How do we adapt to a mobile computing environment (#2)
Abstract: How do we provide IT support
services to support our academic mission and provide adequate security for
students who carry their computer labs with them when the university doesn't own
the computers? We have to change the way we do business!
In Academia many departments evolved from
typewriters to computers. New applications for computers may have increased the
number of machines installed, but the support metaphor hasn't significantly
changed since the days of IBM Selectrics.
Computers and computer support has been
defined geographically since the first computers were delivered at some
universities. On these types of campuses a theoretical student might have a day
that includes a journalism class, an art class and a class in business. This
theoretical student might use computers in these three separate classes located
in different parts of the campuses.
Support
for these computers could be, and often is, provided by three teams of IT
support professionals who rarely needed to communicate with each other.
Historically we have had the luxury of owning the computers our student's used.
Increasingly this will be a thing of past. The financial drain on academic
institutions, the needless instances of redundant support structures, the
obvious advantages of mobile computing, the ubiquity of wireless networking and
the needs of students who must increasingly use computing resources off the
campus site is moving academia toward a mobile computing
model.
In a mobile computing environment
computers and users are no longer defined by the buildings computers used to
reside in. This is going to force academic institutions to take a real
enterprise vision of computing and computer support. As computers roam across
campus roaming to various wired and wireless networks with users expecting to be
able to access resources everywhere easily and intuitively IT support structures
need to redefine themselves across the entire campus and uniform security
practices need to be implemented campus
wide.
In my opinion the handwriting is on the
wall! The sooner the campus realizes the need to restructure support services
to an enterprise model the more prepared we will be to offer our students a
computing environment that is robust and prepared to meet the needs of mobile
users.
Posted: Thu - November 6, 2003 at 09:51 PM