Office of Information Technologies

The Office of Information Technologies (OIT) provides telecommunications and general computing and networking services to University students, faculty, and staff. The University does not require its students to own a computer.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a Charter University Participant in Internet2, the high-speed research network. Many courses include Web pages, online discussions and email as integral aspects. The University Library catalog and book availability information are accessible through the Web. Academic departments conduct major research on computer-related subjects.

Telephone services include voice mail for all students living in University residence halls and family housing. For details, see their Web site: www.umass.edu/telecom.

Computing facilities include iMac kiosks for email, 13 personal computer labs and classrooms located around campus, a networked file server for clients, and central host computers running the UNIX operating system. Most of the approximately 325 computers in the classrooms/labs have been deployed within the last three years; about 70 percent are Windows-based, and 30 percent are Macintosh-based. All of the facilities support access to email, the Internet and the Web. A wide range of applications provide word processing, desktop publishing, statistical analysis, spreadsheets, graphics, scanning of images or text, and creation of personal Web pages.

The Assistive Technologies Center is a collaboration of OIT, the Library, Learning Disabilities Support Services, and Disability Services, and is open to any member of the University community or Commonwealth of Massachusetts who has an ADA-defined disability and requires an accommodation such as scanning assistance, screen readers, text enhancements, and text enlargers.

Most administrative and academic buildings and both of the graduate student residence halls have direct high-speed Ethernet connections to the campus network backbone. Dial-in connections to the campus network may be made from throughout the region. OIT supplies software for making these connections at little or no expense to students. OIT also distributes software that has been site-licensed for the University community's use. OIT supports an online directory of all campus-assigned email addresses (students, faculty and staff).

Students pay a $30 fee twice a year for access to most of these facilities and services. The computer access fee is waived for all graduate student employees who qualify for a waiver of tuition and curriculum fees. Each student has 30 MBytes of disk space for storing email messages, and 100 MBytes of disk space on the file server/host computer for Web and other files. The IMAP email service supports secure access from email clients on a personal computer as well as through a Web interface.

OIT provides extensive assistance, consulting, and training services to members of the University community. During semesters, the Help Desk is open 64 hours per week. In addition, Software Support consults on more difficult questions, and the Data Analysis Group specializes in questions related to statistics and statistical software. PC Hardware Support can diagnose and repair most computer equipment on a fee-for-service basis. The online help pages at www.oit.umass.edu/help/ provide a search by keywords of one of the most extensive and varied collections of online documentation of any university.

OIT offers workshops on a wide range of subjects each semester and during January and summer breaks. One of the workshops, "Formatting a Thesis at UMass Amherst," is particularly useful for graduate students. There is a modest fee for the workshops; some also have a charge for course materials. OIT also provides computer-based training on many Windows systems and applications.

Students interested in learning more about computing and telephone services at the University may visit the OIT Web site at www.oit.umass.edu/. The Help Desk may be contacted by email, help@oit.umass.edu, or by calling (413) 545-9400.