{"id":112127,"date":"2020-04-07T13:12:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T11:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=112127"},"modified":"2026-04-14T12:30:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T10:30:42","slug":"hectic-times-for-it-department-2500-video-lectures-recorded-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2020\/04\/07\/hectic-times-for-it-department-2500-video-lectures-recorded-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"Hectic times for IT department: 2,500 video lectures recorded so far"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that 99 per cent of staff are working from home, there is one spider keeping the web of units, departments and support staff together: the IT department. E-mail services, Zoom calls, team meetings, remote desktops: in times of coronavirus, the academic community would not exist without the technicians working at the IT department.<\/p>\n

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Monique Thomas.<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

Needless to say, the current crisis is imposing a heavy burden on the IT technical support officers. \u201cWe are very busy,\u201d Monique Thomas, the head of the IT department, tells us in a video call made from her home. You see, her department\u2019s officers are also working from home, which means that they have a lot of things to discuss every single day. \u201cIt\u2019s obvious that we must make very clear arrangements on a lot of things with everyone,\u201d says Thomas.<\/p>\n

So is no one actually at the office to keep an eye on the critical systems? \u201cWhen a system crashes, someone has to go to campus, but many things can be arranged from our homes.\u201d Only the Media Support Centre\u2019s Service Desk is still manned. This department helps lecturers record online lectures, a whopping 2,500 of which have been recorded in the last few weeks.<\/p>\n\t

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IT and coronavirus in numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Internet traffic from campus: down 75%
\nInternet traffic to campus: up 10%
\nQuestions submitted to Service Desk: up 50%<\/p>\n

Video lectures recorded: 2,500
\nStudents have spent 40,000 hours watching online lectures (150,000 views)
\nMyApps users per day: 750
\nZoom users per day: 160
\nConversations held on Teams in two weeks: 2,300<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Flooded with questions<\/h2>

When it became evident that a huge number of lecturers were soon going to have to start working from home, the department sprang into action at once. \u201cIt happened on Friday the thirteenth, I have a clear recollection of that,\u201d Thomas says with a smile. \u201cWe immediately raised the number of licences for MyApps [the university\u2019s remote desktop \u2013 ed.] from four hundred to one thousand.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even now that a thousand licences have been issued, the lecturers are pushing the system\u2019s limits. The IT technical support officers regularly receive notifications that the system is at full capacity. \u201cThings suddenly happened very quickly. It wasn\u2019t CIO or CTO that got EUR to go online, but rather COVID-19,\u201d Thomas says with a wink. Because there were so many new users, the Service Desk was flooded with questions. The number of e-mails and phone calls increased by 50 per cent.<\/p>\n

'Enorm beroep op onze mensen' <\/h2>

The department also immediately activated the Microsoft Teams software to allow employees to have safe video calls with each other. \u201cOriginally, we weren\u2019t going to introduce that program until this summer, so that put a huge strain on our people. Not only did we have to install the software; we also had to notify people and make sure they had instructions for use. We also moved e-mail accounts to the cloud so that people can schedule Teams meetings from Outlook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many lecturers have told us that they are using the Zoom video call app to run their lectures. Do you want the lecturers to stop using Zoom now that the university is offering Teams?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we do want them to do that at some point. We wish to make a complete switch to Microsoft Office 365. There are some privacy concerns with Zoom [Zoom was found to share data with Facebook without permission \u2013 ed.]. The university has concluded an agreement with Microsoft that guarantees that conversations and data will be private. Moreover, Teams has more features than video calls alone. Not all of those features are available just yet, but soon employees will be able to share files and work in documents together very easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

The media have reported quite a few stories on cyber-attacks during the coronavirus crisis. Perhaps some hackers have a little too much time on their hands now due to the crisis. Are you seeing more attacks?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThere will always be people who want to abuse the situation, so yes, we are prepared for that. People working from home may be a little careless with sensitive data, because they are using their own equipment and sometimes their own software. That\u2019s one of the reasons why we want to create some consistency across the board, to the maximum extent possible, to get everyone to use the same safe software, where possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

How is the IT staff doing? Have they had much overtime?<\/em><\/p>

\u201cYes, but they\u2019ve had that since before the crisis. We always have a lot of work to do. We\u2019ve divided our work into four categories: teaching, research, management and general services. As a result, we now have a much clearer idea of what each person\u2019s responsibilities are, and our officers are in closer touch with their own target groups. That works very well, because it gives them a greater sense of responsibility. Also, managers have to do less coaching, because the employees themselves know exactly what\u2019s expected of them. IT officers tend to have a huge sense of responsibility anyway. They don\u2019t need micro-management.<\/p>

\u201cWe also think it\u2019s important to organise fun things every once in a while. For that reason, all our staff have been sent a bit of a booze box: two cans of beer, some nuts and vegetable chips. And tonight [last Thursday \u2013 ed.] we will all play a pub quiz together. Relaxation is very important, particularly when we\u2019re working so hard and are no longer having impromptu chats with our colleagues at the coffee machine. We hope to organise something special every fortnight: maybe a mini-conference, or a book review, but also fun stuff such as an online tennis or football competition. We really need that sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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