Centralized vs. diversified user services: A user's perspective

ABSTRACT

As a group of professionals who use computers in our work, we see decentralization of computer user services as a possibly inevitable trend of the 1980s. It may be that it is simply no longer possible for a single, monolithic university or organizational computing center to provide adequately all relevant user services to a highly diversified population of users. It is important, therefore, to address the issue of how best to strike a balance between centralized and decentralized user services. That is, what kinds of services would be optimally provided by centralized user service organizations, and what kinds would best be dealt with on a departmental or college-wide basis?

Index Terms

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Management of computing and information systems

      • System management

        • Centralization / decentralization