CSC Program Overview

Support for computing within departments and at the desktop is highly decentralized at UCLA. In the years following the 1985 decision to decentralize computing resources, nearly all of the schools and academic divisions have created Local Support Centers, providing support for academic and administrative computing infrastructure within their domain. In addition to providing instructional computing support with computer labs and classrooms, these LSCs maintain school- and division-wide local area networks and, in most cases, provide technical support services to their faculty, staff and students.

In late 1988, recognizing the growing need for technical support within UCLA departments and a consistent interface between central support organizations and departmental computing support staff, Administrative Information Systems (AIS) and the Academic Technology Services (ATS, formerly OAC), joined forces to develop the Computing Support Coordinator (CSC) program.

The UCLA CSC program consists of a set of specialized services, provided by AIS to departmental computing support staff who, in turn, provide the bulk of the support to campus end-users of microcomputers, workstations and local area networks. In addition, a single individual is identified within each department to represent that department's interests to the campus as a whole and to gather and pass along to their constituency information provided to them by central support groups.

The CSC program has developed based upon the following guiding principles:

• The ultimate goal of the CSC program is to encourage departmental independence and autonomy. All services provided to CSCs are designed to enhance CSC skills or support CSCs in delivering services to their own constituencies.
• Central support organizations must adapt themselves to the differences in the way departments choose to organize and support computing - not the other way around.
• CSCs have the best understanding of the needs of the faculty, staff, students within their departments. By reinforcing departmental support and "bringing it closer to home", campus users of computing can obtain more timely, responsive and efficient service, tailored to their own particular requirements.
• A single contact point in each department provides an efficient and consistent interface with campus-wide organizations. This increases the department's influence over campus computing directions and establishes a more reliable link between the department and other departments on campus for distributing information to end-users.
• There is an enormous amount of computing knowledge and expertise within the departments. If central groups facilitate the exchange of information between departments, valuable synergy can be realized which benefits individual CSCs as well as the campus as a whole.
• The CSC program helps departments establish and communicate their own computing standards, since end-users obtain their support locally rather than from central groups.

At the present time there are over 120 Computing Support Coordinators, representing every department on campus. For the most part, CSCs are the technical managers within their department, responsible for supporting the use of workstations and LANs. For larger departments and school-wide Local Support Centers, support is highly organized and may consist of an organization of several computing professionals. In smaller areas the CSC may be the only person identified to support computing. In some academic departments, supported by an umbrella LSC organization, CSCs may be faculty, serving solely as policy makers and conduits of information between the department and other campus groups. Services provided by CSCs vary greatly, but many offer a range of services to their faculty, staff, and students including: advice and problem consultation; LAN administration; hardware maintenance; application development; etc.

The CSC role is a voluntary one. AIS do not impose requirements for participation in the program or expectations for performance. Each CSC may choose independently which services are useful and involve him/herself as best fits the needs of his/her department. CSCs enroll by contacting AIS and completing a departmental computing profile for inclusion in a Directory of CSCs.