The ITS Academic Technologies (AT) section provides technical support for UH network connections, supported desktop computers, and supported software. Support is provided to UH faculty, staff and students systemwide via email, telephone, and walk-in. Contact the ITS Help Desk for support by calling 808-956-8883 (Oahu) or toll free (800) 558-2669, sending email to help@hawaii.edu or visiting the ITS Labs for walk-in support.
If the ITS Help Desk is unable to resolve the problem, the level of support is escalated to a staff member in AT. For the Manoa campus, a trained student will go on-site to diagnose and fix the problem. On-site visits are provided for UH-owned and supported computers as noted below.
ITS supports UH-owned computers, generally identified by the presence of a UH decal. Unfortunately, ITS does not have the resources necessary to support computers purchased for departmental computer labs. The support for these computers is the responsibility of the departments.
Although ITS doesn't support foreign language computers or computers that have had a foreign language installed, users are encouraged to check within their department for other faculty/staff with similar configurations or search Internet sites for help. The College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature (http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/) provides limited help to their college faculty and staff and maintains a lab with Chinese and Japanese fonts which is open to UH students. UH Hilo maintains a website for the Hawaiian Language at http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/. If you have some knowledge of foreign language support that you'd like to share, please email pc-help@lists.hawaii.edu.
ITS will troubleshoot problems on the following Operating Systems:
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Mac OS X (10.5 and above)
Windows 8 OS Advisory for UH Administrative Applications Users: ITS is currently recommending that users of UH administrative applications continue to use Windows 7, as many UH applications have not been certified by the software vendor or thoroughly tested. New PC systems purchased should be Windows 8 ready, but should be initially configured for use with Windows 7. If newly purchased UH computers are preinstalled with Windows 8 (without the option for Windows 7), one alternative is to purchase Windows 8 Home Premium from the vendor and then purchase the MS Windows 8 Professional Upgrade License (with or without Software Assurance [SA]). [Note: Computers purchased with Windows 8 Professional have the option of purchasing SA ONLY within 90 days from the computer purchase date.] The Windows 8 Professional Upgrade and/or SA license may be purchased from the ITS Site License Office: http://www.hawaii.edu/sitelic The Windows 8 Professional Upgrade and/or SA license allows you to downgrade the OS to use Windows 7 Professional. When you are ready to convert to the Windows 8 OS, or when all the applications you use in your work are certified to function correctly with Windows 8, you will have the option to use your Windows 8 license to install Windows 8 Professional or Windows 8 Enterprise (only if SA is purchased).
Please note that this is only for UH-owned computers using specific UH administrative applications. Also, the ITS Site License purchase of Software Assurance for the OS is only for UH departments. This advisory does not pertain to personal home computers or personal purchases.
By "best effort" ITS will assist with one on-site visit of one hour and try to resolve any problems as best we can within that time frame (no reinstall of the OS.)
The following system is in the "best effort" category:
Mac OS X (10.4 and older)
A list of ITS Supported Software is posted at website: http://www.hawaii.edu/askus/575.
Please note that software not on our list is only supported on a "best effort" basis.
Because of the size of the faculty, staff, and student population and variety of their home computers, ITS can only troubleshoot home computers for specific problems i.e., problems with UH network client software installs, and problems with a UH network blocked computer due to viruses. If you have a private Internet Service Provider (ISP) please call their technical support for help first as their configuration settings may differ.
If home desktop computers or home laptops are experiencing hardware or other software problems (i.e. hard drive failures or system errors), users are encouraged to take their computer to a local computer repair shop. If the option exists, it is strongly recommended that the extended warranty offered by computer vendors be purchased.
A designated staff administrator is required for any UH server. That person is responsible for installation of server, programs, and upgrades, management of userids, actively applying security and OS patches, backups, maintenance, and general troubleshooting of the server. If a department has no designated staff server administrator, and that server has problems with hackers, viruses, or security, ITS reserves the right to take that computer off-line from the UH Network.
ITS provides Windows Local Area Network(LAN) management services for an annual fee. Departments interested in having ITS manage a departmental LAN for file and print sharing can contact our Contract Services group at cs-lan@lists.hawaii.edu .
If problem resolution is not successful by telephone, ITS may send a trained student to the on-campus site to troubleshoot and attempt to resolve reported problems for UH-owned computers. Unfortunately, on-site support is not available for personally owned equipment, though ITS will try to accommodate when personally owned computers and/or peripherals are being used in a department office for official UH work purposes.
At present, on-site service is free and limited to a time-available basis. Although every effort will be made to accommodate users, if “time is of the essence”, users may need to make their own arrangements with outside vendors for immediate servicing.
What does ITS support for the general user on campus in terms of hardware?
CAUTION: Equipment under warranty should be checked with the vendor first, as some warranties may be invalidated if a non-authorized person tampers with the computer.
The ITS Help Desk will install or troubleshoot on-site standard extension cards (e.g. video, ethernet, or sound cards). If you are experiencing problems with networked printers, these may also be checked. If the faculty/staff require other on-site services (i.e. installing RAM or peripherals e.g. hard drives, optical disc), ITS may optionally assist, if time and resources are available. ITS can install or remove hardware components from a computer, but not necessarily repair hardware components.
ITS can also assist installing and troubleshooting a scanner on a "best effort" basis. It should be noted that laptops often have different set of specific hardware requirements and are not serviced to the same extent as a typical desktop computer. Most service for laptops are "best effort" only.
If work is done on the hardware, a waiver of liability is required to be signed by the customer.
If reinstallation of an OS and/or reformatting of a hard drive is determined to be necessary, ITS students may provide assistance. Users should either have their own OS media and accompanying license key available for the students, or if the OS was purchased through one of the UH Site License programs, users should make arrangements to have the media on-hand at the time of the scheduled appointment.
Note: Some new computers can be purchased without the OS media included. Unfortunately, ITS cannot provide OS media for these computers without the purchase of new OS licenses through the Site License office, so please be sure to consider this when choosing a new computer purchase without OS media.
Users are generally responsible for backing up any necessary data they need on their computer, and are encouraged to consider an appropriate backup strategy if critical data is being saved. ITS can assist with data backup only if time and resources permit, and will require that a user present a detailed listing of data on the computer that needs to be backed up, as well as the appropriate media onto which this data can be moved/copied. ITS cannot be held responsible for data erased from a computer's hard disk drive that was not explicitly specified for backup prior to an OS reinstallation.
For a new computer, ITS can do an initial install on-site for supported programs (e.g. anti-virus software, Thunderbird, SSH, Acrobat Reader, etc.), and will check to see if the latest updates have been installed. However, users should be responsible for the security of their computers and should configure their computers to regularly check for and install critical updates. http://www.windowsupdate.com/ The UH community should also keep up-do-date with anti-virus software updates, which occur on a daily basis.
ITS will not install any unlicensed software and will assist with unsupported software only on a "best effort" basis, if time permits.
ref: http://www.hawaii.edu/its/micro/
