Central Computing Support Policy
- SOE faculty are responsible for defining the School of Engineering's standardized computing infrastructure. This standardized infrastructure is decided upon through Schoolwide faculty decision-making processes and/or can be delegated to a subcommittee, such as the School's Computing Infrastructure Committee (CIC).
- SOE provides the standardized computing environment uniformly to all SOE users (faculty, grads, staff and official visitors).
- The School's technical staff administer SOE's central computing resources and provide the standardized computing environment.
- Users can choose to support their own computing environments and forego the School-defined computing support. In this case, the technical staff provide no system administration support and, in order to maintain Schoolwide networked-systems security, cannot provide access to the School's central computing infrastructure.
- The technical staff also administer on-site faculty research resources, if requested by a faculty member. In this case, the hardware and software specifications of these research resources must meet SOE's standardized computing specifications. (For this reason, faculty are encouraged to consult with the technical staff before making any research computing purchases.) The technical staff provide research-computing resources with the same standardized computing environment provided to the School's central computing resources.
- Occasionally, novel research-computing equipment does not fit within the SOE standardized computing support model. In this case, a faculty member can negotiate for custom support. Requests for custom support normally are submitted to the CIC, but can also be forwarded through the Schoolwide faculty decision-making processes. Custom support falls outside the School's central computing support model, consequently, it is recharged to the requesting faculty member. The CIC negotiates with the requesting faculty member, on a case-by-case basis, to determine the recharge budget for the custom support.
- To report computing infrastructure problems, breakdowns or malfunctions to the technical staff, users initiate an IT Request ticket. Problem reporting may occur verbally or by other informal communication, however, informal requests should not replace submitting an electronic service request.