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About NACS

New Staff

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Tony Soeller joined NACS on May 30, 2000 to enhance campus support for research and scientific computing. Tony has a B.S. degree in Geology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an M.S. degree in Geology from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Tony is skilled in a wide range of programming languages and has extensive experience with 2-D and 3-D visualization applications. Tony is equally capable with UNIX, PC, and Mac computing platforms.

Previously, Tony has held management positions at a number of companies and academic institutions, including the Geographical Information Systems Laboratory at Caltech. Please feel free to call Tony at 824-3239 to discuss research computing needs.

New Name

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Effective July 1, 2000, OAC has a new name: NACS – Network and Academic Computing Services

We feel NACS best represents the areas of our primary emphasis:

Network:
The network is a major component of what we do, with all of our services being heavily dependent on network technology, even those sometimes labeled “computing services.” The telephone system is a network as well, and the expectation is that it will be come increasingly integrated with the data network in the future.
Academic Computing:
We provide a wide range of services to users of computing at UCI, and our primary computing focus is serving UCI’s research and education mission. The phrase “academic computing” has served us well, properly distinguishing our role from that of Administrative Computing (AdCom) Services.
Services:
It’s what we do! NACS’s mission is to provide services to campus departments by creating and maintaining a computing and electronic communication environment that meets the needs of the campus.

Academic Computing Support Review Report Available

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The report of the UCI Academic Computing Support Review Committee (ACSRC) is now available in the Web for general review:

http://www.nacs.uci.edu/support/review/report

The ACSRC met between January and April of this year; it’s charge was to review the current state of computing and network support to faculty, students and staff in academic units. The committee took into account all sources of support, including central and local support organizations. The committee’s report summarizes the current state of support, and makes initial recommendations about improving it.

Committee membership spanned many academic units and represented the perspectives of faculty end-users, academic senior managers, computing support managers, the Vice Chancellor for Research, and the Academic Senate Computer Policy Committee.

Comments on the report are invited and should be sent to Dana Roode (e-mail DRoode@UCI.EDU, telephone x5173). The committee’s recommendations will also be discussed the appropriate campus forums later in the year.

Reviewing Academic Computing Support

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The UCI Academic Computing Support Review Committee has been formed to collect information andperspectives concerning support of academic computing at UCI. The committee will look at both local(departmental and school) and central support of faculty, student, and academic department computingactivities. It will also make initial recommendations on improving UCI’s support situation.

The creation of the committee represents a first step in reviewing the critical issue of technical support atUCI. The information gathered, as well as the initial recommendations made, will be available for campus comment and follow-up study.

“Computing support” includes end-user (faculty, student, staff) assistance, as well as behind-the-scenes network, server and application maintenance and development. Examples of end-user assistance are: system and software installation/setup, hardware/ software problem resolution, “how-to” advice on common software, instructional computing assistance, and consulting on a variety of topics.

The committee membership is a mix of faculty, assistant deans, and computer support managers. Members are: Peter Breen (College of Medicine), Candy Garretson (Humanities), Gregg Goldman (Graduate School of Management), Craig Martens (Physical Sciences), Jim Murry (College of Medicine), Leslie Pearlman (Biological Sciences), Thomas Saine (Humanities), Alan Terricciano (School of the Arts), Jan Vescera (NACS), and Ted Wright (Research and Graduate Studies/ Social Sciences). Input to the committee may be provided to any of its members, or to Committee Chair Dana Roode (DRoode@UCI.EDU, 824-5173).

NACS After-Hours Policy

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Although many NACS services and facilities are available 24 hours a day, NACS technical assistance and consulting support is only available during the standard UCI business hours of 8 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Only the on-duty NACS computer operator is available outside those hours.

During evening and weekend/holiday “waking” hours, technical staff in a few key areas are on-call to handle urgent problems such as central service failures and other major outages. Technical resources available after-hours are minimal — problems will take longer to resolve and some may ultimately have to wait until the next business day. All urgent off-hour problems should be reported via the on-duty computer operator at (949)824-6065; e-mail reporting addresses and staff phones are not covered during this time. (The NACS network trouble reporting line, (949) 824-2222, is also answered by the computer operator after hours).

In most cases, problems occurring during “non-waking” hours that the operator cannot resolve will be reported to on-call staff early the next morning. Exceptions to this include widespread outages, and threats to University resources.

We appreciate client feedback to our after-hours policy. We believe the policy strikes a reasonable balance between timely handling of problems that impact University business and the substantial cost of after-hours support.