Software and Hardware Modifications

Services provided by the IS department are relied upon by the faculty, staff, and students of the Law School. It is important that these services be of high quality and that they not change at unpredictable, or inconvenient times. Accordingly, our goal is to maintain services in a stable form during the academic year. New services or new components of existing ones may be added during the school year, but we strive to introduce them in a manner that does not affect existing ones. If serious, unforeseeable problems affecting users' ability to work do occur as a result of these upgrades, the IS department will make all reasonable efforts to install fixes as quickly as possible.

Major changes (upgrades, introduction of new software or hardware, etc.) will usually be made during the summer to minimize disruption. Staff and faculty will be informed of any proposed changes or additions prior to the end of the spring semester. Changes or additions could include new software to be added to the PC desktop, software or hardware that we will no longer support, and/or software or hardware upgrades.

Any approved changes will be in place by late August. Careful consideration is given to the length of time old software versions need to be retained and notice of planned removals is given in advance. In the case where software is being withdrawn completely, the period of notice will usually be significantly longer than that used to warn of the removal of an old version.