IT
personnel working in the for-profit corporate world have it easy compared to
their colleagues on college and university campuses. Computerworld calls the chief information officers in higher
education the “unsung heroes of academia.”
“Far from
taking it easy while students are out on break, higher-ed CIOs work tirelessly
all summer to prepare for every imaginable back-to-school nightmare, from a
security breach to a network outage to a Twitterstorm of negative publicity,”
said writer Cindy Waxer in a Computerworld article profiling the challenges of serving thousands of students, faculty, and
staff on a campus.
Some
institutions, faced with balancing cost and service, are coming up with
innovative solutions. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, upgraded
its wireless network to ensure enough access points in areas where concentrated
numbers of students might need to jump on at the same time—such as classrooms—but
scaled back the access points in dormitories and other areas where users are
spread out.
Valdosta
State University, Valdosta, GA, looked to police tactics to improve computer
technician response times. Noting how some police departments crunch data to
determine “crime hot spots” and then assign more patrol cars to those areas,
the school used computer modeling to predict where technicians would be most
needed at various times.
“Technicians
are now situated in key locations around campus so that if an issue arises,
they can be on-site within minutes,” the article noted. Average response time
is now 13 minutes. Previously, it took a technician one to two hours to show
up.
