Technology problems need to be addressed

March 31, 2008 —

MIXED SIGNALS -

Owen Tosh said it best in this week's article on the wireless network at SVSU: it's like Frankenstein's monster. Cobbled together over a period of experimentation and expansion, the troubled system begs for a cohesive and comprehensive upgrade. As students, we'd rather pay for an expensive system that works than an expensive system that doesn't work.

On-campus wireless isn't just a convenience for many students, faculty and staff. To use the most immediate experience as an example, many Vanguard staffers are expected to communicate with one another virtually non-stop, and the wireless network makes that easier. Indeed, it often enables it.

But the Vanguard's experience is really representative of larger trends at work. The country's economy is in the latter stages of a long and drastic transformation from an industrial, product-orientated economy to a knowledge-based economy. Very few workers in such an economy are actually expected to manufacture products that you can touch and hold: most workers offer services and/or information. Take college professors, for example.

In this knowledge economy, communication is essential, because that's how work gets done. This communication is happening over more mediums than ever before, and a great majority of that is happening over the Internet. What we're arguing is this: students, faculty and staff who are doing work by communicating information need reliable mediums to exchange that information.

SVSU students who use their laptops and other gadgets to do work are put at a competitive advantage in a knowledge-based economy, since often, they are already used to working over the course of a whole day. For better or worse, that's how knowledge workers do their jobs - all day, every day. Ask any journalist. Students that graduate college and get a job working nine-to-five on the assembly line are an endangered species.

To best prepare its students for work in a knowledge-based economy, SVSU needs to make sure its technology is not only functioning, but is useful. Some critical issues:

The student e-mail system needs to work, and work well. How many term papers were lost over the past week? We're as glad as anyone else to see the replacement finally go online, but what took so long? Faculty and staff, so used to the relative stability of Groupwise, may have not realized the immediacy of the need for a functioning student e-mail system.

The M: drive is unstable and undependable. As students, we'd rather pay for an expensive storage solution that works than an expensive storage solution that doesn't. If we're going to have storage, let's do it right.

Frankenstein's monster needs surgery. Thankfully, it appears as if some progress was made as recently as this week. But again, if students are paying for a wireless system, they at least deserve one that really works. Given the upsurge in popularity of wireless Internet access, SVSU could attract students with a functioning network.

SVSU's IT department works hard, and we've seen some improvement in the technology-related services on campus.

But as paying customers, we're looking for more.