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- Personally owned computers and/or off campus MIT owned computers.
- All home networks and networks through third party providers like Comcast, Verizon, RCN, etc.
- MIT computers on campus that belong to employees who are not in our supported areas.
- Non-MIT owned computers.
- Equipment in Classrooms. These are the jurisdiction of MIT AV.
- How to use your software (MS Word, Filemaker, Adobe Creative Suite, etc) (lynda.mit.edu has great resources to teach you how to use software)
(Exceptions are Email (Apple Mail/Outlook/OWA), VPN, Kerberos Extras, and CertAid)
We may be able to assist with basic questions for other software if we have knowledge but we do not have expertise using many of these programs and we are not programmers. Odds are you will probably know your software much better than we do. - How to use any of the MIT academic or administrative web-based systems (Stellar, Cognos, etc). We don't have access to them so we don't know how to use them.
We're always happy to take a look at an issue if you'd like us to give you our insights. Business help can be found by directly callling the Help Desk at 3-1101 and asking for "Business Help". - Setting up, building, or fixing websites.
- Fix broken printers (for printer repairs, KSL is the official MIT printer repair vendor and can be reached at ksl@mit.edu).
- Fix broken machines or recover data. We are not authorized Apple, Dell, or Lenovo technicians.
- Physical transport of any machines anywhere for repair.
- We are also not movers so the insured hired movers with the right equipment and resources should be contacted to move computer equipment between offices. However, we would be happy to help set it up again once it's moved.
- We are not a maid service and do not clean keyboards, monitors, windows or desks or move furniture.
- We do not make site visits to clients' homes off campus.
- We cannot do your work for you. We are always happy Our primary role is to help empower you users to do your their job by showing you what you need needs to dobe done. For example, if you need to move 100,000 emails from your online email account to a local folder, we can show you how to do that a month at a time with the first month but you will have to spend the time to actually do it for the other 119+ months. Projects like this are not fast and can take days, if not weeks to complete a little at a time.
The MIT Way
MIT is an engineering and science institution that has a phenomenal humanities and social sciences program. Unlike all other institutions of higher learning, MIT places no restrictions or limits on what tools, software, or hardware can be used by the community. This creates an open ended unrestricted computing environment with numerous support challenges.
- No one can know everything. There is just too much new technology, software, and hardware out there with more coming to market monthly.
- Technology is constantly changeschanging. Just when you think you know one type of system or piece of equipment really well, a new one comes along and replaces it with all new bugs, problems, and incompatibilities.
- As a technology-based institute, the MIT culture assumes its users have a higher level of understanding of technology than may be the case. Consequently all development of tools and technology support are is often designed with this assumption in place. The MIT culture assumes members of the community have the aptitude and desire to learn and figure things out.
- Though the model in SHASS is a higher level customer service model than exists for many parts of the Institute, we have limited resources and rely heavily on our Section DLC Tech-Liaisons to coordinate appointments during our supported section times. To maintain the highest quality of service for our SHASS clients with the limited resources we have, we are a concierge-style in-person and on campus only IT support operation.
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