A role for computer science in user services
John A. Beidler · 1979
Structured programming, structured Walk-through, design languages, pseudocode processors, etc., are just a few of the buzz words that are floating around today in computer science. But just how relevant are these concepts in supporting the variety of expertise and different levels of sophistication of computer users that exist in an academic environment. On one hand we have users who only want results and don't care how dirty their programs are, just as long as they work. On the other hand, we have faculty who wish to have their students use programs in undergraduate courses and therefore they are very conscious of the programs reliability and ease of use. We believe that students majoring in computer science, when properly trained, can do a tremendous job improving user services.Through an NSF CAUSE grant, our Department of Mathematics and Computer Science became directly involved in user services. Simply stated, we see three types of user support:1. Passive - This is simply saying that the equipment is here, if you want to use it, go ahead, and good luck;2. Reactive - The computer system is here, if you want to use it, give us a call and we will give you a hand;3. Active - The system is here and it has lots of capabilities, let's go out and do things to make it easier for people to use our system and let's make an active effort to make people aware of what we can do for them.We hope that no one in user services performs the passive role. Although we might all like to think of ourselves as being active, the fact is that we do spend a good deal of our efforts reacting to the requests of others. But what kinds of things can we do to become more active in our support for others? Here we describe some of the things we have done to take advantage of the training of some of our computer science majors. Our results are not all tremendous successes, but we do feel that we have made some progress and we do have some ideas on how we can continue with this approach in our attempts to improve user services.