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Information Technology
Mission and Guiding Principles
Mission
Assumption College views information and its distribution systems
as a valued resource. New technologies make possible ways
of learning, teaching, communicating, and conducting research
that have never before been available. The IT Department
is committed to providing students, faculty, and staff with
network and electronic tools and services necessary to foster
excellence in our academic enterprise. We serve to empower
our users with reliable services and enable the exploration
and pioneering use of technology.
The Department supports computer users in the Information
Technology Center and across the campus. It is responsible
for providing the community with appropriate software and hardware
to support the information and processing needs of the faculty
and students. It is also charged with maintaining adequate
and reliable network access to electronic information systems
both on campus and throughout the world.
Guiding Principles for IT staff
1. Safety comes first. We must never endanger our users or
ourselves. All IT staff must be vigilant for possible unsafe
conditions.
2. The user needs transcend the convenience of the IT staff.
Our customers (students, faculty, and staff) needs must always
determine our decisions.
3. All IT staff must treat every member of the community with
respect and professionalism at all times.
4. Standards must be developed and adhered to. These include
software, hardware, service levels, service level agreements
and promises, operational hours, backups, long and short-term
planning and budgeting systems. The only exceptions to following
standards should occur when such adherence would inhibit a
user’s reasonable ability to use a technology in a way
that would significantly benefit teaching and learning or that
would significantly impair their efficiency in delivering service.
5. All IT staff, no matter their individual job responsibilities,
must act as an advocate for solving individual user problems.
That is, every problem is their problem until they’ve
helped connect the user with another staff member who can take
over responsibility for the underlying issue. It is the responsibility
of the IT staff member to bring issues of weak service by IT
to the attention of appropriate managers in the Department.
This must be done with tact and sensitivity. Problems must
not be aired with users. Problems must be solved for users.
6. Basic standard services that users are dependent on take
priority over new development projects. It is critical that
new projects keep up with established timelines in the large,
but this must never slow response to problems with basic service.
If needed, IT staff should plan on asking for extra help or
working extra hours in order to regain currency with projects.
7. Staff development is critical in IT. Staff must attend conferences,
training programs, and on-campus cross training as appropriate
and within budget limitations to further development and to
establish relationships with other IT staff from other institutions.
Staff must also keep themselves aware of developments in their
area. Everyone is responsible in helping inform the vision
of technology use on campus. Staff should expect to be asked
to acquire new skills.
8. Communications is central for service delivery. All users
must be given timely information about project, delivery, or
repair status. Regular, daily meetings of IT staff must be
held to keep everyone aware of outages, projects, and events
on campus. Do not defer communications to perform other tasks
unless there is a major emergency underway.
9. Training users is critical to their effective use of technology.
All IT staff must give direct user support as well as contribute
to group training sessions. Job effectiveness evaluation for
staff will partially be based on their enthusiasm and skill
in training users.
10. IT is a team. Staff must look to support and cover for
each other as needed. We must all adhere to the principles
of “Basic Service First, ”Make their Day,” and “Under
Promise and Over Deliver.” It is never appropriate to
say: “It’s not my area or problem.”
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