Performance Evaluation: Johnson Center Technology

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Mission:

The mission of Johnson Center Technology is to provide excellence in technology equipment and services supporting faculty, students, and community events within Johnson Center.

Responsibilities:

Johnson Center Technology provides a variety of services supporting events with technology, network connectivity, telecommunications support, and video teleconferencing. Johnson Center Technology provides support to students with configuration of their laptops for use with the Johnson Center’s wired and wireless LANs.  Johnson Center Technology also provides scheduling support for meeting, training workshops, classes, and other events in the Johnson Center 311 Conference Room and the Johnson Center 311 Groupware Classroom.

Organization:

Johnson Center Technology is staffed by 1.5 FTEs.  Matthew Silverman is the Manager, and the Event Support Specialist, which handles events and facility schedule, is James Ouellette.  A student wage administrator, Jennifer Madrid, provides SmartForce technical support and site administration.  Johnson Center Technology provides sixty-six hours of student wage coverage during the Fall and Spring Semester and fifty-eight hours of coverage during the Summer Semester, as well as special event coverage for weekend and after hour events.  Additionally we employ a student wage Cold Fusion Developer.

Statistics (2001-2002)

JC Rollable PCs and Laptops checked out:       383 (93% increase from last year)

JC Projectors checked out:                               495 (94% increase from last year)

Student Laptop Configurations              666 (132% increase from last year)

Events Supported                                             631

Significant accomplishments:

Methodologies and Strategies for Fulfilling the Johnson Center Technology’s Mission:

Johnson Center Technology has seen an unprecedented growth in equipment requests with an increase of 69% in computer usage and 83% in LCD projector usage.  To meet these growing demands Johnson Center Technology has installed six new LCD projectors, upgraded one of our rollable computers, and purchased three new laptops.  Additionally we have received a SmartBoard from Electronic Classrooms which has been installed in Johnson Center Assembly Room A to replace the aging LiveBoard.

During this year we also performed an upgrade to our Wireless LAN network, migrating from a 3Com access point to an Agere Orinoco Access Point.  This access point allows us greater compatibility, as well as future compatibility with the 5 GHz 802.11a standard as well as the 2.4 GHz 802.11g standard.  This year has shown great growth in usage of the Wireless LAN with over 75 student laptops being configured to use the Wireless LAN.  The 3Com access point is now being used for special event support to provide more versatile network support.

Johnson Center Technology has worked hard to streamline many of our administrative tasks.  One of the projects we have done to meet this goal is to design and implement an online Time Clock application for use by our student staff.  This web based application allows our wages to clock in and out online, registering time-stamped punches.  Additionally it provides time reporting and categorizations of time, which has allowed us to better monitor our wages’ hours.  The application was designed in cold fusion and is based on the source code of the Time Clock application designed for LSS.  Recently this code has been further developed to support mutual exclusive departments, while allowing it to run from a single source code and database.  This will allow enterprise reporting for the Classroom Technologies unit, as well as local control and customization for area supervisors and managers.

Another application which we have begun work on in an online equipment request and scheduling system.  This will allow patrons to request equipment support online and provide Classroom Technologies with a unified equipment management back end.  Work on the system in on-going, and we hope to begin beta testing during the end of the summer. 

Over this past year, Johnson Center Technology has worked to better incorporate our student staff into the overall operations of our department.  With the growing number of projects we have seen over this year, we have worked with our student staff members to take the role of project lead, which would normally be done by classified staff.  This has allowed our student staff to gain valuable experience, and also allowed our classified staff to be freed for other projects.  The projects worked on have included developing internal technical support documentation, developing user documentation, creating web page content and working to improve support practices.  Additionally we began holding regularly scheduled monthly staff meeting which have greatly improved the level of communication.  We have also begun twice yearly formal reviews with each staff member to allow us to evaluate their skills as well as allow the student staff members to provide upward feedback.  This feedback has been very helpful in improving departmental performance.

SmartForce has increased in its promotion avenues at GMU during the past year. Advancements that we have seen have been a new website, increased workshops, kiosks and advertising initiatives.  SmartForce’s website has improved in offering easy to use instructions over the website and pamphlets, thus lowering troubleshooting questions and inquires. Advertising initiatives have been offered and aided with the support of STAR, IRC and ITU. In addition, statistical documentation and return on investment tools have been deployed in order to aid us in continuing the SmartForce program and assess its successes.

Trends that we have seen this past year with usage have been a general increase in awareness of the service from Faculty, Students and staff, resulting in an increase of active users that register. Macromedia and Microsoft XP software courses have been a new addition to the course library this year. 

Participation in DoIT/ITU/University activities:

Efforts Made to Improve Performance:

Improvements Needed:

Goals for 2002-2003

Johnson Center Technology Customer Satisfaction Survey Results

On a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 = Very Dissatisfied, 3 = Neither Satisfied, nor Dissatisfied, 5 = Very Satisfied, please evaluate the following:

1. Did the equipment you request arrive on time?

5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, N/A, 4, 5, 5             Average: 4.8

2. Was the equipment setup and ready for you use at the start of the event?

5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 2, 3, 5, 5              Average: 4.45

3. Were the Johnson Center Technology support staff that supported the event knowledgeable in the operation of the equipment and did they provide adequate technical assistance?

5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, N/A, 4, 5, 5             Average: 4.6

4. Was the Johnson Center Technology support staff that supported you event courteous and helpful?

5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5              Average: 5

5. Did the quality of the equipment meet your needs?

5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 2, 2, N/A, 5         Average: 4.3

6. If there was a technical problem, was it resolved in a timely fashion?

N/A, 4, N/A, N/A, 5, 5, N/A, 4, 1, N/A, N/A, N/A     Average: 3.8

3 users reported never having a technical problem arise

Survey Comments

Please thank your office staff for being there and not making feel foolish if I sometime have changes and I needed something different. When I have quest speakers they sometimes don't give me proper notice of their needs....I know it puts a burden on the staff but they always respond professionally even if I can't get everything  the speaker needs. We have always been able to problem shoot to a satisfactory conclusion.  Thanks

                                                                        - Karen Oates, New Century College

Staff members went above and beyond by setting up additional equipment that was not requested (we didn't know the speakers would need it). The additional equipment was very helpful and we really appreciate the flexibility and the excellent customer service of the JC Tech Staff.  I'd especially like to thank Jim, Pat, Matt, and Paula for the set up for the event. Thanks!- Sheri Kesyer, GMU Telecomm Society

SmartForce User Satisfaction Survey

Background: The SmartForce User Satisfaction Survey was conducted between April 29, 2002 and May 13, 2002.  E-mails were sent to 721 active users from the Student site and 315 active users from the Faculty/Staff site.  Users were asked in the e-mail to log into their SmartForce account and participate in an online survey.  There were 13 respondents from the Student Site (1.8% participation rate) and 7 respondents from the Faculty Site (2.2% participation rate).

Survey Results:

4. How could the courses you took be improved? (Free Response)

Student Site Selected Answers:

More course on non-Microsoft development tools and topics.  I think you have just about everything that Microsoft has their fingers in well covered.

The course themselves are great! Could make it easier to get to the course you want after login.  Right now I have to click through several pages if the course starts with say, the letter “U”.

The tests associated with the modules are rather easy.  Perhaps building a testing simulation engine in, with the ability to take a mock certification exam would be helpful.

1. Download times are too long. 2. The periodic skills test within each course has only one solution when there are several ways to complete each task.

There are no courses in Cold Fusion and there needs to be more .NET and ASP classes.

Faculty/Staff Site Selected Answers:

Provide larger graphics and get rid of cartoons.

Started course a while back, only to find it only had basic information.  I got tired of it and quit mid way through.  I would’ve liked a more detailed course outline before starting the course.

More interactive screens.

7. How can the navigation of the SmartForce website be improved?

Student Site Selected Answers:

Have the option to show more items at one time or the ability to jump without having to load every page.  It is awkward having to cruise through multiple pages to get a selection.

1. The login does not recognize the ‘tab’ key between fields.  2. The search function must be used very carefully – no very forgiving. 3. The e-learning paths are useless.

Faculty/Staff Site Selected Answers:

There have been some improvements in two year. It took me a while to find the survey.  Under the “All Course” listing, please display more than 10 courses per screen – even on campus LAN, page was slow download and it took a while to browse.

More user friendly.

11. Do you have any additional comments about the SmartForce Program?

Student Site Selected Answers:

It needs to support other platforms/OS’s besides Windows.

Overall, a great program and I hope GMU continues to support it. Thanks!

This is a great program for IT students but I don’t think that many people know about it.  It is well worth whatever the cost of it is.

Excellent program – thanks for partnering with GMU!

It’s a great idea, but it doesn’t work…at least in a timely manner.  If I have to spend several hours trouble shooting before I can launch the course, I no longer have time for it.

Faculty/Staff Site Selected Answers:

This is a great concept and I look forward to continued improvement.  This system would help student in IT103 if it were improved.

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