OXFORD UNIVERSITY IT SUPPORT STAFF GROUP

IT News and IT Support Staff

Meeting 8 January 2001 - Item 4.2

Carol Bateman

4 January 2001

OUCS publishes a monthly news sheet IT News which is sent to all IT support staff as well as Libraries, College common rooms, IT representatives on committees etc. Tony Brett has suggested that we look at having a publication specifically for IT support staff. I agree that this would be a very good idea and this paper looks at the possibility of doing this.

In December 1996 I wrote a short internal paper suggesting that the old newsletter be replaced by a news sheet. I quote from the paper:

'I suggest that the newsletter should take a different format and be a news sheet which is about IT at Oxford University. Electronic versions of these news sheets will be placed on the WWW, where topics may be expanded if necessary. It would not be an OUCS publication (we would still do the actual work but we should encourage other IT support staff to contribute).'

IT News was started in February 1997 and called IT News and OUCS is only mentioned as the publisher.

IT News does perform an official function as being one of the places where formal statements are made to the user community. But how many 'users' actually read IT News? Is this the best way of getting IT information to users? I think it is appropriate to look at changing the emphasis of IT News and hence the way of communicating with IT Support staff and with users. Since most users now look to their local IT support person for information about IT then the appropriate place to send technical technical and policy changes etc is to them. The IT Support staff would then forward the information to their users as appropriate.

I therefore suggest the following:

• IT News becomes a news sheet for all IT Support staff; representing and supporting them.
• IT News is one of the methods of getting information to users – via their local IT Support.
• IT News is sent in paper form to all people on the IT Support staff register (including Users' Group representatives)
• IT News is also available on the web as a pdf and a web file so that it can be listed in full or specific sections can be circulated within departments/colleges as necessary.
• IT News is sent to all libraries for information and display – they would keep all past copies.
• A small editorial team is set up to assist with the publication.

If we are replacing IT News, which is currently sent to areas where users can easily read it, with a sheet which is geared towards IT Support staff then we need to ensure a few things:

• That no users are missed when it comes to critical information, such as the demise of POP on Sable and Ermine – we (OUCS and IT Support staff) need to look at how we communicate with users.
• If IT Support staff are responsible for passing information to users the IT Support Staff Group need to ensure that they do it appropriately.
• What about users who do not have access to IT Support staff?

[To overcome some of these problems OUCS could look into publishing a short OUCS Newsletter which would be distributed with the termly advertising of leaflets, notices, training details etc.]