Introduction
From the day the first computer was installed in an institution of higher learning, technology managers have dealt with increasing demand for services. Continuous growth of 20 or 30 percent per year in various measures, from CPU cycles to help desk calls, were common. The campus periodically entered a crisis state when specific capabilities became saturated. The typical response to the crisis was to present the obvious inadequacies to the institution and ask for additional resources. As soon as enough capacity to last for a few years was added, the cycle began again.
Today we perceive a sense of crisis in information technology support, but it has a different twist. Our conversations with colleagues describe the problems as more expansive, and the old solutions are not working very well. We cannot fix the insufficiencies by buying the next generation computer or by hiring five more people. In virtually every service we provide, demand seems to be growing far beyond our capacity to supply. Yohe sounded the alarm, identifying many factors contributing to the crisis and suggesting some useful immediate steps to lessen their impact.1
We think the current crisis is not just a result of increasing numbers. Fundamental changes taking place in higher education make old models of information technology support inappropriate and insufficient. In this paper we describe the current problems and suggest some ways in which they are different from those we faced in the past. We propose some elements of a new support model and suggest how we might evolve to it from our current environment. Finally, we present a brief evolutionary history of information technology support in higher education to put the current situation in historical context and summarize appropriate directions for the future.
Endnote:
1 Michael Yohe, "Information Technology Support Services: Crisis or Opportunity?" CAUSE/EFFECT, Fall 1996, 6-13.