Staff will install software on School-owned computers for teaching, research, or public engagement. In order to ensure there is adequate notice to allow IT staff to perform and test these installations, and in order to ensure that new software packages can be adequately evaluated for their impact on other packages, on the network, and on the systems of the School, the following schedules have been developed:

1. Teaching Software

Requests for software to be installed in classrooms should be submitted via the Software Request Form at least six weeks before the software will first be used in class. This permits integrating the software into the machine-images that are used to replicate software across multiple machines in these settings, and it allows time for testing of the software in the lab or classroom setting.

2. Administrative Software

Requests for software to be installed on individual faculty or staff computers for administrative purposes should be submitted via the Software Request Form at least two weeks before the software will first be used. This allows time to evaluate the impact of the software on the individual system, schedule a time to install it when the user won't be needing the computer, and test the installation. In cases where a schedule of less than two weeks is imposed by the campus or university administration (revisions to Banner software, for example), exceptions will be made to the two-week schedule.

3. Other Software

Requests for software to be installed on individual faculty or staff computers for other purposes (research, for example) should be submitted via the Software Request Form at least two weeks before the software will first be used. If the software has never been installed by IT staff before, an extra week should be added to that two-week schedule, for evaluation, and it is possible that, for specific and stated reasons, IT staff may recommend against installing a particular package. Questions of this sort will be resolved by the Assistant Director of Core Systems.

For all requests, if you have any questions or trouble with submission of the Software Request Form, please contact the Help Desk.
 

Policy established, 12/22/2003
Revised, 1/10/2006