paper -
74 Three years in the Solution Center
Frank
Poduska, Iowa State University
Forget your password? Need to connect your home or
office computer to the campus network? Want to create a Web page? Afraid you
have a computer virus? Those are the
old questions that three years ago spawned the Solution Center, a single contact
point supporting computer and communication technology for Iowa State
University students and staff.
After thirty-plus years of making small
"mid-course corrections" types of changes to the support paradigm,
many groups on campus thought it was time to make some more radical changes to
information technology support.
Bringing together employees of Telecommunications, the Computation
Center, and Administrative Data Processing to staff the Solution Center was the
first step in creating a center dedicated to flexibility and change.
"Connectivity" was the initial driving force, assisting students and
staff with Ethernet and PPP dial-up connections. Now having a single place that 'hears it all' has allowed us to
initiate or at least participate on a number of projects to fix systemic
problems with tested universal solutions.
We've worked to bring web-based e-mail onto campus,
ramping up from software selection and customization to 4,500 users in a few
months. Current WebMail activities
involve designing training for an additional 3,500 students during the Fall New
Student Days. Other information
technology projects include creating our campus software installer CD (Scout),
and merging our Kerberos database processes with the campus Windows 2000 Active
Directory servers to create an integrated university-wide password system.
Change is never as smooth as we would like, and these three years have seen some ups and some downs. By planning a flexible structure and allowing for natural growth, the Solution Center has proven to be a practical example for providing IT support in the large university setting.