CIS Level 2 Services

Level II - Fundamental Services in Widespread Use

Fundamental Services in Widespread Use (Level II) are analogous to things that many people are capable of building for themselves (e.g. a shelf), but may opt to purchase or have somebody build for them, particularly if large numbers of shelves are needed. 'Time to do-it-yourself' may be an issue, or an individual may not be confident with the tools.

The middle layer comprises 'basic or fundamental services' which, by agreement, are of widespread utility across the entire University community, and which enable many of the higher-level applications to function, or facilitate maximum benefit from the use of IT by members of the community. Economies of scale may argue for inclusion of services within this level. Examples of services in this layer within the following broad categories include:

1. Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) foundations:

email delivery and client software for desktop access to email
World-Wide Web methods to access electronic information
list servers, electronic directories, mailing lists
fee-for-service, guaranteed availability, modem pool

2. Facilitating the use of IT:

Helpline support for most commonly encountered problems
ensure the existence of basic training for all components adopted as University standards
site-licensed software (some centrally funded, some cost-recovered)
standards for 'key' or enabling 'productivity' software
common desktop environment for access to network and data services
standardized departmental LAN server environment (departments budget for their own servers; a disk backup service is provided centrally - cf. #4 below)
recommended hardware configurations and software packages

3. Monitor emerging technology

coordinate, consulting with customer groups, ongoing efforts to evaluate emerging technologies spanning University IT activities
bring to departmental attention the potential impact of these technologies and work with them to develop pilot projects to prototype, explore and measure their impact

4. Common facilities management

develop procedures and practices to facilitate managing student computing labs, providing a robust environment which can easily recover from equipment failure or student actions
provide facilities management services and consulting to the Faculties and departments which 'own' the labs
Network disk backup and file archival service (partially centrally-funded for institutional data servers; partially cost-recovered for customer backup of their own systems)