University-Owned
Equipment Located On Campus
Hardware
Computing
Services will support:
- All
computer equipment and peripherals purchased by the College of Arts and Humanities,
or by any unit within the College with the advice of the Computing
Services staff.*
Computing
Services does not support:
- Equipment
that is not purchased with the advice of Computing Services
staff or does not comply to the College's hardware standards.
- Equipment
that has been serviced (the addition or removal of memory or
other internal components) by anyone other than a member of
the Computing Services staff or a campus-authorized vendor with
the recommendation of Computing Services.
- Equipment on which the installed operating system is a "home" version of Windows (either Windows XP Home or Windows Vista Home).
- Equipment
on which the operating system has been upgraded or re-installed
by someone other than a member of the Computing Services staff.
- Equipment purchased with non-State funds unless that equipment is included in the University's inventory of equipment
In
cases where hardware repair is necessary, Computing Services will
provide troubleshooting services. Hardware repairs that cannot
be completed by Computing Services due to parts availability,
complexity of the repair, or warranty status will be completed
by a campus-authorized vendor. The department that owns the computer
will be responsible for the full cost of all repairs. If a unit
chooses to obtain the services of someone other than the vendor
identified by the campus, Computing Services no longer will provide
support for that machine in the future.
In
cases where a particular application or a unique aspect of the
computing environment requires installation of an operating system
other than what is installed at the time of delivery, please contact
the Assistant Director for Technical Services at 301-405-2105 to discuss
the situation. If the operating system can be supported, a member of the Computing
Services staff will complete the required installation. To comply with security and support standards, Computing Services reserves the right to withold support from some operating systems at its discretion.
*Recommendations
for standard faculty and staff workstations are provided to the
departments each spring when requests for workstations are made
for the following academic year. Equipment recommendations can
be requested to meet special needs or at other times during the
year. Please contact the Director of Computing Services (301-405-2116,
kcav@umd.edu) or the Coordinator
of Technical Services (301-405-2105, jkboone@umd.edu)
to obtain recommendations.
Software
Computing Services supports:
- Standard
productivity applications such as WordPerfect, Word, Excel,
Photoshop, and Pagemaker.
- Mail
clients, web browsers, and other Internet tools such as Firefox,
Internet Explorer (Windows only), Thunderbird, F-Secure, and Fetch.
The
Computing Services staff recognizes that a diverse collection
of applications is required to meet the varying needs of the disciplines
within the College. Discipline-specific applications will be supported
to the extent possible.
Computing
Services does not support:
- Any
application that has not been legally purchased for the machine
on which it is installed.
- Applications
that are not being used for University business (e.g.. income
tax applications, games, etc.).
- Proprietary
software used to access electronic mail from non-University
sites (e.g.. Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy).
- Operating
systems that have been re-installed or upgraded by someone other
than a member of the Computing Services staff.
User
support for software packages supported by the campus is available
from the Office of Information Technology Help Desk (5-1500, http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/contact/).
University-Owned
Computers Located Off-Campus (including laptops)
The
College expects that faculty and administrative workstations will remain in faculty
and staff offices to support work on campus. Unit heads may grant permission
for the removal University-owned equipment from campus on a case-by-case
basis. If permission is granted, an inventory record must be kept
on file in the unit showing the location of the equipment, the
purpose of the loan, and the expected return date. In addition,
a loan agreement must be signed that outlines the expectation
of liability in case of theft or damage due to catastrophe (such
as flood or fire) or negligence. Faculty members who have laptops
as their primary faculty workstation must also sign inventory
and loan agreements. Inventory
forms and loan agreements can be obtained from the Computing Services
office.
Hardware
Computing
Services will support University-owned equipment that is located
off-campus that complies with the guidelines listed in the hardware
section for University-owned equipment located on campus under
these conditions:
- Equipment
must be brought to campus. Computing Services staff will not
travel to off-campus locations to provide support services.
- Faculty
and staff requesting support services for equipment must make
an appointment with Computing Services prior to bringing the
equipment to campus.
- Requests
for service for on-campus equipment will be given priority when
determining service schedules.
Policies
regarding hardware repair for University-owned equipment on campus
apply to University-owned laptops and University-owned equipment
located off campus.
Software
Computing Services will only support applications purchased by the
University.
- Software
installations will be completed on campus only.
- Computing
Services will not support commercially provided communication
software such as software provided for DSL or cable modem service.
Support for such applications is available from the service
provider.
- If
software is installed or configurations are changed after the
equipment leaves campus and these changes cause the computer
not to work properly, Computing Services is not responsible
for providing troubleshooting or support services.
- Computing
Services is not responsible for providing troubleshooting services
for applications that function properly when the computer is
located on campus but do not function properly once the computer
is removed from campus. Information for connecting to College
network services is available to assist faculty and staff with
connectivity to College resources from off-campus.
User
support for laptops is provided by the Office of Information Technology
(301-405-1500, http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/contact/).
University-Owned
Computers in Shared or Public Spaces
Computers
shared by multiple people or located in public spaces are at a
higher risk of frequent malfunction and damage from security breaches
than those in private offices used by individuals. For this reason,
it is Academic Computing Services policy to configure shared machines
in such a way as to prevent the installation or modification of
software applications and operating system settings by anyone
other than an ACS staff member. Arts and Humanities units that
own machines located in shared or public spaces may choose to
request that such security measures not be taken in favor of allowing
users to install and configure software themselves. If the decision
is made not to implement the recommended security protections,
support provided for the computer in response to any software
malfunction will be limited to restoring the computer to its original
state at the time of initial delivery to the unit. This restoration
may result in the loss of all locally stored user data and any
applications installed after initial delivery without the assistance
of Computing Services staff.
Non-University-Owned
Equipment Located On Campus
- Computing
Services will not provide hardware or software support for personal
equipment.
Non-University-Owned
Equipment Located Off Campus (including laptops)
Hardware
- Computing
Services will not provide support for any equipment that is
not owned by the University.
Support
for laptops is available from the Office of Information Technology
(301-405-1500).
Software
Current
versions of Macintosh and Windows operating systems include all
software needed to connect to the Internet from home. Instructions
for configuring your machine to dial into the campus network are
available at helpdesk.umd.edu/topics/communication/dialup/
Computing
Services will not support:
- Commercially
provided communication software (e.g.. Compuserve or AOL software)
- Any
software that is not purchased by the University for use on
a University-owned machine.
Support
for Obsolete Equipment and Software
Unsupportable
Hardware
Computing Services recognizes that hardware officially classified
obsolete still has some usefulness in the College. We cannot,
however, continue to support all hardware indefinitely. Computing
Services cannot support equipment that does not meet the minimum
configuration standards listed below. In addition, equipment categorized as unsupportable will not be able to connect to the College fileserver or to networked printers.
| Intel-based
PCs (e.g., Dell) |
Macintosh |
Any Dell model prior to the Optiplex 280
CPUs
slower than 2.4 Ghz |
Any Apple computer prior to the G5
|
| Machines
with less than 1 Gb of RAM |
Machines
with less than 1 Gb of RAM |
| Machines
without CD drives |
Machines
without CD drives
|
| Operating
systems prior to Windows XP |
Operating
systems prior to Mac OS 10.2 |
Unsupportable
Software
Computing
Services will continue to support older versions of legally owned
software installed on older equipment. In many cases, new versions
of applications are released to solve known problems. In these
cases, Computing Services strongly recommends updating the application
as the solution to the user's problem.
- Computing
Services will not seek alternative solutions to the problem
if upgrading is determined to be the best option.
- Computing
Services will not install or provide support for outdated versions
of software on new equipment.
Responses to Problems Caused by Spyware, Adware, and Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Applications
Computing Services has established the following policies and procedures for responding to problems cased by adware, spyware, and peer-to-peer file sharing applications
- ACS currently recommends Spybot Search & Destroy for identifying and removing spyware and adware from computers
- In response to problems caused by spyware and adware, ACS staff will first try to remove the offending applications
- Because it is impossible to tell what malicious software may have been installed as a result of installing freeware and peer-to-peer file sharing applications, Computing Services reserves the right to replace the operating system by re-imaging any computer on which a user has installed freeware (e.g., games, media players, utilties). User-installed applications and locally stored data will be removed through the re-imaging process.
- In cases where spyware and adware have caused significant problems, re-imaging the computer will be the preferred solution.
