Deogratious The New appointed IT Manager

Network administration

• Network server admin
• Mail server admin
• Webserver admin
• Email and internet access issues
• Establish and enforce network security policies

Application administration and development

• LDAP (user account) administration
• Web application management (e.g. TUSK, Moodle, Issue tracking software, Student Information System)
• Database management and updates
• Application and database research and development

Knowledge management strategy

• System and web application design and implementation (collaborative)
• Database Design and implementation (collaborative)
• Assessment of new technologies and technology partners

Lab Attendant

Personal computer and computer lab support

• Software issues and support
• Email client use issues
• Antivirus and operating system issues
• System crash recovery
• System and software updates

Hardware maintenance

Hardware issues

• Hardware specification
• Hardware procurement
• Hardware and driver installation/updates
• Hardware repair and maintenance
• Training

Interns

Hardware issues

• Hardware specification
• Hardware procurement
• Hardware and driver installation/updates
• Hardware repair and maintenance

Facilitator: Adam

Participants: Deogratious

These three days were spent reviewing topics covered in previous training sesions with Paul, and focusing on:

• plone buildouts for production and development
• organziation of the tech services team, inlcuding key roles and responsibilities (in collaboration with the Dean)
• presentation of services on the web

Adam will meet to cover:

• Updating and adding to the MUSPH Tech Services Documentation
• Using Virtualmin
• Setting up a Moodle site
• Setting up a new zope instance
• Adding a new plone site
• Backups

Primary points of consensus:
1. Increased training and and knowledge sharing among IT staff should benefit the team's ability to respond quickly and appropriately to a wide variety of common IT issues.
2. Standard solutions and procedures to the address the most common IT issues access to appropriate software and tools etc. should be the focus of such training.
3. Some specialization of staff already exists.  This should be respected to help distribute work appropriately among team members, but training should continue to be a focus in order to build a depth of knowledge of all members, increasing individual skill and versatility.
3. Creating a more formal "Help Desk" structure for the IT team along with a clearer workflow and issue/task management process may help organize the team and better interface with the rest of the faculty and staff.

Steps to move forward:
1. Team member will identify key areas of expertise and interest.
2. Team members will identify priority topics for trainings.
3. Adam can assist in implementing an issue tracking system, the purpose of which will be to capture--to the extent possible--all incoming issues and support requests, assign them to appropriate IT staff, track their status and archive the solution.  The database of solutions assembled through such a system will be an invaluable source of IT knowledge.
4. A draft organizational strategy document can be developed and presented for the Dean and others.

Below is a more detailed list of IT roles and responsibilities, as well as the "opportunities" for continued development of the IT team initially identified through discussions with team members.

Personal computer and computer lab support

• Software issues and support
• Email client use issues
• Antivirus and operating system issues
• System crash recovery
• System and software updates

Hardware issues

• Hardware specification
• Hardware procurement
• Hardware and driver installation/updates
• Hardware repair and maintenance
• Training

Network administration

• Network server admin
• Mail server admin
• Webserver admin
• Email and internet access issues
• Establish and enforce network security policies

Application administration and development

• LDAP (user account) administration
• Web application management (e.g. TUSK, Moodle, Issue tracking software, Student Information System)
• Database management and updates
• Application and database research and development

Knowledge management strategy

• System and web application design and implementation (collaborative)
• Database Design and implementation (collaborative)
• Assessment of new technologies and technology partners

Miscellaneous

• Video/audio support and multimedia processing
• Video- and Teleconferencing
• Event facilitation
• E-learning facilitation

1.       Formalize ad hoc IT support processes

    a.        Clarify IT staff roles

    b.       Establish issue priorities

    c.        Implement issue tracking system

    d.       Create an identifiable formal IT support structure (i.e. Help Desk)

    e.       Establish default workflow

2.       Standardize approaches solutions where possible (Issue tracker can help with this)

    a.        Identify core software, hardware, anti-virus

    b.       Identify standard fixes to common problems

    c.        Build a knowledge base of problems and solutions to facilitate troubleshooting

3.       Establish training priorities

    a.        Identify skills required per role, and hold IT team trainings

    b.       Identify high-impact faculty/staff trainings (must be useful from both IT and non-IT staff)

Through recent upgrades to the network infrastructure MUSPH is now able to host a variety of web applciations which will be fast and accessible both on and off campus.  This site is intended to function as a dashboard to web services hosted by MUSPH and available to facutly and staff.  It is also the home of the Help Desk, where you can submit requests for assistance using our issue tracker and even connect with MUSPH IT staff via Live Chat.