I have to say my experience with college and university networks has been exactly the opposite. Just when I think the school network could not be any less user friendly or capable, they make another change to make things worse.

At one school, the person in charge of the "virtual college" had a PhD. in Music, but had no IT training or experience. Almost everyone under him was a student working part time. Few of them had any IT experience. It definitely showed. The network was lacking, to say the least.

Where I'm at now, the actual machines (primarily Windows boxes) were noticeably slower about a month after replacement compared to when they were first installed, which is almost certainly due to undetected malware or more inefficiencies added to the network. (My G3 iBook is LIGHTNING fast compared to the current speeds of the Dells that were brand new, and quite fast, at the beginning of last semester.) Wireless access is slow at best, with numerous dead spots in areas where there is supposed to be extensive coverage.

To put things in perspective, it commonly requires 30+ minutes to log onto the network, download a file I gmailed to myself, send it to the printer, log out, and print the file. That's over thirty minutes to print a single page, without waiting in any lines. (There isn't a system in place for students to send print jobs to a printer via their own laptops and the wireless network.)

Websites for online courses and registration, grades, etc. have absolutely hideous user interfaces, as though they were designed by a sadistic eight year old with severe ADHD. Often I have to switch between to pages that are only linked via a chain of several links, and the browser's back button is not often supported. To make matters worse, the system does not allow a user to have two or more pages open simultaneously. Consequently, tasks that should take five minutes can require an hour or two to complete.

Could you explain that for a non native english reader?

Thanks

Well, I'm also not a native speaker...
But I understand it this way: she easily deals with his dominant character:)

Not to hijack the thread, but that is the Director of IT's fault for not hiring capable people. Some institutes are like that and it is directly management's fault.

A Duck (Canard) is waterproof. Rain just rolls off it's back. The analogy is that a person is unimpressed or unmoved by traits or behavior in another; is oblivious to things that strangers find very impressive. -- these dominance characteristics are to her like like rain is to a duck; no effect.

Here, here! Absolutely. I guess I have been lucky that the universities I have taught at had very well managed IT departments, with competent people in charge of the many aspects of IT, and CompSci students at all the help desks. The lady who ran student records, for example, had a Masters in CS and was very responsive to both student and faculty needs -- not always a speeding bullet, but she got there. My Faculty staff had a very competent manager who reported to and was paid by the director of IT, but whose equipment budget was divided into two parts; university facilities (the backbone, servers, and network) and infrastructure (the machines and student facilities). He was on the faculty committee that apportioned budget for Faculty/Departmental facilities to advise and restrain. Below him was a UNIX/Apache/PHP/etc. guru, two "fixers" -- IT staff who untied the knots students and staff managed to get into (and were bilingual Mac/PC), and a hardware guy -- hardware installer/upgrader/board swapper/etc. who kept the physical equipment up to snuff.

If your University is a mess, JC, it's because it is either very poorly managed, extremely underfunded, or both.

For two years, in my High school, the tech instructor did it. Then they brought in some guy who was quite quiet and OK. Then they brought in some partisan hack who disliked Macs and was determined to keep them off the network.

Even better, I had to play the role of tech in Middle School. It was all Macs, few PCs. I'll never forget the time I actually outsmarted the "IT guy" they had sitting around. He opened up someone's PC (which was dropped and the powerswitch was useless), found the loose power switch inside the case, pressed it, and instructed the teacher not to turn the computer on. (This merits a big W...T...F) The teacher called me (I did this job before lunch) to have a second look. I did the proper thing and put the switch back in it's place, allowing the computer to be turned on from the outside normally.

Shows how smart their staff is. Being outsmarted by a (then) 13 year old.

As far as I know, a good 25% of kids in my school last year had a disc player of some sort. The other 50% had iPods of varying generations. (I've even seen a 1G there!) The other 25% are various other brands. (No, not Zune. I've only seen two of those)

The disc player is not doing well, but it isn't totally dead, either. I myself used one until mid-Junior year, when I got an iPod shuffle from a friend.

The war on bullies (Physical ones that can deal physical harm to you) is indeed futile in my area because the staff never act on bullies. I've been screwed with more times than I can count, and my reports go unnoticed by the staff.

Nice way to prevent it, eh?

Here is the problem I think with IT departments and this even affects cyber bullying. Is that there is no need to split up responsibilities into some micro managed SNAFU. It should be streamlined and more simplified, making it more efficient all the way around. There are of course a few exceptions. Anyone in IT should be able to replace RAM, HD, or motherboard. Some all in one machines and other Apple's are harder to take apart and have a margin of error. That error being breaking the plastic snap pieces, or some other ridiculous thing that Apple does to their systems to make them hard to work on. So, you need to train people on that aspect, which still isn't hard. Same theory goes for networking and the like. It isn't hard and the more people capable of doing it the better overall support you will have.

Not cross training your IT staff is a horrible thing, and it will cause issues down the road. You will see people become elitist or in their own little world and it makes it hard to accomplish other things. I have been down that road many times with IT people, and it is just ridiculous.

This also is why some things fall through the cracks in organizations. Things like cyber bullying could easily fall through the cracks, with people not properly training other people with technology. Or, how responsibilities are shifted to other workers. Personally, I do not hold anything above me, I do all kinds of work. I haul equipment around, I do hardware repairs, I reset passwords, I help with network deployment, and heck I have even hung a picture for a user before. That is right a picture on their wall in their office. I even used a level to make it perpendicular with the sides of the walls.

This being said, can bring up many issues. A decline in the quality of service you get creates more problems, and the more problems everyone has to deal with lets other things slip through the cracks. Also, having technophobes on your board is not a good idea either for technology. Technology is the future regardless of whatever you do with yourself career wise. It is everywhere and used in every business model.

So, really what you should look at as a IT manager or Director is how does your technology benefit the user, how responsible is it, and how do you protect your users and your assets? That is a management decision, and it doesn't always directly involve technology. Sometimes it just involves proper training, which that organization or company should provide to everyone. If everyone was properly trained, problems like cyber bullying or any type of abuse of technology that can lead to these types of things could possibly be mitigated at a higher rate. Of course nothing will stop it completely, but there are measures to help.

Thank you. Funny how idioms can be hard to understand when you don't know their meanings.

I've experienced similar problems at two different schools, but I still suspect it is due to both poor management and underfunding.