Since the start of the semester, students have experienced persistent issues when trying to access their school and Adobe accounts. As a result the IT department received an influx of reports, many of which have been from the Media Arts Center.
Professor of graphic design Randall Hoyt was one of the professors whose classes were disrupted by the tech issues. He said that in two of his computer labs “students couldn’t login and access the computer.” With a large part of Hoyt’s classes involving computer usage, he described the need for a fix as “imperative.” According to Hoyt, the problem is a result of re-imaging IT did over the summer.
Film Studies Tech Manager Brandon Doherty, who also works from the MAC, said he helped coordinate the re-imaging with IT. “Over the summer we bottlenecked all the IT through me for the Graphic Design lab and [the film] lab,” he said.
As for what exactly a re-imaging is, Doherty explained it as a universal “template of the computer so that every computer at Keene is the same… [IT] puts a package together and they push it out, and then all the computers are the same.” It is a way for the computers to all communicate and share the same programs.
Doherty said that he had access to the system ahead of time and did not note any problems, with the issues that occurred later being a result of scale. “I mean look how many [computers] we have and how many are actually down,” he said.
Doherty mentioned that in spite of two vacant positions in the IT department, they have been able to maintain “quick responses and always communicate.”
Hoyt noted that the response from IT was on the day he requested help, “but they didn’t fix it.” He said that problems persisted in lab 154 for a couple days following the IT visit before an eventual fix.
Doherty said that the technology is never going to work one hundred percent of the time, “there will always be something…There’s always a chance to do better or run up the score…but students are getting their projects done. Classes are running,” Doherty said.
Doherty said that IT requests feedback after every job they do. He said they want to know what issues are happening and how they can better help solve those issues. Doherty said that based on his experiences and interactions with IT “I would give them a positive glowing review.”
IT was unavailable for comment.
Harvie Marcotti can be contacted
at hmarcotti@kscequinox.com
“I would give them [IT] a positives, glowing review,”
BRANDON DOHERTY
FILM STUDIES TECH MANAGER
