The changing of the guard: a case study of change in computing

摘要

Change, in the context of computing environments, can assume a number of forms, varying widely in nature and degree. At Tulane University, Tulane Computing Services initiated a significant change in the Office of the President of the University: the existing system of stand-alone MS-DOS microcomputers was replaced by a Macintosh local area network complete with laser printing, mainframe communications, and shared file access. In this instance, the director of the department (the President of the University) directed that the change take place, and the central computing organization and the President's office staff worked together to accomplish the transition to the new computing environment. The change was effected with minimal disruption to the department's operations.