Technical Support Extended Hours Policy

Computer Services supported by the Technical Support Team for extended hours via callback

If a key computer service ceases to function, then we have an emergency. If that emergency occurs during extended hours, then we have a callback.

  • Extended hours refers to:
    • Monday - Friday (non-holiday time)
      • 7am - 8am
      • 4:30pm - 11pm
    • Weekends and holidays
      • 9am - 11pm
  • There is an overtime cost to the department in providing callback over extended hours to support computer services. We will only support those computer services on callback which are critical to a large group of users.
  • The underlying assumption that these recommendations are based on are:
    1. The Department has a desire for students to be able to complete their school work from off campus sites beyond normal working hours.

Following are the recommendations for computer services that should be supported on an emergency basis (callback) for extended hours by the Department of Computing Science (through the Technical Support Team).

  • 24 hour emergencies with callback
    • If there is a computer security breach or department web page defacement, this is a 24 hour emergency
  • Extendend hours emergencies with callback
    • the main network (main router, server switches and main connection to AICT backbone) is down
    • the main research and instructional firewalls are down or the instructional firewalls on the windows labs are down
    • a user is unable to authenticate
    • the departmental instructional file servers are down
    • the departmental home directory file servers are down
    • the vpn service is unavailable
    • the secure document service is unavailable
    • the administrative database service, docsdb, is unavailable or not working properly (ie students cannot submit assignments via astep)
    • the teaching database service is unavailable
    • the main department web pages or web pages for changing passwords are not available