Drew >> My Job

Faculty Software Support Specialist

So, what on earth does a Faculty Software Support Specialist do? Well, I only seem to have one line in my job description.. "other duties as assigned." In short, I am responsible for running the Faculty Lab, maintaining the Technology Enhanced Classrooms here at Drew, assigning configuring and deploying regular upgrades, dealing with what would generally be considered level 2-3 support, and coordinating all the other services the FacLab offers. This is all for the benefit of the faculty of all three schools here at Drew University.

The Drew University Faculty Lab is a single lab with many varied purposes. Created initially in 1995, its basic goal is to service and support the technology needs of all faculty in the undergraduate, graduate, and theological schools. Though it is not the primary technical support contact for faculty, the "FacLab" is a back up for the support desk, and can often answer questions on topics that the desk cannot. In addition to this, the FacLab provides a showcase to faculty of up and coming technology, a point of contact with departmental staff for various purposes, and a general workspace off the beaten path where customers can explore new technology or simply work on something they are already comfortable with. It, as with the program it grew out of, is a very grassroots operation. It has grown based very directly of feedback from the faculty who use it, and upcoming technology that we wanted to interest them in.

There are 38 mediated classrooms across campus. What that means is that there are 38 classrooms of varying sizes (from a small 12 person seminar all the way to a huge 125 seat lecture hall) that have been installed with a data/video projection system, a VCR, and a networked computer. Many have a wireless network availible. Faculty can use these classrooms to do anything from showing a video to browsing topical websites to displaying advanced software packages they have either created or purchased. Dozens of faculty use these systems on a regular basis, and it is so hard to get scheduled into one of these classrooms that we are currently in the process of adding more rooms and capacity. I work with the MRC to maintain these systems, since they deal more with projection and I deal more with the computers.

The lab itself maintains different workstations with different sets of tools and configurations. Among the highlights are A/V capture stations, various scanning stations, and stations specifically configured to take full advantage of web design tools. Video from this country or any one of a dozen international countries can be captured, digitized, and compressed. We also have the only departmentally owned Mac, which we use for file accessability and vieo capturing. Audio clips from CD, tape, record, or any other source that outputs red/white RCA can be similarly captured and compressed. A visualizer can both scan a three dimensional object and take a video of a specific procedure such as a lab experiment. All the computers enable faculty to take full advantage of the Macromedia and Microsoft Office products offered on campus, and most of the machines have burn and zip drives for file management and portability. Flatbed and document scanners are part of the standard lab equipment by this point with the ability to use image editing, PDF, and OCR software depending on the needs of the faculty member.

The FacLab provides a contact point for many different services available to faculty. The FacLab maintains a pool of laptop computers that faculty can borrow if they are going on vacation or to a conference. Faculty members can also borrow digital cameras, PDA, digital camcorders, LCD projectors, and some networking equipment. The FacLab also offers faculty the ability to drop off documents, slides, images, etc. to be scanned and returned by the student staff. These are things that were new several years ago, but have become something that is expected by the faculty members, and has been increasingly in demand over the last few years. As interest continues to build, new services continue to be added.

So, that's it in a nutshell. The rest falls under the 'other duties as assigned' category. If you have any questions, of course, please feel free to ask.