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Digital future and encouraging innovation

- TIS needs more people if we want to keep up, let alone do interesting digital projects.
- More people in the organization should be trained/allowed/encouraged to get this skill set, even outside of TIS and DLS, so that we can do more development. If, for example, interested public service staff could learn and develop in php, this would also mean that the people building tools would have an intimate understanding of the people using those tools and it would make for good tools.
- Is it really worth locking down staff computers so that you have to call MCS to upgrade firefox, even? This squashes innovation and exploration. Perhaps the default should be no lock down but if you abuse it, your computer is locked down, rather than the opposite.
(Idea submitted via Strategic Planning Comment Card)

Hopper_Moderator, 09.12.2010, 02:12
Response from the site administrator
Hopper_Moderator, 14.12.2010
Forwarded to Chris Carter & the Strategic Planning Task Force for review.
Idea status: under consideration

Comments

ccarter, 14.12.2010, 21:42
In response to the third point about locking down the computers:

Desktop Support Services (aka MCS) has to balance the need for stability with the convenience of individual staff members. Before we update a program like Firefox, we test it for a wide range of effects that it may have on our staff image and with key features like add-ins and saved application data. Since so many people rely on Firefox to perform their library job duties, we tend to stay on certain versions for longer intervals, but of course if anyone reports that version is limiting their work we will respond immediately. At the moment, we expect our next update to Firefox to be version 4, which should be released soon.

We realize that the inability to apply updates is not convenient for everyone, but we hope that you find our responses to all requests for individual updates to be quick and friendly. We are convinced that managing the computers in this way provides a significant net benefit to staff and patrons, as the PCs can be expected to operate consistently from one station to the next and we can also minimize the number of security quarantines imposed by ITS. Thank you for your input, Chris Carter
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whodat, 15.12.2010, 00:28
"interesting" may be for better times. if we looked maybe we could find cloud applications that let us drop to almost nothing in local apps. yes that could mean positions dropped. is it true the university is going to Google for email? if it is, isn't there a lesson in that? One web page for hard times.
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