OITR
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[edit] Background
There used to be a group named ITO (Instructional Technology Office) that consisted of Vince Patone, Jill Gengler and (later) Matthew Beth and various GAs throughout the years. This group was originally named the LEEP Office, which reflected their duties and audience. However, as more and more LEEP technology was adapted by the on-campus audience, the LEEP Office changed their name to ITO in order to make it clear that their services were available to the entire School. ITO wasn't the only tech support unit in the School, however. Kent Yates and Neil Thackeray (and, for a time, Mike Faulhaber) made up the NIS group (Network Infrastructure Support ?) and Brynnen Owen and Martin Wolske worked with the ISRL. Garret Gengler was the applications developer for the LRC and for LEEP.
When Dean Unsworth joined GSLIS in August of 2003, he decided that a restructuring was in order. All support questions now go through User Services (Martin Wolske, Kent Yates and the GAs). Garret Gengler and Amit Kumar (joined GSLIS in December 2004) are the Applications Developers for all of GSLIS. Neil Thackeray, Brynnen Owen and their student hourly Josh (no last name needed) are the Systems Group. The whole group is known as the Office of Information Technology & Reasearch (OITR) and is headed up by Associate Dean Ken Spelke.
Jill Gengler and Matthew Beth are no longer officially tech support people. Their focus is more on academic support and so they report to Associate Dean Linda Smith.
[edit] User Services
The GSLIS User Services office is located on the second floor of GSLIS right above the main office. They are very helpful, very friendly, and work very hard at their job. If you have any questions about IT or computers at all, they are the people to talk to. If they do not know the answers, they will find out the answers or direct you to the person who can answer your question. Someone is there 8-6.
There is a helpful Tech Guide, at:
http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/techguide/
Room 211 244-4903 or 1-800-377-1892 help@support.lis.uiuc.edu
[edit] GSLIS IT Overhaul
The OITR people are in the middle of giving GSLIS IT systems a much needed complete overhaul, and things are changing, largely for the better, though slowly, and in fits and starts. To their credit, they are taking their time to plan ahead, and putting emphasis on real improvement over cosmetic change. There are debates about some of the issues involved in the overhaul:
- Is the current manner of maintaining the IT systems in GSLIS too restrictive?
- Should it perhaps be modeled on the way NCSA runs its systems?
- Should more freedom be given to the researchers who use ISRL Resources?
- Should the computers in the Doc study be locked down, or should users be able to install programs on the computers (or at least one of them) at will?
- Should the staff of the OITR be largely made up of full timers or of Graduate Assistants?
- How much time is spent training new staff members, and how does this affect everybody's productivity?
- How will this affect the amount of funding available to GSLIS students?
