Job Title: IT Facilitator
Dates: January 2004 - March 2007
Location: Ushaw Moor, Durham, United Kingdom

Job Outline
Ushaw College was a small Roman Catholic seminary which also featured a conference centre and provided online learning. The site consisted of around 70 users (academic staff, students, and support staff) as well as conference visitors. The IT Facilitator position was created at the start of 2004 as the college's IT facilities grew and the role of providing IT support started to encroach too far into the duties of the Finance Director.

The main area of responsibility was providing desktop support for MS Windows 2000 and MS Office 2003, delivered face-to-face, by email and by phone. The college servers, based on Windows Server 2000 and including Exchange 2000 and MS IIS, were the second main area of responsibility. These servers were later replaced with Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2003; the installation and configuration of which I played a major role in. Administration of the college network infrastructure was also part of this role, including patching data and telephone connections and maintaining records on patch connection and telephone extension assignments; however as the network design was of a simple nature no in-depth switch configuration was ever required. I was also responsible for a project to replace the college's existing intY firewall system with one using SmoothWall.

A small amount of support was also provided to the conference centre facility. This was mainly around the areas of setting up temporary network and telephone facilities in the conference rooms and accommodation to support conferences being held within the college by external organisations. The job later grew to include administration and supporting external users of the college’s online learning environment via email. The position also entailed writing reports evaluation and advising on hardware and software upgrades and new systems, and IT-related developments within the college. The role also involved maintenance of the college website and intranet, both written in-house.

Technologies Encountered
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows Server 2000 and 2003
Active Directory
Microsoft Exchange 2000 and 2003
Microsoft IIS
Microsoft Office 2000
WebCT
HP Inkjet Printers
SmoothWall
Canon Photocopiers (incl. network printing)