The Center supports general classrooms with seven full time classroom technicians and a small pool of student assistants. No base budget funds are provided for equipment replacement. The cost to purchase and install equipment is only one part of the cost of creating electronic classrooms - or, indeed, any type of media system. Complex systems such as electronic classrooms, and this includes the simple Type I space as well as Type II and III space, require both routine preventative maintenance and repair at failure.
Preventative maintenance is performed to ensure minimum system failure incidents.
Maintenance is labor intensive, requiring diagnostic testing and physical inspection of installed systems as well as minor repairs and installation of upgrades. The larger the system, the larger the time commitment required per system. This includes the cost of parts and labor. One hour of labor is required per electronic classroom per week for maintenance. Eighty-five electronic classrooms, then, would require two full time maintenance and repair technicians in addition to the classroom technicians required to support instruction within the learning spaces.