounge. However, her job scope is big, she also multi-tasks the jobs of a CFO (chief financial officer), COO (chief organising officer) and CIO (chief information officer). Her duty covers from preparing events (usually cultural events) from the planning stages of ideas to budgeting and sourcing. The planning stages are mostly done by her and the implementation parts are helped by the student ambassadors.

Besides organising and launching cultural events, she also attends to special visiting guests from big companies and international education institutions. Being both extrovert and introvert in running the Lounge is important for Ms Ung because it is considered as a small organisation with fewer than 50 people to manage.

The day-to-day maintenance of the Global Lounge is also handled by Ms Ung, so she also plays the role of the CIO. For example, if there is a breakdown in the gym, television or the security system; Ms Ung would call in the technician to fix the problem.

Ms Ung quoted at times there were many tasks which were not easy to be solved, for example, designing posters. Jobs like these will be passed down to some student ambassadors who are skilful designers. Cost is minimised because it does not need to hire professionals.

Student Ambassadors (SAs):
Recruitment and Training
The IT staff in the Global Lounge would compromise also the student ambassadors. The SAs need to be knowledgeable in handling computer systems since the security system, AV facilities and gym are high-tech. When the manager recruits the SAs, most of them are already well-versed with IT knowledge. The recruits who are the University’s students themselves already possess knowledge on IT and therefore training is not necessary. For more technical matters, IT staff from the Registry and the Computer Centre would be asked to offer help.

Two Shifts
There are 3 SAs working throughout the weekday in the Global Lounge and 2 SAs during the weekend. Each shift's duration will be around 4 and a half to 5 hours. The operation hours during weekdays are from 8:30 am to 10:00 pm; and from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm during weekends. Since it closes earlier at 6:00 pm at weekends, only 2 shifts are needed.

Duties
The job of a SA is pretty similar to a hotel receptionist. The SA is responsible for handling enquiries, assisting and socialising with visitors of the Global Lounge. Usually the SA would sit at the counter but he/she is free to roam around anywhere within the Lounge.

Counter where SA works-->

People who are new to the University will usually ask the SA about directions, how to get around, what services are available, upcoming events and also operation hours of the Global Lounge.

SAs are also responsible to make sure visitors inside the Lounge are the University’s staff, students or invited guests. SAs have the right to ask those who are not affiliated to the University to leave. Making sure that the gym facilities are used in proper accordance to the University’s IHP (Institute of Human Performance) is also their job. They have to make routine checks to the gym and make sure that users have an IHP card like the one below.

<--IHP card for qualified users

Gym patrons who do not have an IHP will need to apply one from Flora Ho Sports Centre.
When the manager is not around, the SA is in charge of attending to the needs of special visitors, and reports issues arising in the Global Lounge to the manager. For example, if there is a breakdown in equipment or the facilities.

To summarise, a student ambassador is in charge of managing the welfare of the Global Lounge on a day-to-day basis.

Hourly pay
The hourly pay of the SAs is HK$39. Although there are 17 of them, their pay occupies only a small amount of the monthly expenditure of the Lounge. Since they are not permanent or full-time staff, there would be not much development and maintenance offered by the Lounge for them.

Other Staffing

Cleaning Helpers:
Cleaning helpers of the Global Lounge are supplied by the University. They are responsible for vacuuming the floor and clearing the rubbish at 10 in the morning and 10 at night before it closes. However, the staff of Pacific Coffee are always helping with the clearing of rubbish bins and leftovers which their customers have consumed.

Security Officers:
There are 2 security officers standby every day in the Lounge. They do not show their presence in its area but will help attend to security needs when called. Occasionally at times they will manually lock (extra locks) the Lounge when there are important equipments being kept in it.

Process

Process Issues

Security

The Global Lounge has a built-in security control system which is an automatic locking system being controlled by the computer. The first SA who comes into the Lounge to operate in the morning would need to use a special card to open the main doors.

<--The picture shows the card reading device for unlocking the doors when the SA places the card

After entering the Lounge, the SA will disable the locking system where throughout the day, opening the doors via using the card device is not needed. The SA who handles the final shift of the day will then active the card reading device so that only the person with the security card could enter the Lounge.

Occasionally at times, the Global Lounge will be locked manually if there are expensive equipments been brought in. The 2 standby security officers have keys to lock the main doors manually.

RAS (Reliable, Available and Serviceable)

The security system in the Lounge is a very comprehensive system which highly relies on the computer. The advantage of the system is easy operation; with just a few clicks it can already be set. The downside of the security system is that it totally relies on the computer. If the computer was to break down so will the security system. If the security system was to fail, the doors of the Lounge would be locked manually. Currently the Lounge's security system has a 2 year warranty and it will then expire in less than one year. After its expiration date, the Lounge would consider changing to a new security system if it will cost too much to maintain the current one. Actually, RAS also concerns with the effectiveness and efficiency of the cable TVs, Wi-Fi, computers and other electrical appliances installed in the Lounge.

IT and Business

IT and Business

Importance of IT Infrastructure to Global Lounge's Business

Wireless Environment:
During the interview, the manager of the Global Lounge stressed that a wireless environment was provided for students. As Wi-Fi connection is made throughout the Lounge, students can bring their own computers, surfing the internet wherever they like.

Security:
The existing IT infrastructure facilitates the Global Lounge’s security in two aspects: authenticity and property.

In terms of authenticity, as the Global Lounge intends to serve HKU members only, some practices are applied. A card reader is installed at every entrance of the centre (main entrance, entrance to outdoor eating area, entrance to gym). Students and other University members need to authenticate their identity by putting their facility card on the reader for access. The measure not only prevents unauthorized access, but also controls the number of people entering the centre. However, since the opening of Pacific Coffee inside the Lounge, the reader of the main entrance is disabled during the opening hours of the Lounge.

In terms of property, the Global Lounge is equipped with a number of valuable resources (sport facilities, AV equipments, etc.). Firstly, the use of facility card can reduce the chance of stolen cases made by outsiders. Secondly, even a stolen case happens, the office can track down the entry record and identify a number of suspects. The case can be processed speedily.

Resource Management:
The Global Lounge adopts Wi-Fi connection instead of installing more desktop PCs; it is a more economical way. Once an access point is installed, cabling work is ignored and the cost of network deployment and expansion are reduced. Moreover, as users bring their own computers there, the Lounge does not need to buy PCs for users. The cost of PCs maintenance can be transferred to other development to improve the service.

Assessment

SWOT:
SWOT analysis
As the Global Lounge is a student amenities centre, a cultural hub for HKU’s international students, its IT infrastructure is relatively simple. Funded by the University and public donations, it is affiliated to HKU, not a money earning company. Its financial situation would not cause any big problem to its business as long as the University supports it. The IT infrastructure of the Global Lounge is maintained by the Computer Centre of the University. In such sense, it is not independent in several ways.

If applying the SWOT analysis to the information technology and information system of the Global Lounge, we can see some features typical to a non-profit earning business. SWOT is a short form for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is a technique widely used by the business world to evaluate a project or decision by examining the internal and external factors faced by the organisation when a clear objective has been defined and to be achieved (Wikipedia, 2006).

These are the typical items of SWOT (Wikipedia, 2006):
Strengths and Weaknesses
• Resources: financial, intellectual, locational
• Customer service
• Efficiency
• Competitive advantages
• Infrastructure
• Quality
• Staff
• Management
• Price
• Delivery time
• Cost
• Capacity
• Strong relationships with key customers

Opportunities and Threats
• Political / Legal
• Economic condition
• Expectations of stakeholders
• Technology
• Public expectations
• Competitors and competitive actions

In terms of the above items of SWOT, the condition of the Global Lounge is generally good. One point we need to mention is although the internal café, Pacific Coffee, is located inside the Lounge, its revenue has nothing to do with the Global Lounge, which has no shares on any profits of Pacific Coffee. The facilities and services provided by the Global Lounge are free of charge. The Lounge earns no money from it.

SWOT and IS strategy
The IT infrastructure is designed to satisfy the business needs of the Global Lounge to fulfil its mission and goals. A SWOT analysis framework has been created by McLaughin for application to the process of formulating an organisation’s overall approach to the information system, as illustrated below. (ACCA, 2006).

The table identifies four broad SWOT responses which are clearly expressed by the remarks. We try to apply the SWOT analysis to the Global Lounge’s information system and technology. At present, the Global Lounge has just established for one year, everything is newly installed, so there are lots of strengths and opportunities rather than weakness or threat. It can go on to develop and expand its system and advance its technology some more but it has to apply for more funding from the Registry or receive donations. It means that without additional funding, not much expansion or advancement it can make. This leads to the threat and weakness of the organisation.

The Global Lounge is under the umbrella of the University. The manager told us that she had to be pleasant, smiling all the time when she met the donators and all the University staff related to the Lounge. The University staff include those from the Registry and the Computer Centre. She said that the Computer Centre would contact her when there were good packages of IT products offered for sale to the University. We can see that in many ways the Global Lounge relies on the University a lot. By the nature of the organisation, which is a social and leisure place for local and international students, and an information centre of international exchange programmes, the Global Lounge does play an important role in the University.

As the IT related applications are still under warranty, the repair and maintenance costs are low for the time being. However, after several years following the rapid advancement of the information technology worldwide, the hardware and software may need renew or replacement.

Advice

Advice
In order to have a world-class IT infrastructure in the Global Lounge, the level of financial support from the mother organisation (HKU) and donors is the utmost importance factor. Hence, the most effective way of improving the present situation is to get more financial support from as many sources as possible.

References

References

Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (Great Britain). (2006). ACCA. Paper 3.4, Business information management for exams in December 2006 and June 2007: study text, 6th ed. London: BPP Professional Education.

Local government internation bureau. (n.d.). Glossary of EU jargon. Retrieved December 5, 2006, from, http://www.lgib.gov.uk/european_work/glossary.html

Small and medium enterprise. (2006). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 5, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_and_medium_enterprise

Star Network. (2006). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 5, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_network

SWOT analysis. (2006, December 2). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 2, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT

Global lounge. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2006, from the University of Hong Kong web site, http://www.hku.hk/admission/gl.htm

Photo gallery. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2006, from the University of Hong Kong web site, http://www3.hku.hk/eromedia/photo_album.php?gallery=0

Wi-Fi. (2006, November 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 27, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi