Editorial
ITS fails once again
December 8, 2006
Was anyone else wishing they could punch through their computer screen Tuesday morning without suffering physical or monetary damages?
Yeah, us too.
Apparently the e-mail demon is at it again.
After receiving four different error messages intending to rationalize the inabilities of the inbox, it became clear that the e-mail problem was not well-defined. And what is one expected to do in this situation? Turn to ITS, that’s what.
Visiting the department’s Web site is the first and most logical answer. However, after a good 30 minutes of investigative work it is easy to see that no tab or link efficiently brings about even a trace of a solution.
So try the search box, you say? But to no avail. The search feature on the ITS homepage searches the entire UWRF site, not just ITS. And the general e-mail sup- port and policies it eventually leads to are perfectly useless.
No information available on the Web? OK, that’s forgivable ... even though a technology department would be expected to have some sort of instruction available on the information superhighway.
So we opt to make a phone call instead. Yet arriving at the ITS homepage, a relevant phone number is difficult — if not impossible — to find. The extension of every ITS employee is listed, but no explanation is offered as to who should be contacted for what issue.
It seems that the natural place to turn would be the HelpDesk. The section of the Web site devoted to this “first call for help” indicates HelpDesk workers provide assistance for various technology services — but not e-mail.
Scratch that plan then.
After exhaustingly searching the ITS site for anything e-mail, it is apparent that assistance from ITS cannot be obtained through guidelines on the Web or even a general phone number.
Maybe we should send them an e-mail?
Oh wait ...
Ironically, the e-mail problems we have suffered all semester were accompanied last week by an aesthetically pleasing renovation to the UWRF homepage. Though different departments are responsible for e-mail and Web design, the failing efforts of one have us questioning the other.
Why can’t the individual who created the new homepage also craft a user-friendly site for ITS?
A March campus IT review (www.uwrf.edu/administration/campus-it-review/) assessed many areas of the department, but lacked focus on a vital topic for students: e-mail.
While ITS Web visitors are now commonly encouraged to send e-mails to ITS for more direct assistance — as noted on the HelpDesk and SquirrelMail log-in sites — this begs the question: How does one send an e-mail if the problem is the e-mail?