Support Management
The Computer Registration Form represents the distillation of several years of helping increasing numbers of students move their computers into secure studio spaces in an organized way, that must not over-stress the limited support staff time available.Support management has often involved working patiently with various University support units, from the Computing Center to the Locksmith, to reduce the bureaucratic hurdles that individual students face in setting up their computer-integrated work space.
As an historical document of support work in action, the Preliminary Plotter Instructions represent the kind of user information developed in the process of gradually introducing an important new peripheral to the department user community.
Later on these draft instructions would be replaced by revised versions based on the early practical experience. This message was broadcast by e-mail, and also posted in the file server general support information area, plus the individual server areas of all of the specific computer-integrated studio sections.
Support management has included writing many proposals for support, addressed to various University administrative units as well as outside sources. The proposal for an Architecture Advanced Computer Graphics Lab roughly reproduced here was drafted on overnight notice in answer to a sudden window of possible funding opportunity within the campus. Of course, pursuing this funding window meant shifting around of other immediate obligations (and/or additional loss of sleep). The size of the request was scaled to be comparable to competing requests from around the campus.
Although this proposal was not funded, it was useful in the long-term process of helping other campus units understand the scale of computing activity and needs in the Architecture Department, and the rest of School of Architecture and Allied Arts, balancing other requests made to the campus Educational Technology Committee.
For an example of a more comprehensive proposal which was funded, see the original proposal to Apple Computer for Computer-Integration Based on Student Computer Ownership (in hard copy), which provided the foundational equipment for the central Design Computing Laboratory.
