U of A University Information Technology Services
The Divisions of University Informaton Technology Services
Central AdministrationThe Central Administration staff provides the administrative functions for Computing Services. They handle personnel matters, accounting, administer the departmental budget, manage office correspondence, coordinate travel details, order and distribute office supplies, and assist the department director, Dr. Robert Zimmerman. They also manage the Computing Services site licenses.
Academic, Research, & Client ServicesThe Academic, Research, and Client Services group provides support for faculty, staff, and students in all areas of computing, including applications supported on our host systems, standalone workstations, and online information systems.Customer Service Operations includes the Help Desk, AskIT and our General Access Computing Labs. The Help Desk and AskIT are the point of contact for requests for networked workstation software installation and configuration, accounts on our systems, information and general inquiries, as well as problem reporting. Phone 575-2905, Monday -Thursday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. AskIT is available 24 hours 7 days a week. The General Access Computing Labs are staffed with lab operators who can answer questions regarding the computers and software. Information and Web Services support includes publication of Computing Services news announcements, maintenance and updating of the Computing Services web pages as well as the creation of new pages, all printed documentation of services provided and guides to computing on campus, and software documentation. Information and Web Services also presents information to student groups including freshman orientation and MBA students. Technology Training Workshops are developed and taught throughout the year. A core group of courses are taught frequently (such as monthly email, HTML, and operating system courses). Courses can be tailored to your instructional requirements and audience by request. A MultiMedia Resource Center, which houses a multi-platform computer production center and 20-seat networked classroom, gives faculty access to state-of-the-art multimedia hardware and software for the production of high-tech presentations and courseware. Several computer and presentation devices are available to faculty to check out for use in the classroom. WebCT is also available through the MultiMedia Resource Center for faculty to make their courses available to their students on the World Wide Web. The Network Client Services Support Team provides desktop level support for the University of Arkansas. They make on-site calls on campus and handle a wide variety of troubleshooting tasks with an emphasis on desktop networking and security issues. They can also offer assistance with operating systems, application programs, and virus scanning. Staff specialists in Administrative Support and Unix Desktop Support offer assistance with operating systems, application programs, general debugging, and research projects. The Unix Desktop Support group also heads up a Research Data Center which provides support for researchers in identifying, housing, accessing, and analyzing data. We also support SNAP, a web-based survey system for use by students, faculty, and staff. Academic, Research, and Client Services staff members are located in various buildings on campus, including the Administrative Services Building, Gibson Center, Ozark Hall, and in several General Access Computing Labs on campus.
Network ServicesThe Network Services department of Computing Services is responsible for the campus-wide data network backbone (UARKnet), the majority of the campus' local area networks, and a number of host resources. The host resources include Microsoft Windows servers, Novell Netware servers, Domain Name Services, mail forwarding, remote mainframe printing, and centralized IP address management.Web Development and Distributed SystemsThe Web Development group is tasked with WWW systems development and technical support and maintenance of the WWW programming environments. This environment includes:
We support development of web-based applications for a variety of customers, including both academic and administrative clients. Our applications include, but are not limited to, web access to Student Schedule & Grades, web-based Grade Entry, web-based Application for Admission for all prospective students, web-based mainframe job request site, applications supporting the College of Agriculture outreach to community colleges across the state, application supporting Agri's distributed education efforts, and many others. This group continues and supports the enhancement of web access to the mainframe information systems that allows information to be extracted from the mainframe database using traditional relational database tools through data warehousing and using new middleware tools to tap into the live data, reading and updating it. Distributed Application development Distributed applications are popping up all around the campus. These applications in many cases do not replace mainframe applications but supplement them with desktop services like spreadsheets and word processing or supplementary information systems to provide management information that is not completely addressed by the mainframe systems. Computing Services has been helping clients develop applications on these distributed systems for years. The networked campus, in turn, provides new resources to increase the value of these distributed systems. The network supports servers for a wide variety of applications. These servers include software, file, print, Data Warehouse, and others. Computing Services is diligently addressing the development of these information systems to address the need of services in these areas. These distributed applications can dramatically increase the value of computing to the University of Arkansas campus. Return to topTechnical ServicesThe purpose of Technical Services is to install and maintain the system-level software and hardware for the University's large computer systems. Included in that responsibility is performance and capacity monitoring, tuning, and reporting. Technical Services also provides technical assistance to other staff and performs the following functions in support of the missions and goals of Computing Services and the University of Arkansas:
Information SystemsThe Information Systems group is responsible for the maintenance and support of the University's legacy administrative business applications as well as for new development outside of the BASIS projects. Most of the systems they support are mainframe systems. Departmental objectives include having each staff member knowledgeable of how the data flows between systems with a basic understanding of each system from a technical perspective and to become more involved with re-engineering and client-server based applications. The Data Warehouse group is responsible for the maintenance and support of the University's Data Warehouse. The Data Warehouse is a data repository made up of over 270 tables of data, such as financial (DART, UPS, BASIS, Payroll, etc) and academic (ISIS) data, that is separate and distinct from the mainframe production databases. Data is extracted from the production systems and loaded to the Data Warehouse at regular intervals. The Data Warehouse can be accessed by faculty and staff using MS Access, Brio or SAS query software. Production Control is responsible for scheduling and executing administrative "batch" computing jobs. Quality Assurance personnel make sure that programmers adhere to standards and test batch programs to ensure they are producing what they are supposed to produce. The Document Imaging and Re-engineering team installs and maintains the enabling technologies for Business Process Re-engineering. Upon request, they will provide a short (2 days maximum) survey of a business process to determine if re-engineering with current technology will be of benefit. The survey results will be communicated to the senior manager of the requesting unit. If a re-engineering project is deemed to be needed, they will help the people concerned organize, develop, and execute the re-engineering plan. The storage structure of data in emPower resembles a filing cabinet with documents being stored in folders. Each folder may have multiple indexes (labels) and each document may have multiple indexes (labels). Documents are retrieved by using the index information to perform searches. The emPower system has the capability of storing any type of data that can be stored in a file on a computer. The predominate use to date is the storage of scanned images. The development of a "COLD" product (Computer Output to Laser Disk) has allowed us to use this system to distribute computer output electronically. Some advantages to this are the ability of multiple users to access the data simultaneously, space saving by not having to store documents in filing cabinets, and cost savings since these reports no longer need to be printed. As of March 1, 2001, we have approximately 1.2 million documents stored in the emPower system.
ADMIN/BASISADMIN/BASIS (Business and Administrative Strategic Information Systems) is the University of Arkansas' project to create a suite of viable online applications for managing many of the day-to-day business transactions of the University. BASIS applications have been implemented that provide for interdepartmental billing and transfers, online travel, leave accounting, and reporting hourly time.The key goals of the BASIS project are:
Student Systems ServicesThe Student Systems Services technical team is charged with delivering student-related information services to a broad customer base, including both academic and administrative clients. Their primary purpose is support for the comprehensive student data transaction system called ISIS (Integrated Student Information System). ISIS comprises components for Student Records, Student Financials, Admissions (graduate, undergraduate, law, and international), and Financial Aid. ISIS primary interface is web browser and features many "self-service" components including web based registration, financial aid interactions, online account inquiry and payment services, as well as routine information inquiry. Faculty can use ISIS for roster listings, class enrollments, and grade entry. ISIS is the local name for the Peoplesoft Learner Services modules. Other student-related applications that are supported include:
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