|
|
|
|
|
|
by ethnt
4938 days ago
|
|
|
This is certainly the case with schools too. At my high school, we are provided a username and password to access the school's computers, as well as our own personal storage space on the network. However, students (and teachers) want ways to work on files they have on the school network — it used to be that we would have to email the files to ourselves, but the network administrators have just recently unblocked access to Dropbox. People are realizing that there are websites like Google Drive that will let them access their work from anywhere and migrating away from the school-provided storage. Last year, someone was able to find a vulnerability in the network in order to install Google Chrome and Firefox. Supposedly, the IT guys were furious — not just at being hacked, but that students were using software that wasn't approved by them. Students and teachers are wising up to what good software is for them, and those choices don't always align with what IT says we need. |
|
|
For example, Google Chrome allows itself to be installed to a user account, bypassing administration requirements which may be that "vulnerability." The install is not particularly big, 50MB or so, so when Little Johnny Hacker does it it may not seem like a big deal. When 20,000 students install it that's almost 1TB, before we even consider them actually saving school work! (If you don't have 20,000 students in your school lets assume your IT resources and staff are appropriately scaled.)
You might ask, when you've got 20,000 people who want a piece of software why wouldn't you just make it available to them? So, let's say your school uses some web tools like Blackboard Learn and somewhere along the line--maybe in Chrome, maybe in BbLearn, maybe in Java, maybe somewhere else--there's a bug and students can't upload their homework to BbLearn with Chrome.
Now you've got 20,000 student freaking out and swarming the help desk trying to figure out what to do, teachers are upset they have to change their plans since it's not the students' fault, and IT is flustered because this is an emergency and not something they can research and test and find an appropriate solution for their environment.
And all this because, clearly, the students know "what good software is for them" and IT is just a bunch of old hacks who can't keep up.
When you work in any collaborative or networked environment some sacrifices will be made to fit everyone in. It's an IT department's job to figure out what technology will make the cut and what won't. Some of those decisions will be good, some will be bad, and some decisions won't actually be in the IT department's control. If you don't like a decision that was made (or wasn't made), you should talk to IT about it. They may tell you to bugger off, or they may make an exception for you or even launch an investigation to launch of complete solution.