Students
kick out expensive contractors 27 March 2001
That was around the same time students started complaining about the minimal computer resources available to them in the college and the lack of internet access in college rooms.
Back then, the outside IT contractors who originally set up the computer system were being called in to fix problems constantly and, according to Tim Burgess, who now heads the college's IT committee, they were charging a fortune "in true IT style".
That's when students started doing it for themselves, kicking out the contractors, and taking control of the entire IT system.
The students started by demanding that the college cable every room of the college to give each student individual internet access.
They asked the college to buy the cabling and networking gear, so they could set it up themselves from scratch.
Three years later, professional IT specialists are a distant memory to college students, who fix and maintain not only all the student's computers, but all staff and lab computers as well.
Ben Fon, 25, used to be a college resident. He now works as the Melbourne IBM team leader in system administration, and says the experience he had setting up the Whitley College IT system was invaluable in preparing him for the role.
He was one of the founders of the IT committee.
"Because the private contractor wasn't there all the time, the students decided to learn how to do it," he says.
"We read up on the material and tried it out in practice, and we realised we could do this ourselves. We didn't need the IT consultants."
Fon says the students found they had just as much knowledge as the professionals, and perhaps more.
"You assume that professionals and older people always know better, but it turned out that they didn't," he says.
Since then, the students have developed an intranet system that has revolutionised the way things used to be done in college.
Whereas students used to hand-write lunch orders on paper bags and sign in and out of college, everything is now done online.
The most recent addition to the intranet system is a security camera that broadcasts the entrance of the college over the intranet system.
"Students can see if their guests have come by bringing it up on the screen in the computer in their rooms. We set it up mainly to avoid the doorbell being rung at ridiculous hours in the morning, because that used to annoy people," he says.
The system also has logging of maintenance complaints on the intranet, which has vastly increased efficiency and freed up student and staff time, Burgess says.
Every day Burgess and others from the IT committees are called on, free of charge, to fix and maintain students' computers.
Fon says the free labour being provided by students has saved the college up to $60,000 a year in contractor's fees, but the students aren't doing it for money.
"Students are out to teach each other, so there has been a very rapid exchange of knowledge. If someone learns something, they pass that knowledge to the next student. That's how we ended up running the whole show," he says.
Burgess says the sharing of knowledge and experimenting with ideas to expand the capabilities of the intranet system is a key to the success of the students' system control.
"Since I came to college I've learnt an incredible amount about networking and that sort of stuff. It has given me a few jobs I wouldn't otherwise have, and when I see these cool ideas we create, it makes sense that we do it," he says.
Burgess says the most important thing is that younger and newer college students become skilled enough so that the system never returns to outside hands.
He also says companies have benefited from the confidence students have developed by managing the system.
Fon agrees: "The biggest gain has been in the attitude."
"Students have a can-do attitude, even if they have no idea at the start."
This report appears on australianIT.com.au.
