What is the role of technical support staff

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What is the role of technical
support staff?
What is the role of technical support staff?
It is useful to split technical support into three categories:
Overall management and strategic planning
Strategic planning and decision-making that impacts on support.
Set-up, systems administration and preventative maintenance
Day-to-day management, set-up and administration of ICT services and facilities.
Problem solving
Assisting classroom practitioners and diagnosing and solving/repairing problems and faults as they
occur.
Whilst the area of problem solving has the highest profile, the majority of technical support activities
falls into the second category. In this area many tasks are best carried out by on-site staff.
These might include:
• administrative tasks: logging assets, labelling and security marking, keeping track of repairs
and service failures, maintaining stocks of consumables such as toner and paper
• consumable replacement and basic maintenance (such as replacing toner, screen cleaning)
• day-to-day set-up of computers, audio-visual equipment and specialist peripherals for specific
lessons
• regular or pre-emptive checking of computers, network components and connections
• checking/testing software and hardware for compatibility prior to installation
• installation of new equipment and software
• installation of software updates
• configuration of hardware and software (after installation)
• regular backup of data and ensuring recovery capability
• network management: allocating resources, setting up access rights and user profiles.
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The scale of the support provided within the school, and how it fits in with any external support
services, will vary widely depending on the school’s size and nature.
Probably the most significant difference between schools is whether or not they employ a
technician. As the number and complexity of school ICT resources increases the role of the technician
becomes increasingly important.
Technical support is an integral part of ICT and should be planned and managed accordingly.
If it is not practical to employ a technician within an individual school it may be possible to share one
among a small number of schools in a local area.
A larger secondary school will typically employ one or more technicians as well as using external
contracted services.
If no technician is available, then a small school should consider purchasing a support service from
the LEA or other commercial provider, as reliance on a manufacturer's helpline is unlikely to cover
the range of support needs on its own.
A high percentage of primary schools do not employ a technician. In these situations the ICT coordinator
and other teachers may find themselves spending time away from the class to support ICT.
This potential burden on teaching staff should be taken into account when planning technical
support provision.
This burden is an example of a hidden cost, which should be included when calculating the total cost
of ownership (TCO) of ICT. The NGfL Independent Procurement Advisory Service (IPAS) web site will
include information about TCO issues in Spring/Summer 2002.
Many elements of technical support are routine and do not require specialist technical skills. In order
to use technical support staff efficiently, it is important to identify these routine or simple tasks which
can be carried out by other existing non-teaching staff or by reliable pupil monitors, freeing up a
technician to deal with more complex problems. The technician can help by preparing brief troubleshooting
guides that can be used by other staff.
The NGfL Technical Support web site provides advice on the recruitment, retention and training of
ICT technical support staff, in the context of a range of information about technical support in
schools. It indicates the jobs that technicians at different levels might be expected to perform and
the skills they will need.
Links:
• NGfL Independent Procurement Advisory Service (IPAS) [http://ipas.ngfl.gov.uk/]
• NGfL Technical Support [http://technicalsupport.ngfl.gov.uk/]
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