In general, communication between groups in the IT department appears limited. Documentation is scarce. Users are not allowed to speak directly with the relevant groups (help desk only).
IT claims that it tries to run itself "as a business". However, since there is no competition, the "business model" is that of an entrenched monopoly. The goal of the IT department is "customer service" only to the minimum that prevents users from leaving the campus entirely. From the customers perspective, we are allowed to use IT services, rather than IT being here to serve the customer. Futher, users on a campus are not customers any more than students are customers. "Customers" implies that if the business transaction does not suit our needs, then we can take our money elsewhere. Within the campus universe, we can not.
Specific incidents highlighting the attitudes above:
-hourly bandwidth quotas are in place, but there is no way to check your current quota. If the help desk is called, their response is "wait an hour". Further, there is no documentation that these quotas exists, or what the limits are.
-user attempts to use multiple computers for research project. This (a) violates security policies and (b) adds additional work for IT in the form of more broken boxes, which results in increased work load for IT.
-help desk support form does not allow attachments (print screens, pdf). If a reply by email (to include attachment) is sent, then an automatic notice is sent saying the account is not valid [even though the email is received and readable by support].
-campus IT only supports Windows and Redhat Linux. If a proprietary program binary for linux is requested, the first response is "we don't support that."
Over a three day weekend, campus IT deactivated a wall jack. This wall jack supplied the internet connection for 8 people and had been in place for at least two years. The wall jack was the connection source for a 24 port hub, which was then connected to the users computers. Calling the help desk, resulted in sending over a technician, who told us that the jack was dead. No further response was given. After talking to a manager the next day, it turned out that the jack had been deactivated due to a "campus policy" that specified 5 computers per wall jack.
this policy was not written, nor was it accessible by users
the IT help desk did not know why the jack had been disconnected
upon submitting a help request ticket to the help desk, the ticket was not forwarded to the correct group (networking, instead of desktop)
after resolving the issue (48 hours of no connection for 8 users), no specific corrective action was specified. [There is nothing that prevents this from happening again.]
The original script that disconnected users may not be altered to notify users, networking, or help desk of the action
After the described incident was resolved, the office next door experienced the exact same issue.
The IT customer-facing ticket management system occasionally does not show past tickets. The manager of the help desk instructed me to notify her when this occurs next time. The next time it happened, I called the IT help desk and was told to not call back. Later, the IT manager notified my department that I was no longer allowed to call IT. All interaction was to be done online.
Nothing was ever done in writing, no notification was given as to what I had done, and no discipline was meted out. The injunction seems to be indefinite.