Monday Matters
Last week I discussed the new standard for College computers and the process that we are using to bring every computer system up to this standard. This week I will discuss the systems we have put in place to give you support when you need it for hardware, software, and professional development related to technology. Although good hardware is necessary for using technology as a productivity tool, computers can fail so that a process for repairing computers is almost important as a process for installing them. Of course a computer is worthless without software, so obtaining and maintaining software is another critical component in order for computers to be useful tools. Finally, without the knowledge to effectively use both software and hardware users cannot realize the level of productivity that is possible.
Upgrade Odds and Ends
Before looking at support systems I want to add a few more bits of information to last week's discussion of computer upgrades. I received several questions and so I'm going to take this opportunity to publicly answer these questions.
In discussing the new College baseline for computer systems I believe I mistakenly left the impression that the new systems we are installing for some users are at this baseline. In fact, the new systems we install are substantially above this baseline. The baseline is intended to reflect a minimum system that we believe will offer acceptable performance with the standard software that most members of the faculty and staff will use. We are only replacing systems for users who fall below this baseline, but the new systems will bring the user well above the baseline.
Sometimes a faculty or staff member might need special hardware beyond what we are offering during the upgrade process. When this is the case we will work with departments to provide this special hardware. The Information Technology department will be happy to order extra hardware and install it as part of the upgrade, but individual departments and offices will need to provide funding for these extras. If you believe that you have exceptional hardware needs, please contact your department chair or office director and let the IT staff know about this when they schedule an appointment for your upgrade.
One hardware item that I receive questions about is the zip drive. Several people have noticed that we did not include a zip drive in the baseline configuration. You may not be aware that CD writers are fast becoming the new standard for mass storage. Saving data to a CD is more universally portable and more economical. Once you get used to writing information to a CD drive I believe that you will recognize the benefits. If you have information stored on zip drives, the Instructional Support office will be happy to help you transfer this information to CDs to be compatible with the new mass storage standard.
Several users in the College use the Mac standard instead of PC-compatible computers.
Unfortunately we are not able to support this standard, though I am fine with any
individual using whatever computer platform they feel comfortable with. You need
to realize that once we establish hardware and software standards we put our training
resources into providing support for this standard so we cannot guarantee support
for other choices that individuals make. Similarly, if you choose to purchase a
second computer, such as a laptop, we will be happy to assist with upgrades but
department or other resources need to be supplied for this upgrade.
College Technology Support: A Tale of Two Offices
There are two offices that provide the primary support for technology in the College: the Office of Instructional Support and the Office of Information Technology. These offices work closely together to meet your technology needs and to ensure that we continue to advance the use of technology in this College both for instruction and for administrative functions. Even though the work of both of these offices focuses on technology, their roles are quite different.
I have personally noticed and have also heard from staff members that there is sometimes confusion regarding Instructional Support and Information Technology. The following sections are to help you understand the distinction by defining the roles of each office. Further, I will use this opportunity to update you on the current activities of these offices. Finally, I will direct you to a "one-stop shopping" page that you can access for all of your technology needs. The form on this page will allow you to input information that will automatically be directed to the correct office.
In brief, Instructional Support is about serving the user. Instructional Support can support technology functions by offering you professional development, helping you reserve technology rooms and equipment, helping you and your students integrate technology projects into instruction, help you set up class web pages, and assist you with finding additional technology resources and assistance. On the other hand, Information Technology (IT) is about creating and maintaining an infrastructure that supports the use of technology for instructional and administrative purposes. In this role IT purchases and installs equipment, repairs and upgrades equipment, troubleshoots software issues, builds network capacity and functions, safeguards computer security, and creates, oversees, and helps maintain official University web pages.
Instructional Support: It's all in the Name
The primary role of the Office of Instructional Support is to support instruction. (Makes sense, doesn't it?) The Instructional Support staff work to advance the role of technology in our classes and in our day-to-day work in the College. The Office maintains a Training Center that can be used for various instructional purposes, including in-class instruction and special technology projects, such as multimedia development. For several years the Training Center has provided a presentation room where computer-based presentations can be made, but this year the Center has added a two-way audio videoconferencing room as well as a wireless classroom with 24 desktop stations and a presentation station that are wirelessly linked to the University network and the Internet. Staff members in Instructional Support schedule and maintain these rooms and install any special software that may be needed for class purposes. The Office of Instructional Support also provides property management, including scheduling, for the science education classrooms in Wardlaw 029 and 030. The Office also continues to maintain and schedule a "roving classroom" in the form of the computer on wheels (COW) cart that has 14 laptop computers that can be used for any class in Wardlaw Hall.
I believe that as members of the faculty become more proficient in the use of technology and as we become more successful at integrating technology into our classes, the rooms in the Instructional Support Training Center should become high demand items. I hope this prediction proves true because this would reflect how far we will have come as a College that not only expects high-level technology skills for our graduating students but also models these skills in our own classes. It would be a wonderful problem to have to try to find a way to expand on the number of technology classrooms that we have because the supply is outstripped by the demand. In anticipation of that day, we have developed a list of priorities for the use of the Training Center classrooms. You can view these priorities by clicking here to see a classroom and equipment reservation document.
To promote the use of technology, Instructional Support also provides professional development for members of the faculty and staff. In the past these professional development activities were primarily in the form of workshops. Although occasionally we may see the need to conduct a workshop on a topic of high interest, we have switched our primary training model to one-on-one support. Members of the faculty and staff can identify specific needs and have an individual with expertise assigned to assist with learning how to use technology to meet this need. In some cases, if the needs of the faculty or staff member go beyond the expertise that is available in the Office of Instructional Support, a member of the Instructional Support staff will either gain this proficiency or will find outside resources that are available for assisting the faculty or staff client.
I have recently started using Instructional Support in my role as a faculty member, so I would like to share my own experience as an example of how this works. Next fall and spring I will be teaching two statistics courses to a cohort of administrators in the Greenville area. Although I would like to meet face-to-face with these students for each class meeting, my schedule makes that difficult. Instead, I turned to Instructional Support to advise me on ways in which we could provide quality delivery of these courses from a distance. What we arrived at was a mixed delivery model that will include putting lectures and supporting materials on CDs and then meeting for approximately an hour each week with students via a two-way audio-video link. The course will also be supported with a web page that provides additional materials, permits students to post questions and view the instructor's answers, and provides assignments and assignment keys and models. An Instructional Support trainer will be meeting with me for pre- and post-production meetings as we begin the process of putting audio-video lectures and course materials on the CD. She will be integrating my PowerPoint slides and my SPSS screenshots into the lecture. Although this process has just begun, so far the assistance I have received has been terrific. I am excited about this project!
Finally, as I believe you are all well aware by now, the Office of Instructional Support maintains the Instructional Support Services Center where you can obtain limited last-minute supplies, get materials copied, and pick-up your mail. The Services Center will also be assuming additional service duties, as needed. Soon you will hear about how the Center can assist you with software purchasing and licensing. The University maintains a number of contracts with software companies so that we can obtain these software products at a reduced price, or even for free in some cases. Instructional Support is establishing a system for acquiring these products as well as other products that are not on a University contract but that can be purchased at an academic price. The Services Center will be responsible for tracking software licenses to ensure that departments, offices, and faculty members are in compliance with copyright laws. This service will reduce the need for administrative offices to worry about software licensing compliance.
Information Technology: The Reason it all Works
Whereas the work of the Office of Instructional Support is by necessity visible, the Office of Information Technology (IT) is primarily an office that works behind the scenes. The most visible role of IT is the installation of hardware and software, as well as troubleshooting, repair, and upgrades when they become necessary. IT also makes hardware purchases on behalf of the College. Even when hardware purchases are funded by individual offices and departments, you are well advised to contact IT via the online technology form so that the Office can make the purchase for you. This will ensure that the equipment is compatible with the College network and can be supported. It is easy for end-users to forget that it takes parts and specialized expertise to support specific hardware. IT knows what equipment to order that fits within the support options provided by the College. In some instances administrators who wish to purchase hardware for their department or office may even discover if they contact IT that this can be paid for out of the IT budget. One way or the other, it is worth it to make purchases through IT.
IT also is responsible for electronic systems construction and maintenance. This is becoming more evident as we convert to electronic budgeting systems, electronic forms, and similar electronic administrative tools. A major function of IT is to build and maintain the College network and the integration of this network into the University system. Network issues that require the involvement of University network administrators must all be processed through College IT. The same is true for GroupWise e-mail accounts and proxies. These are all requested via the College online technology form. IT works with the university to see that these accounts and proxies are established as quickly as possible. When there is a delay, it is almost always a University delay but IT does what it can to speed up the process.
IT maintains computer security within the College. This has become a major issue, as you are all aware from past experiences with viruses. There are large security issues governing any wireless network, so as we convert to wireless systems IT has the responsibility and authority to manage the wireless networks throughout Wardlaw Hall. We are working to expand the wireless network and hope to eventually have a network that will include all of Wardlaw Hall. This is being done slowly and deliberately because of the major security issues that become paramount whenever there is a network that can be accessed from any point in a building. I'm confident that this can be done securely and will keep you apprised as we continue to carefully work toward this goal.
Finally, IT maintains a college web presence. Although many of us think of a web presence as the pages that we see on the Internet, there is much that goes on behind the scenes. Webs must be hosted on a server. Because of the dynamic nature of these webs, they must be backed up on a regular basis so that if there is a server failure even the most recently added information is maintained. IT both installs and maintains the hardware on which the web presence resides for the College and for departments and offices that subscribe to the College server systems. IT also backs these up on a regular basis so that as you make changes to your individual webs, behind the scenes these changes are all being saved and you can rest easy that you will not lose this information.
A recent mandate from President Sorensen states that all University web pages must now adhere to the university web template. IT is working with departments and programs to convert over to these templates. Many of you will be hearing announcements and receiving information soon about establishing a formal connection with IT in order to assist with this conversion process. We will also be monitoring the web to make sure that information is up to date not only on the College main pages, but on department and program pages as well. Unfortunately, we simply do not have the resources at the present time to maintain dynamic information for all of the degree programs in the College. Nonetheless, we are in the process of seeking more support to help individual departments and programs keep their pages maintained. I will keep you posted on this progress. In the meantime, IT will do what it can to help convert over to templates. Whereas University, College, department, program, and office web pages must adhere to the University template, individual faculty and course pages are not permitted to use the template. This is one reason why the Instructional Support works with faculty members to build course and faculty web pages whereas IT builds the official University web pages that reside within the College.
The Place to Go
It is important for you to know the roles of these two offices so that you can deal with the appropriate office when you have technology needs. Many times individuals will walk into the Instructional Support Training Center and asked for information on computer repair requests. The staff member in Instructional Support simply does not have this information because IT is a separate office. IT is physically housed within the Training Center, but it is an entity that has a unique role, as I hope you discovered in reading this column. To help eliminate confusion we have created a one-stop technology form that will allow you to indicate any of your technology needs. Regardless of your request, the form will be routed to the correct office. Further, when you submit this form you will receive information regarding the status of your request from the appropriate office. Even hardware repair requests will now result in feedback to keep you posted regarding the repair status. There should be no need for you to have to do follow-up. When you make instructional support requests, someone in Instructional Support will contact you to set up a time to work with you and help you with your needs. You can find the technology form at: http://www.ed.sc.edu/workorder/workorder_request.asp. The form is also accessible from the College forms page and the Instructional Support and IT web pages.
To help you further understand Instructional Support and IT service functions and to give you a chance to see the upgrades that we have made to these offices, you are invited and encouraged to attend an Open House in the Instructional Support Training Center on March 31, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. We will announce this again as the date nears, but please mark your calendars now and plan to drop in during these hours.
It has become absolutely necessary that we as a College recognize the importance
of technology in both instruction and administrative systems. Professional organizations
have adopted standards that require our students to become technologically proficient,
so we must as well. We have done what we could to set up a strong support system
within the restriction of limited resources. We have tried to eliminate boundaries
and barriers and have put people in place to jump hurdles for you when necessary.
Even so, this will all be meaningless unless you become immersed in this technological
revolution. I hope that as you do you will appreciate the resources that we have
put in place and will let us know when we can do better.
Until next time,
Mike