A Brief History of BruinTech
BruinTech is a combination and expansion of the groups formerly known as the UCLA Computing Support Coordinator Program and the UCLA Help Desk Consortium.
Computing Support Coordinator Program
In the years following the 1985 decision to decentralize computing resources, nearly all of the schools and academic divisions created Local Support Centers, providing support for academic and administrative computing infrastructure within their domain. In addition to providing instructional computing support with computer labs and classrooms, these LSCs maintained school- and division-wide local area networks and, in most cases, provided technical support services to their faculty, staff and students.
In late 1988, recognizing the growing need for technical support within UCLA departments and a consistent interface between central support organizations and departmental computing support staff, Administrative Information Systems (now named IT Services) and the Academic Technology Services (now named Office of Advanced Research and Computing (OARC)), joined forces to develop the Computing Support Coordinator (CSC) program.
Help Desk Consortium (HDC)
The HDC was formed in 2008 to promote collaboration among the numerous help desks at UCLA. The group aimed to:
- Share expertise, solutions, ideas and resources to increase efficiencies
- Develop IT best practices and operating standards
- Encourage more specialization and innovation
- Establish cooperation in navigating IT bureaucracy
- Facilitate Help Desk IT projects across campus
- Align IT with the University's mission & vision
- Increase responsiveness to end-users and customers
- Encourage professional development for IT staff
Since its conception, the HDC was mostly made up of help desk staff and focused on help desk related issues. With the forming of the Help Desk Consortium, many of the discussions from the CSC group were integrated with the HDC.
As technology evolved, the line between help desks and other specializations of IT became blurred and many staff played multiple roles within their organization. The focus of the HDC broadened beyond help desk issues and became a forum for staff from different areas of IT to share knowledge.
BruinTech
During 2012-2013, the HDC Executive Board launched a rebranding effort to expand the group to include all Bruin “technologists,” meaning anyone who works in technology, is interested in technology, or considers themselves to be a “techie.”
In 2021, sponsorship of BruinTech switched from OIT (now OARC) to IT Services.
Whether you are in a one-person shop or a part of a large IT organization, you have a place in BruinTech!