Support Services

For the past decade, campuses in the United States have been offering comprehensive communications services in campus dorms that include high-speed Internet, cable television, and telephone services (local line, long distance, and voice mail in some cases). With students migrating to other forms of personal communications such as cell phones and text messaging, campuses are reevaluating the need for telephone lines in the dorms.

In this free July 1 EDUCAUSE Live! web seminar, Meeting Communications Needs in Campus Dorms, presenters Dewitt Latimer, deputy CIO & chief technology officer, University of Notre Dame, and Walt Magnussen, director of telecommunications, Texas A&M University, will discuss the implementations at both of their institutions. Included in the discussion will be student opinion polls, wireless alternatives, and E911 and other safety considerations.

This 45-minute podcast recorded during the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference features Mur Muchane, Executive Director of Information Technology Services, Davidson College and Lisa Trubitt, Assistant to the CIO for Policy & Communications, University at Albany, SUNY. Their session was titled "In Plain English, Please: Effective IT Communications."

The session abstract:

The University at Albany and Davidson College will discuss the strategies they use to convey information about IT services to their respective user communities. Both institutions have developed a protocol for communicating about IT to non-technical audiences in user-friendly ways.

This 13 minute podcast features an interview with CIO Brian Voss and Deputy CIO and Executive Director, UIS, Cynthia Hadden, both from Louisiana State University. They presented a session at the 2007 EDUCAUSE Enterprise Conference entitled, "Commoditization of Core Services".

Given increasing pressures to do more with less, institutions are beginning to look at outsourcing core services to improve quality of service while significantly reducing costs. Louisiana State University has been very successful in outsourcing basic e-mail, one of the most fundamental technology tools in use today.

In this 32-minute recording from the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, we'll hear from Kimberly Brookes and Cynthia Rubino in a session entitled Fear Factor and American Idol: Leveraging Popular Culture for Student Support. They share how Simmons College has used interactive educational programs based around popular culture to teach students to care for their own computers.

 

In this 47-minute recording from the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, we'll hear from Tammy Barr, Bradley Greer, and Sandra McGowan in a session entitled Fiscal Gain Without Political Pain: Keeping a Personalized Face on Support Centralization. They will explain how Oregon State University and the University of Washington have taken fresh approaches to providing centralized desktop support.