IT seeks feedback on CCA program improvements
Rice’s Educational Technology Department is currently working on a plan to improve the College Computing Associate program. ET Manager of Infrastructure Wyman Miles has met with focus groups at Baker, Hanszen, Jones, Lovett and Martel Colleges and plans to visit the remaining colleges to help determine what changes need to be made to make the CCAs program a more flexible and responsive to students’ needs, Miles said.
Miles, who has been in charge of the program since 1997, said he believes the key areas for discussion are CCA training and compensation, knowledge of the program within the colleges, improved communication and using similar programs at other universities as models for improvement.
“Originally we focused very heavily in connectivity and e-mail service,” Miles said. “I feel that we have some greater issues now that the CCAs need to address, mainly in the areas of privacy education and security issues, like viruses, worms and spyware. The other issues that we’re up against are things like freshman support. We have a great deal of work to do during [Orientation Week] to get the freshmen up to speed, so they understand what resources are here at Rice.”
Hanszen CCA John Morris said the CCAs should be more involved in O-Week.
“Perhaps the greatest improvement to the program would be a more public role in O-Week,” Morris, a senior, said. “I think CCA meetings with O-Week groups are a sort of afterthought to many O-Week coordinators. As a result, introductions get missed, and knowledge of who the local CCA is varies.”
Lovett CCA Brian Armstrong said more could be done to prevent viruses.
“I think response times to problems could always be improved, and more could be done to prevent virus infections before they occur so that fewer computers get quarantined, but in general the program is run well,” Armstrong said.
For now, Miles will continue to hold focus groups throughout the remainder of the semester until implementation of the plan begins in August when the new CCAs are trained.
“The students that I’ve talked with are big-picture-oriented,” Miles said. ” They see the value of the program, and they have some very good ideas of where they’d like it to go.”
Hanszen junior Eric McGuire said he thinks the program is generally useful.
“What I suggested was I think increasing personnel would improve the program the most. From my impression, most people have a problem with turnaround time,” McGuire said. “Every suggestion that was made was received very well. I felt like they definitely apprepreciated any input that was said.”
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