Computing Support Working Group
Minutes of meeting, May 18, 2001

Marilyn Smith, Chair, AACII
Theresa Regan, Director, Office Computing Practice
Greg Anderson, Director, I/T Support Process

	
The Goal: create a proposal on behalf of the AACII to be presented to
Bob Brown and John Curry regarding DLC computing support. The Provost
and Executive Vice-President have stated that they would carefully
consider a proposal for computing support that looked across a variety
of units and groups. 

Timeframe: We would like to present a proposal in October to coincide
with the budget submission process.

Scope of the work: DLC's need local computing support. This proposal
would focus on the definition of the need - quantity, standards, skills,
nature of the work, source of the problems, etc. in order to build a
proposal.  Training is outside the scope of this work. 

Issues to be addressed are (taken from the first meeting minutes April
27, with
some additions):

- Inconsistency / haves - have nots
- Resources & funding - how to get the right bang for the buck
- Providing the right support for the staff in the DLC's:
  - when staff arrive
  - when staff move
  - when staff transfer
  - when staff leave
- For the desktops in these areas, the movement of staff (arrival,
transfer, termination) requires certain processes and activities to
support those actions. 
- Just in time delivery of support combined with preventative
maintenance
- skill sets/competencies
- Are there standards for support and definitions of
simple-to-complicated enviroments. 
- Consistent individuals for support in each location to provide
predictabilty
      - know your work environment
      - does maintenance, preventive measures
- Available for emergencies
- Quantify - who has what; who has support, what kind, is it
good/bad
- How to prove that computing support is absolutely essential
- HW/SW, what tools do people need - beyond desktops in DLC's includes
business applications-local servers

We believe that a project from now until the end of September could
focus on:

1. Selecting a sample of representative depts. for study (we
can't/shouldn't study all depts, rather choose a few that represent
certain dept. models; local support, no support, DCS SLA, etc.)

2. Gather available historical data about the computing support
environment and activities in those selected depts. Outcome: a baseline
profile of the existing environments. 

3. Compose questions and talk with the depts. to determine current
levels of satisfaction/dissatisfaction, future needs. etc. Outcome: new
data to use to compare the delta between where they are now and where
they want to be in the future. 

4. From these conversations, gather the data, organize and analyze.
Outcome: aggregated, quantified and qualified data across the different
models. 

5. Make recommendations based on the findings. Organize and present the
findings to the AACII. Outcome: agreement on the recommendations and
combined endorsement for presentation 

Next steps: a workplan that would provide greater detail and assignments
to this work. Who: Greg (with Theresa and possibly Rob). 
Proposed team:
- Marilyn Smith
- Liz Cooper
- Theresa Regan
- Amy Francis (Bioengineering and Environment)
- Marybeth Costa (Physics)
- Rob Smyser (IS)
- Kyle Pope
- Greg Anderson
- Others? TBD