Education IT Computer Support Policy
Purpose of College of Education Owned Computers
- College of Education (COE) owned computers are intended to be used for the discovery, learning, engagement, and business activities of the Purdue University College of Education.
- College of Education computer and network resources may not be used for illegal activities including activities that involve copyright infringement of intellectual property.
- Who is authorized to use College of Education owned computers?
- Faculty
- Staff
- Graduate students
- The following may not use COE owned office computers without special permission from a supervisor, faculty member, Dept. Head, or Dean:
- Undergraduate students
- Non COE employees
- Family members, and relatives
Who and what does Education IT provide support for?
- Education IT provides comprehensive computer support to Purdue staff, faculty, and graduate students for Purdue/COE owned on-campus desktop and laptop computer equipment, network services and servers, videoconferencing equipment, IT instructional facilities/labs, COE administrative databases and web delivered technologies, and the Technology Resources Center.
- See About Education IT
- Can I get support for my off-campus, Purdue/COE owned computer?
- If a faculty or staff member has been given approval by their Department Head or Dean to take a Purdue/COE owned computer off campus, the following support will be provided by Education IT:
- Support will be provided for:
- Operating system software
- Standard Web browser
- Office applications, Front Page,, Publisher software applications
- Standard COE email client (install only) Install initial Netscape Profile Transfer.
- SAS/SPSS software (install only)
- Macromedia Studio MX software (install only)
- FTP, Zip, Acrobat Reader
- Purdue modem pool dial-up configuration (install only)
- Re-imaging of hard drive on corruption or software failure
- Reformatting / erasing hard drive after computer is returned to campus
- Warranty hardware repair
- Off campus computers must be brought directly to our Purdue IT offices for all troubleshooting, repair, upgrades, and consultation
- No support can be provided for:
- Off campus troubleshooting visits
- Telephone consulting from off campus users
- Internet troubleshooting, modem-residence compatibility problems, telephone company/line/interference problems, Internet Service Provider issues. The following URL can be used for RESNET issues: http://www.purdue.edu/itap/resnet/
- Data backup or transfer to/from new/old off-campus computers. Each user is responsible for all backup and data transfer activities.
- Networking in the home (wired/wireless)
- Installing / troubleshooting any 3rd party / unsupported software, or problems that Education IT staff determine to be caused by 3rd party
- Software (third party / unsupported software includes: games, AOL, MSN, financial software, screen savers, themes, firewalls, graphics, etc.)
- Can I get support for my personally owned computer equipment or networking/Internet services?
- No. Unfortunately the College of Education cannot recommend, provide specs, offer support, or be liable for any personally owned (non-Purdue owned) computer equipment or networking/Internet services. Due to the quantity, complexity, and diversity of computer hardware and software combinations, liability issues, and time and resource limitations, we are unable to extend our services beyond Purdue University owned equipment. If even a routine service call would damage or disable a personally owned computer, we would not have the money or time to be able to resolve the problem (especially multiplied by the large number of computer users in the COE). Please do not ask us to support personally owned equipment, make house calls, help purchase or provide specifications for non-Purdue computer equipment or services during Purdue work hours.
- It may be possible that one of the Education IT team members will have time outside of work and for a fee to consult with you regarding your personally owned computer equipment or network/Internet service. Feel free to ask any of the IT team members to give you a hand in the evenings or weekend. Our COE computer technicians are popular resources and their personal time is valuable to them, so please take the initiative to compensate them fairly if they agree to help you outside of Purdue hours. If no one on the IT team is available, we recommend that you use one of the local computer service centers found in the yellow pages of any phone book.
- For tips on purchasing your own home computer, see: http://www.education.purdue.edu/support/personal_purchases/
- Support for Handheld devices
Network Resources
- What are COE network resources?
- Direct wired high speed Internet connection for all COE owned office computers.
- Wireless network for all COE faculty, staff, students to use to connect to the Internet.
- Departmental File Servers for internal dept. use
- Networked Printers in various areas throughout the COE
- COE Academic/Lab Web Server (for class materials), http://www.education.purdue.edu/
- COE Administrative Web Server, http://admin.education.purdue.edu/ (see COE Web Policy)
- COE Administrative Email Server, http://education.purdue.edu/ (for administrative staff and applications only)
- In general, who may use COE network resources
- All faculty and staff have access to certain network resources which their supervisors authorize them to use. COE Supervisors and Purdue administration will define appropriate use for each COE employee.
- Can I connect my personally owned computer/device to the BRNG WIRED network?
- No (but see next bullet). The College of Education does not allow or support personally owned computers to be connected to the COE secure WIRED network for reasons of data security and confidentiality, network security and reliability, limited IP address resources on our COE subnets, legal and financial liability, and lack of time and resources it would take Purdue IT staff to support the highly varied and complex nature of PC/Mac/Linux/Other configurations found on non-Purdue owned computers and devices.
- We recommend that users of personally owned computers/devices use the PAL2.0 wireless network and/or purchase Flash/Zip/CD/USB or other portable drives to transport data to/from their personally owned computer and an COE office/lab computer.
- Only Purdue-owned/tagged computers/devices may be connected to the BRNG wired network. Users must not connect any computer equipment to any BRNG wired network port. Only authorized Education IT staff may connect computer equipment to the BRNG WIRED network to prevent damage to the network and security breaches.
- For more on this topic, see:
SURVIVAL TIME OF UNPROTECTED PCS DROPS
Researchers at the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center estimate
that an unprotected PC will be compromised within 20 minutes of being
connected to the Internet, down from an estimated 40 minutes last year.
The estimate is based on observations of vacant IP addresses, which
received reports approximately every 20 minutes. According to the
researchers, if those reports come from Internet worms, the unprotected
machine would likely become infected within 20 minutes, which is
especially troublesome because most patches that would protect the
computer take longer than that to download and install. Scott Conti,
network operations manager for the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst, said that, as a test, his institution recently put two
unprotected computers on the school's network, and both were
compromised within 20 minutes. As a result, all computers at the institution will be checked before they are allowed to connect to the
network.
CNET, 17 August 2004
http://news.com.com/2100-7349_3-5313402.html
- Can I connect my personally owned computer/device to the BRNG WIRELESS network?
- Yes, the Purdue Airlink (PAL) wireless network is installed in BRNG. All Purdue wireless users are encourage to use the PAL wireless network with both Purdue owned and non Purdue owned computers. For more info about using and configuring the PAL wireless network see: http://www.itap.purdue.edu/airlink/ Education IT cannot offer ANY support for personally owned computers/devices or offer troubleshooting services for network issues related to personally owned equipment.
- Education IT does not offer ANY support for personally owned computers/devices or offer troubleshooting services for network issues related to personally owned equipment. Legal and financial liability, lack of time and resources, the highly varied and complex nature of PC/Mac/Laptop configurations found on non-Purdue owned computers prohibit us from supporting personally owned equipment.
- Use of Purdue networks is at your own risk. If you are unable to make your personally owned equipment work with the Purdue PAL network, we will be unable to help. We suggest that you contact ITaP customer service (itap@purdue.edu) or take your computer to a reputable local computer retailer or repair shop and hire them to assist you in installing, configuring, and testing your personally owned computer/device and wireless networking equipment.
- Access to COE Servers and Printers via PAL and non-COE networks: All COE servers are protected by firewalls due to very high volume of attempted and/or successful security breaches from both within and without Purdue. Access to COE servers and printers from outside the local wired network in BRNG is blocked by COE firewalls. We realize this is inconvenient for some, but this is the only way to protect COE servers and keep them operational for College of Education business. We have seen a large number of personally owned computers/devices that are not protected by firewalls or anti-virus software, that have been hacked and have been infected with worms and viruses. These infected computers/devices will attempt to laterally compromise / infiltrate COE servers if open access to servers/printers is allowed. We recommend that users who need to print use the office and/or lab computers that are provided by their COE department which is maintained by Education IT for printing. Using a flash drive (or email) will allow users to transfer documents from personally owned computers/devices to COE computers/devices for printing.
- Can I use my COE computer as a peer-to-peer file or printer server?
- As of January 2004, peer-to-peer networking, such as file and/or printer sharing, is not permitted on any COE-owned computers. The College of Education is working to eliminate all peer-to-peer networking from COE computers. Unfortunately, peer-to-peer networking is insecure and many COE computers have, in the past, been compromised as a result of using peer-to-peer networking. When a computer is compromised in this way, hours of de-hacking is required to restore the computer to normal operation, and in some cases data and programs have been permanently lost. The College of Education seeks to maintain the highest standards of security and we appreciate the understanding and cooperation of our COE colleagues in accomplishing this goal.
- If a user needs to access personal files in multiple locations from both on and off campus, a Purdue career account should be used. ITaP offers and fully supports 500 MB of career account disk space per user. See: http://www.ics.purdue.edu
- If a small workgroup needs to share files using COE computers within BRNG, a departmental server may be available to use (if the project is small). If the project is large, IT resources may need to be outsources from the central ITaP group.
- If a user needs to access a COE departmental file server to "map a drive" from off campus, a static IP address is required for traversing COE firewalls. Education IT can configure firewalls if you provide your static IP address. Note: most dial-up services use dynamic IP addresses and cannot pass through COE firewalls. DSL/Cable providers can provide a static IP address for an extra fee (can be costly).
- Printers should be shared using a dedicated hardware printer sharing device. Education IT can provide ordering info for these devices. Send email to: edit@purdue.edu
- Again, we cannot overstate the severity of the security problem associated with peer-to-peer networking. Thank you for your understanding regarding this policy!
- Departmental network file servers
- What software may be installed on a network file server?
- Legally purchased and licensed software approved by the Dept. head.
- How much disk space can a user occupy on a departmental file server?
- General users are asked to use no more than 10 megabytes of server disk space
- Who should I ask about installing new software on the Dept. file server?
- The Dept. Head. and Education IT
- Can I connect to XYZ web site or Internet service?
- The Education IT team cannot “recommend” or “certify as safe” the use of non-Purdue/COE related web sites and public Internet services including streaming music or video web sites. The Education IT team cannot know what a streaming media web site or other public web site will do to a COE computer in terms of privacy, security, installing unauthorized or perhaps malicious software, etc. We would like to make it clear to users and supervisors that they are "swimming at their own risk", so to speak, if they make use of such web sites, and that they are 100% responsible for the use of the Internet, public web sites and/or public networked services on their Purdue computer(s) in their respective offices/areas.
- Security issues
- Network abuses:
- Unauthorized use of any BRNG network port
- Malicious email and email forgery
- Unauthorized WEB servers and material originating from COE network resources
- Unauthorized FTP servers and material originating from COE network resources
- Unauthorized EMAIL servers originating from COE network resources
- Unauthorized servers of any kind.
- Illegal and/or unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials (such as books, audio, movies, DVDs, etc.)
- Internet servers or systems which consume large amounts of bandwidth and reduce network responsiveness for everyone.
- Unauthorized commercial business activity and endorsements originating from COE servers and network resources
- Purdue employees must not give Purdue passwords to unauthorized users or grant unauthorized users access to Purdue network resources.
Data & Document Backup
- Who is responsible for backing up user data on COE computers and servers?
- Personal data and documents
- It is the sole responsibility of the owners of data & documents to create a proactive backup strategy and backup their own data and documents. For tips on backing up, see: http://www.education.purdue.edu/edit/backup
Departmental servers should not to be used for data/document backup. Departmental servers should not substitute for a proactive disaster recovery strategy. Users and offices should backup personal data and documents on removable media such as CD, DVD, or portable hard drives, and take copies of mission critical data out of the building (off campus) in case of fire or catastrophic event.
Users should make at least 3 copies of mission critical data. If data is indeed mission critical then data has a monetary value and is worth the time and financial commitment involved in backing up. If you lost all your data this evening, what would you do?
All Education computer users should plan for and ensure that proper backup equipment is available for their own unique backup needs. The Education IT office is available for consulting if anyone has questions about their specific needs. Most computers in the COE have either a CD-RW drive, DVD+-RW drive, or Zip drive which can be used for backup. Portable hard drives and tape drives can be purchased for backup of very large amounts of data. The Education IT office will be happy to assist any user to formulate a backup strategy upon request. Education IT team members cannot perform backups of personal data for users and cannot be responsible for the loss of personal data or documents.
- Workstation Application Software Backup
- The original CD/DVD disks that come with computers and laptops serve as a backup of operating system and application software.
- Server Backup
- Education IT will periodically backup COE departmental servers. Server operating system and application software which are maintained by Education IT will be backed up by Education IT personnel.
- Users should not consider servers a backup solution. Users should create their own personal backups on removable media and take copies out of the building (off campus) in case of catastrophic event.
- Administrative Database Backup
- Education IT will be responsible for backing up a pre-determined set of in-house administrative databases.
- The Education IT database personnel will backup administrative SQL server databases.
Computer Software Issues
- Who may install legally owned software on an COE owned computer?
- Education IT Staff
- COE computer users should contact Education IT for installation of new software.
- Faculty
- Faculty may install software on their COE owned computer if all of the following conditions are met:
- The software to be installed is related to the business and activities of the Purdue University College of Education
- Education IT is consulted prior to installation via email to edit@purdue.edu.
- The software is non-operating system software and non-Purdue site licensed software. Education IT will install all Purdue site licensed software.
- Staff
- Staff may install software on their COE owned computer if all of the following conditions are met:
- The software to be installed is related to the business and activities of the Purdue University College of Education
- Special permission is obtained from the supervisor
- Education IT is consulted prior to installation via email to edit@purdue.edu.
- The software is non-operating system software and non-Purdue site licensed software. Education IT will install all Purdue site licensed software.
- Graduate Students
- Graduate Students may install software on their COE owned computer if all of the following conditions are met:
- The software to be installed is related to the business and activities of the Purdue University College of Education
- Special permission is obtained from the supervisor
- Education IT is consulted prior to installation via email to edit@purdue.edu.
- The software is non-operating system software and non-Purdue site licensed software. Education IT will install all Purdue site licensed software.
The following may not install any software on COE owned computers:
- Non-COE employees
- Undergraduate students, work study students
- Family members, and relatives of COE employees
If Education IT discovers inappropriate software installed on an COE computer, Education IT is authorized by COE leadership to remove the software.
Computer Hardware Issues
- Hardware We Can Support
- Upgrades and Repairs
- Who should I ask about upgrading/repairing an COE owned computer?
- Authorization and money
- Dept. Head
- Area director
- Faculty supervisor
- Technical Information
- Education IT staff will determine the specific hardware and vendor needed to meet your objective.
- Who performs upgrades/repairs on COE owned computers?
- Only Education IT staff is permitted to perform hardware upgrades/repairs on COE owned computers.
- College of Education Hardware Maintenance Policy -- Purdue owned computer hardware shall be maintained by Purdue computer support personnel, unless special arrangements have been made in advance with supervisors, department heads, deans, and/or computer support personnel. Specifically, the cover of a computer case may not be removed; items may not be inserted into a computer case; items may not be removed from a computer case unless the maintainer has been previously authorized. All graduate students should be advised of this policy upon employment.
- Can Education IT upgrade/repair my home computer?
- Personally owned computers at home
- COE/Purdue-owned computers at home
- Purdue-owned computers must be brought to the Purdue campus for upgrades/repairs
- New Purdue-owned Computer Purchases
- Who should I ask about purchasing a new Purdue-owned computer
- Authorization and money
- Dept. Head
- Area director
- Faculty supervisor
- Technical Information
- Education IT staff will determine the specific hardware and vendor needed to meet your objective. New computer specifications should either be requested from or reviewed by Education IT to ensure compatibility verification. When the computers actually arrive at the building, they should be stored either in a storage room in the department, or in the destination office. Education IT can be notified by email so we can begin scheduling the setup among ourselves.
- Can I password protect a Purdue-owned computer?
- You may password protect your COE owned computer, but you will need to share the password with Education IT so that we can access your computer for repairs, upgrades, and software updates.
- Education IT will maintain strict confidentiality of all COE owned computer passwords
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Support for Handheld Devices
- Printer repair
- Education IT is not an authorized service center for printer repairs. All printer repairs will be referred to an appropriate service center. Contact EdIT for a recommended vendor.
- Minor maintenance will be provided in some cases. Minor maintenance will include: clearing of simple paper jams, dusting of easily accessible parts, demonstration of toner cartridge and ribbon changing. In most cases, label jams require thorough cleaning by a service center.
Education IT, edit@purdue.edu
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Robert Evans
Director, Office of IT
Managing Director, TRC
bob@purdue.edu
(765) 496-1819
Mike Eldridge
Coordinator of Distance
Education and User Services
eldridge@purdue.edu
(765) 49-40944
Christian Mattix
Database System Administrator
and e-Portfolio Coordinator
cmattix@purdue.edu
(765) 494-3416
Wesley Shoop
Site Specialist, User Services
shoopw@purdue.edu
(765) 49-42658
Alex Noguera
Site Specialist, User Services
anoguera@purdue.edu
(765) 49-42659
Teja Josyula
Webmaster,
edit@purdue.edu
(765) 49-67323
Brenda Hash
Clerk,
Technology Resources Center
trc@purdue.edu
(765) 49-45677
Karen Hearn
Clerk,
Technology Resources Center
trc@purdue.edu
(765) 49-45677
Yue Pan
Graduate Programmer,
Administrative Databases
ypan@purdue.edu
(765) 49-42658
Education IT Phone:
(765) 49-42658
TRC Phone:
(765) 49-45677
TRC Web Site:
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