Distributed Computing/Carson Office/Student Computing
               
                            3/10/95 Minutes




Attending:  Doug, Manola, Dave, Joan, Justin, Bob



I'd like to use this opportunity again to remind us of our departmental 
mission because whatever we do to reorganize in this area must support 
our departmental mission.

The mission of the Distributed Computing/Telemedia department is:

  1. to increase the effectiveness, productivity and creativity of students, 
     faculty, staff and administrators by:

     o  providing outstanding voice, video and desktop data services and
        support based upon assessed customer requirements;

     o  supporting and promoting the College's technological competitiveness in 
        higher education;

     o  keeping the campus well-informed about our services and relevant 
        technological trends and developments; and by,

     o  collaborating with other campus departments and SUNY schools to meet 
        our goals and support the mission of the College.


  2. to create an exciting, challenging place to work that enhances the
     quality of life for every member of the department.

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1.  From our meeting last week, we set the agenda for this week to focus on
    the creation of a HELPDESK (see minutes).  We discussed what we thought
    a HELPDESK was and what problems it would address.  I summarized our
    discussion so that it reads, "A HELPDESK is..."

    - supervised by professional staff (a single individual; shared amongst
      staff);

    - proactive in alerting desktop users of problems *before* they encounter
      them (bugs, viruses, etc.);

    - a services which addresses common, routine, basic problems which are
      dealt with frequently;

    - a service which provides information to customers about the status of
      technology and services supported by the department;

    - a service which educates HELPDESK customers on becoming more 
      self-sufficient in solving the same, or similar problems the next time the
      encounter them.  This would occur by educating them on how to solve their
      problems and/or where to obtain the information they need to solve their 
      problem;

    - a service which provides our training and documentation efforts with 
      feedback and direction based upon the needs seen at the HELPDESK.


An assumption/goal for establishing a HELPDESK is that it will eliminate 
frequent/continual interruptions throughout the day for professional staff
that are not handling the HELPDESK.  This should increase the amount of UQT.


2.  Next meeting is Wednesday, 3/15 10:00am - Noon.  Between now and then, 
    consider your stake in this issue.  What problems is the HELPDESK addressing 
    that are important to you?  What part of the HELPDESK do you see yourself 
    responsible for?

    Agenda for next meeting:

    - continue with our discussion on how best to address the problems we think
      a HELPDESK will solve.  We should continue with those questions that 
      we didn't cover in this meeting, such as: 

         * where to locate the HELPDESK operation
         * whether to separate student from employee HELPDESK support
         * what can we do *now*

    - how to free up time for staff so they have Uninterruptible Quality Time 
      (UQT) to spend working on these problems and developing more effective 
      strategies to deal with them (i.e., separate out the routine, basic
      problems that cause so much gear-shifting.)