From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 19:30:59 -0600 Most general IT staff at universities have no familiarity with publishing, and thus their usefulness to presses is limited. At Penn State we were fortunate to have a full-time dedicated IT staff person from the early 2000s on, but we were the exception rather than the rule for small and medium-sized presses. Before that time our IT work was done by other people on the staff who had other responsibilities, such as designers or marketing staff. I believe that is still the norm today for smaller presses. > From: Ken Masters <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 11:34:21 +0400 > > Hi All > > Sandy, when I refer to the IT Staff, I'm talking about the > institution's IT Staff - in other words, the university or college's > IT support staff who may have an impact on all servers that fall under > the university IP address. But, whoever it is, there must be > _someone_ who is dedicated to the setting up, maintenance and support > of the publisher's servers (even if out-sourced) - or are you saying > that that type of work is taken on in an ad hoc fashion by regular > publishing staff? > > Regards > > Ken > > ------ > > On 17 February 2014 04:36, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]> >> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 20:53:42 -0600 >> >> IT staff? When you're talking about university presses, as Joe was, I >> daresay with few exceptions only the larger presses have anyone on >> their staff dedicated to IT issues. >> >> Sandy Thatcher >> >> >> At 8:48 PM +0100 2/13/14, LIBLICENSE wrote: >>> >>> >>> From: Ken Masters <[log in to unmask]> >>> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 07:50:51 +0100 >>> >>> Hi All >>> >>> I think Joe is correct. And I think part of the reason is that, in >>> huge organisations, so much responsibility has been handed over to IT >>> staff, that very little of what they do is known to senior management >>> (apart from the IT staff who serve in senior management, of course). >>> >>> This is a very real problem, because senior management tends to >>> classify everything to do with computers as "IT stuff," and fails to >>> see that what their IT staff does reflects directly on the >>> institution, especially when institutional ethics are involved. In >>> this case, the IT staff will know that they are collecting data, but >>> it is likely that the senior management don't know about it. (For >>> example, how many librarians on this list have ever asked their IT >>> staff about what information they are gathering on their users, how, >>> where and for how long the data are stored, and discussed the ethics >>> of that?). >>> >>> To answer your question regarding instances of tracking by >>> organisations: I don't know of any, but the study of such tracking by >>> medical organisations that I mentioned in my previous mail can be >>> found at http://ispub.com/IJMI/6/2/14386 >>> >>> I attempted to follow up on that study by surveying the medical >>> organisations, trying to get their opinion on how much they knew about >>> the data gathering, and how this fitted in with medical ethics (given >>> that there was almost no informed consent on the data gathering). I >>> received a 1% responses rate, so, obviously, could not publish >>> anything. Apart from normal low response rates to surveys, I would >>> think that the non-response rate probably had to do with >>> organisations' closing ranks, or, because it would have been seen as >>> "IT stuff," would have been forwarded to the IT dept, and they >>> certainly would not have responded. >>> >>> Regards >>> >>> Ken >>> >>> ------ >>> >>> Dr. Ken Masters >>> Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics >>> Medical Education Unit >>> College of Medicine & Health Sciences >>> Sultan Qaboos University >>> Sultanate of Oman >>> E-i-C: The Internet Journal of Medical Education