Summer is now officially over and another academic year is about to begin. Let's peek into the dark side of summer. For those who do technology in schools and colleges, the notion of a summer break or vacation is a myth, an oxymoron. Oh sure, they may get a week or so away from the job during late June or July. But for techies, there is no downtime during summertime.
Summer is the marathon, the sustained march toward fall opening.
It means cleaning up the lingering IT problems from last year as well as installing new hardware, software and systems that absolutely, positively, must, without question, work as promised when students and faculty return to campus in September. Summer is when the dozens of old computers in each computer lab are replaced. Summer is when hundreds of seemingly ancient computers in faculty and administrative offices head off-campus, replaced by the faster, better, smarter computers that were promised long ago. Summer is when the last segment of the wire that completes the campus network is installed into aging offices, classrooms and campus dorms. In sum, summer is when IT happens.