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- MIT owned computers on campus in our supported sections
- Anthropology
- Global Languages
- History
- Literature
- Music and Theater Arts
- Programs in Science, Technology, and Society
- Women and Gender Studies
- Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality
- SHASS Dean's Office
- MIT Human Insight Collaborative
- Installation of basic software from IS&T and troubleshooting of any buggy performance
- Troubleshooting of malfunctioning hardware
- Computer virus/malware infection mitigation
- Set up of new machines and installation of computer operating systems (Windows or Mac) and Boot Camp on a Mac
- Account migrations from old to new machines
- Set up of email, backup, and anti-virus software
- How to use MIT email on Apple Mail or Outlook and webmail at owa.mit.edubrowser-based webmail
- Contacting MIT Property to deactivate old machines
- Secure wiping of data and recycling of old machines
- Basic troubleshooting of printers
- Recommendations Providing hardware recommendations for and spec'ing specifications for new computers, printers, and peripherals
- Tips and tricks for troubleshooting unusual issues that may be encountered by our clients
- iPhone troubleshooting and email setups
- Very basic Windows and android phone troubleshooting (there are so many different mobile devices, IS&T has a mobile team studying, troubleshooting, and solving issues with the plethora of makes and models of devices http://ist.mit.edu/mobile)
- Providing documentation as time permits for known issues and best practices on the SHASS IT website and the SHASS IT Documentation Site
- Troubleshooting of wireless and wired network and email issues in our supported areas and reporting them to IS&T
- Set up, maintenance, troubleshooting, security, updating, and updating life cycle management of DLC owned Synology and Macintosh File Servers for select supported academic sectionsNAS servers
- Set up, maintenance, troubleshooting, security, updating, and life cycle management of the SHASS Film Servers and all associated backup systems
- Make recommendations for machine cybersecurity configurations and user data backups
- Electronic publication of recommended data security, infosec, and cybersecurity best practices for critical work systems
- Email warnings and notices of cybersecurity threats or impending changes to vendor products that can directly affect critical work functionsBasic machine cybersecurity configurations with permission from the section/user
What we do NOT support
- Personally owned computers and/or off campus MIT owned computers.
- Deactivated MIT machines.
- 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./IS&T.
- 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 not involved in hardware repairs, we are not certified technicians for Apple, Dell, Lenovo, etc.
Users who require repair services should go to the MIT Hardware Service Center which is currently located at its temporary location in the Atlas Service Center. A partnership with ComputerCare, the center is available to all MIT students, faculty, and staff. Technicians will repair computers on site at the Atlas Service Center during Fall Semester 2024. The permanent location of the Hardware Service Center is under construction, with an expected opening in spring 2025.
- We are not movers and we are not insured for breakage. Users should hire insured professional movers with the right equipment and resources to move computer equipment between offices. However, we would be happy to help users set up their equipment again once it's moved. If you can take photos of the setup before it's disassembled, especially how things are plugged in, that would be extremely useful 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. Our primary role is to help empower users to do their job by showing what needs to be 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 a world renown 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.
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A. In general, we aim to show up between 8:30am and 9am 9:30am for morning slots (traffic and public transportation dependent) and between 1 and 1:30pm for afternoon slots. Morning blocks end at noon and afternoon blocks end at 4:00pm. We still have paperwork and client follow ups to complete end of day.
B. Any new requests must be in the ticketing system no later than 3:15pm 00pm for any chance of us being able to help same day if we have availability. This also means the final scheduled start time for any appointment on any given day is 3:30pm00pm.
C. Dan and I work very quickly and efficiently so with the exception of virus infections and computer setups it rarely takes us the entire time block to address, resolve, or forward issues along to IS&T for further investigation. We will follow up with clients or IS&T for more complicated standing issues.
D.During short weeks where sections may be closed and students and staff are on vacation like the week between Christmas and New Years, support blocks will be suspended as we go to an on call model. All requests for support during this time can be emailed directly to us.
III) IT Liaisons
It will be the job of the section LIAISON to track requests for IT assistance in their sections and prioritize them for us when we get onsite. You know your people better than we do, so if there's a support issue that's more important, please let us know so we can assist those users first. So far we’ve been able to address, forward to IS&T, and/or resolve ALL tech issues that the liaisons have brought to our attention.
a) In order to maintain quality of service and fast response times, all REQUESTS FOR APPOINTMENTS must go to the section's IT liaison for processing. The Liaison will then send an email to the shass-tech-remote to request an appointment and we will get back to them to schedule.
b) Faculty members CAN email us directly if it’s a simple question. (eg. Is this spam, what do you recommend for X, is this service legitimate, have you had any experience with this program, etc)
c) As a best practice, complicated questions and issues (like email or calendaring not working all the time) should be handled in appointments anyway and should be directed to the Section Liaisons for scheduling.
d) The LIMITS of our support coverage are with MIT owned machines on campus. This is a practical limit. There are 2 of us and we support 7 sections in the school as well as the Dean's Office. We simply don’t have the resources to support all home networks, peripherals, and/or personal machines and devices. HOWEVER, time permitting, we are happy to TRY to answer any questions users may experience at home with MIT work machines. BUT for more complicated issues we have to see the machine. This is best accomplished by bringing in the machine to MIT. On a very special limited case by case basis if the users can work with us and users can’t bring in a machine, we can attempt to work with a relative off campus while the user is on campus with us so we can convey instructions to them and they to us to try to troubleshoot the issue.
e) With few exceptions we will NOT troubleshoot complicated issues over email. Due to differences in vernacular and terminology we have found that 90% of the time it leads to a frustrating experience for everyone involved.
If you are in this SHASS Section, your Liaison is
Section Liaison Liaison
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Anthro Carolyn Carolyn
GL Jo Jo
History KathleenKathleen
LIT ZachZach
MTA Michelle John
STS Adanna/ Paree
WGS SophiaStacey
GCWS Stacey Melanie
IV) Onsite Appointments
There are 3 situations where out-of-cycle onsite appointments can be scheduled: (please carefully note the specifics)
A) EXCHANGE EMAIL transition onsite setup requests should continue to be sent to shass-tech-tech@mitremote@mit.edu. Exchange migrations are a special project that we schedule outside of each section's normal support time. We will schedule the Exchange onsites as necessary. If you have any questions about moving to Exchange from the failing IMAP servers, please don't hesitate to email us. Remember that the old IMAP email servers are scheduled to be removed from service at the end of 2013. These IMAP email servers are failing and have been losing emails, in some cases entire accounts, so the sooner you get off of this legacy email system, the better for everyone.
B) ALL EMERGENCY REQUESTS should continue to be sent by the IT Liaison to shass-tech-tech@mitremote@mit.edu. We definitely don't want to make anyone wait a full week before getting help for an emergency. Keep in mind that we may not be available right away but we will respond as quickly as possible. How soon we can assist will depend on our availability. Generally, we were able to assist users with their emergencies on the same day 80% of the time. This may change during busier times of the academic year but worse comes to worse each section will never have to wait more than 7 days for support.
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