paper -
47 Creating Order Out of Chaos: The Computer Lab Upgrade Process at UNC Greensboro
Janice
Tulloss, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
John H. Major, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Prior to 1998, the semi-annual software and equipment
upgrades in UNCGs 23 open-access computer labs was performed largely by student
staff with oversight by the sole two permanent lab staff members: the lab
manager and the technician. There was
no written software specification, no central database was kept and licensing
information was sketchy.
In short there was virtually no standardized process
and little institutional history on which to build a stable computing lab
environment. Considerable
dissatisfaction among student and faculty lab users resulted from the lack of
sufficient technical support and concommitant machine down-time while pressure
on the labs was growing due to increased demands for lab time from faculty for
classes.
In 1998, three remedies were put into place: the lab
staff size was increased, hardware locks were installed on lab machines, and a
new lab upgrade process was created which brought together members from two of
the five Instructional Technology (IT) departments: Instructional and Research
Computing (IRC) and Systems and Networks (SYN).
This new process, the focus of our paper, takes a
project approach wherein IRC is responsible for overall project management,
development of a lab specification, acquisition and tracking of software,
installation and testing of the image on the computer labs machines, and SYN is responsible for the installation of
network software and the creation of the lab image.
Our presentation chronicles the evolution of this new
approach and the dramatic changes which have resulted in the computer lab
environment and within IT:
• greatly
decreased machine downtime and faster response time to technical problems;
• greater
stability and predictability in the lab environment and fewer software
problems;
• less
confusion on the part of users concerning software upgrades and installation
requests;
• improved communication
between IRC and SYN;
• improved communication with faculty lab users.