This document describes the recommended routes for raising questions about operational and policy matters concerning computing in the School of Informatics.

  • Operational matters concern the running of the computing operations, including requests and inquiries about desired facilities. Operational matters are ultimately the responsibility of the Head of Computing (Tim Colles), with responsibilities for specific computing areas devolved to their managers.
  • Policy matters concern the kind of computing environment the School has and its manner of implementation and management. Computing staff are not responsible for policy decisions, these fall within the remit of the Computing Strategy Group (CSG).

Operational matters

These should be dealt with as follows, in increasing order of escalation :

  1. All queries about current computing services should be reported via the support form (see below for reasons). You will get a ticket number by email in response.
  2. If you need to follow-up with further information, or to check for progress of a query, you should email using the RT ticket mail address.
  3. If you need to escalate the processing of a query, or are unhappy with the response given, please contact the Computing Support Team manager, Mohammed Javaid.
  4. If you are still unhappy with the response you have received, you should contact the Head of Computing, Tim Colles (or in his absence, his deputy Stephen Quinney).

Policy matters

Policy matters are dealt with by the Computing Strategy Group (CSG). Questions should be directed to the Head of Computing, Tim Colles.

Reasons for using the support form

We cannot handle queries effectively unless they are submitted via the support form.

Firstly, this gets the request into our Request Tracking (RT) system but secondly, and often more importantly, allows additional information to be automatically looked up and provided. This can significantly reduce the time spent identifying the problem.

Time-critical situations: in some very time-critical situations it may be necessary to make telephone contact - see the support contacts page. If the matter is not considered to be time-critical you will be asked to fill in the support form.

There is a duty computing person who looks at all unallocated tickets within a very short space of time (during University working hours) and who will do an initial allocation.

Last reviewed: 
06/10/2025