Information Services

Mission Statement

The Department of Information Services' purpose is to support effective teaching and learning, as well as provide an innovative technology environment including robust network infrastructure, secure information processing infrastructure, and quality computing services to students, faculty, and staff.

General Information

The LSCO data network that supports the various learning avenues consists of approximately 800 nodes. These 800 nodes are distributed across eleven (11) buildings within the campus and one (1) remote site. Twelve (12) student computer labs are used for instruction, four (4) open access labs along with the Learning and Testing Centers. The LSCO server environment consists of 9 physical servers on campus running a mix of Windows (Hyper-V) and VMWare, hosting over 40 Windows and Linux virtual machines. The servers provide application, file storage, print, email, and web services. The Microsoft Azure cloud provides off-site hosting for various services, including student, faculty, and staff email (Microsoft 365) and data storage for backups. The institution has 802.11 wireless access points across the campus that provide wireless access in all institutional buildings and limited outside open space coverage. Internet access is provided through the use of a 1GB connection to the Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN) with 200MB of Internet access and a redundant 100MB connection through Time Warner/Spectrum.

LSCO currently has approximately 30+ instructional classrooms that have audio/visual stations installed. These audio/visual stations include projection systems or LCD displays, DVD/VCR, visual presenter and computer with internet access.

The software applications supported include; but are not limited to office technology, pharmacy, dental office, doctor's office, CLEP testing, Microsoft certification testing, various allied health study applications, programming, administrative computing and PGP applications.

The administrative computing resources are provided and maintained by Ellucian using Amazon Web Services storage. The administrative computing consists of student records, financial records, human resources information and library catalog services. The connection to the administrative computer system from on campus is via point-to-point VPN. The VPN operates over the LSCO Internet connection(s). Connection to Gator Self-Service is available from any Internet connected web device and is secured through SSL.

The Information Services staff consists of eight (8) full-time employees. These employees provide the support for all technology resources on the LSCO campus.