Technology
For Faculty & Staff
Your Computer
Technology at Simmons College provides some assistance to faculty and staff with their personally-owned computers and software. In providing technical support, Technology' s goal is to help members of the Simmons Community learn to care for their own computers. The primary method for assisting faculty and staff with personally-owned computers is through tips on the Technology web site, and Self-Help Clinics, designed to give you direct access to Technology's expertise. At Self-Help Clinics, we instruct students, faculty and staff in small groups, to troubleshoot and resolve software issues.
This page describes Technology's support for faculty and staff-owned computers, in four sections:
If you want to buy a new computer or software at discounted prices, go to our purchasing page. Before you travel with a laptop, read our Laptop Travel Tips.
Faculty/Staff-owned hardware/peripherals
For faculty/staff-owned equipment that meets standard hardware requirements, Technology will assist in diagnosing hardware issues and will recommend a solution or an outside vendor to resolve hardware problems. To protect the hardware warranty, as a general rule Technology does not open up faculty/staff-owned computer equipment or install hardware components. However, in rare instances and based on professional discretion, if Technology determines that further hardware diagnosis would allow the technician to make an appropriate referral to an outside resource, Technology will ask the owner to sign a release. This release will allow the technician to do further hardware diagnosis in order to make an appropriate referral.
Simmons hardware standards can be found online. Technology refers faculty/staff who have hardware that does not meet Simmons hardware standards to the hardware manufacturer for technical support.
Technology provides limited support for handheld devices. Technology will provide guidance to faculty and staff installing peripherals and related software, such as Palm Desktop. Technology will provide advice to faculty and staff having problems with PDAs and other peripherals about where to turn for technical assistance.
Technology will install software required for PDA synchronization onto Simmons computers used by faculty and staff, and will configure such software for synchronization with Simmons tools, such as Meeting Maker, but can only provide limited advice if anything goes wrong. The data stored on a PDA remains the responsibility of the user; please backup all of your data through frequent synchronization with a desktop computer.
Operating Systems (OS)
Through campus email announcements and our web site, Technology informs the Simmons College community of critical security releases to Simmons standard operating systems and provides links to updates and to information about common OS issues. Technology provides guidance but does not install OS updates on personally-owned equipment.
If a faculty or staff member owns a personal copy1 of a Simmons standard OS with the most current OS updates, antivirus software, and virus definitions (see viruses section) installed, Technology will:
- Investigate common OS problems
- Provide routine troubleshooting steps for diagnostic purposes
- Provide basic advice to the faculty or staff member experiencing OS trouble
If after routine troubleshooting and diagnosis a faculty/staff computer is still out of service, Technology will direct the faculty/staff member to the manufacturer or another technology service provider. Technology provides possible alternate resources for problems with operating systems not supported by Simmons.
Simmons OS standards can be found online as part of the list of standard software.
Software
Simmons categorizes software on faculty/staff-owned computers as: standard, academic, accepted, deprecated, or forbidden. "Forbidden" is only relevant if the computer is attached to the Simmons network.
Standard software is the same for personally-owned and Simmons-owned computers: see the list of standard software for Simmons-owned computers on the Technology web site. Technology provides the following software support for faculty/staff who own a licensed1 copy of Simmons' standard software:
- Assist the faculty/staff member with problem diagnosis
- When technically possible, restore corrupted data, files, and/or documents
- Restore from backup files stored on the file server
- Assist the faculty/staff with locating misplaced data
- Suggest alternate approaches to improve the way in which the software is used
- Recommend and offer specific training
- Offer advice about where to go for additional help
In keeping with our general support principles, Technology provides guidance, but does not install software on faculty/staff computers. If deemed appropriate, Technology provides guidance to the faculty/staff member on how to reinstall or configure standard software, but does not perform the reinstallation.
Technology supports Simmons web based tools as standard software. Technology maintains the infrastructure for several of these tools (e.g. Simmons eLearning, AARC, WebMail). Technology provides assistance to faculty/staff member having trouble logging in or configuring a web browser to access such tools. When appropriate, Technology will refer faculty/staff to the office that owns the underlying system. For example, the Registrar's Office maintains the data underlying AARC, and the Libraries administer the online course reserves.
Technology assists faculty/staff in the universal software functions of academic software. Academic software is used by faculty for research or assigned by faculty for use in class, but is not included in the Simmons standard software list. Examples of universal software functions are: opening, saving, and basic printing.
Because additional support requires knowledge of academic disciplines that Technology does not have, faculty and staff should refer to program help guides and the manufacturers of academic software.
Accepted software is any application that Technology has no reason to believe will cause undue harm to a computer or network resources. Technology assists faculty and staff in universal functions (e.g. opening, saving, and basic printing) of accepted software, will attempt to restore corrupted files, and provides training in the use of selected accepted software.
There is a class of software that, while not forbidden, Technology urges that faculty/staff not use; for example such peer-to-peer filesharing software as KaZaA. See http://www.simmons.edu/filesharing/ for information about filesharing. Such deprecated software will not be supported. Technology provides faculty/staff with guidance on how to remove such programs but will not remove them from the computers.
Forbidden software is any application that, when installed, puts the faculty/staff or the Simmons community at risk. Technology provides guidance on how to remove such programs but will not remove them from faculty/staff-owned computers. If Technology staff finds forbidden software on a faculty/staff computer, Technology will not provide support for either hardware or software issues until the faculty/staff removes it.
Viruses and other security threats
Viruses, spyware, and other software designed with ill-intent threaten not only faculty/staff privacy,2 information,3 and equipment,4 but also Simmons resources shared by the community such as the network5 and servers6. Technology advises faculty/staff of best practices for care of their personal data and the functioning of their machines. Because most threats can be avoided by keeping operating systems and virus definitions up to date, Technology provides antivirus software free to faculty/staff.
In fairness to all of our customers, Technology will assist and advise faculty/staff who have not installed or kept up-to-date antivirus software and definitions, and kept their OS updated once; after the first incident, Technology will refer faculty/staff to alternate resources for assistance. If, despite having an updated operating system and antivirus software/definitions, a faculty/staff computer is essentially inoperable or has been denied network access, Technology will help the faculty/staff clean her/his machine and provide advice about how to avoid future problems.
To download free antivirus software, or to fix a machine that is ailing, visit Disinfect & Protect: free antivirus and tools for safe computing.
Notes:
- Proof of license, which can take the form of the original OS or application CD, is required for Technology support. Since the OS or application CD may be required to fix problems, faculty and staff should have their CD in hand when seeking support.
- By distributing your email or files to others.
- For example, your documents, like term papers or letters.
- These sorts of problems can render entire computers inoperable.
- Traffic bottlenecks interfere with printing, Internet browsing, etc.
- For example, email, registrar's database, Simmons eLearning, and the file server.