About Residential Computing: Jobs: Residential Computing Associate

The RCA position provides students an opportunity to have a greater involvement in the strategic planning and oversight roles in Residential Computing and central staff the chance to leverage the experience and expertise of students. The strength of the ResComp program revolves around the committment and energy of the students. Drawing on as much student input as possible is essential to the continuing management and growth of the program.

Previously, the experience and expertise of RCCs with two or more years of experience (typically seniors or graduate students) were drawn upon volunteer work, or paying them extra for their efforts. In general, these tasks were performed in addition to their regular RCC duties. Projects in the past have included:

• Writing custom software for our specific needs, such as printing accounting and software license protection
• Training sessions, both at the beginning of the year, and on-going throughout the year
• Support of specific ResComp and/or RCC needs, such as PC or Mac training and support, Unix administration, and networking support.

Today, while current ResComp student staff can also serve as RCAs, the RCA position enables students to continue to be involved in the ResComp program beyond their years as RCCs, techs, or software developers.

Job Requirements and Responsibilities
The primary responsibility for the RCAs is to aid and assist in the more central support issues of ResComp. In addition, the RCAs work as more senior level consultants for the RCCs and central staff and on special projects in their area(s) of expertise. RCAs are expected to have strong verbal and written communication skills, be self-starting and detail oriented, be able to work independently and efficiently with minimal supervision, and work comfortably in a leadership role.

Current RCAs specialize in the following areas and have, but are not limited to the following responsibilities:

Desktop Support (2 positions)
Generally, the Desktop RCAs will work with one another to provide expert consulting and advice to RCCs by:

• Monitoring the RCC newsgroup and ensuring that all questions are answered
• Managing the RCC KnowledgeBase
• Providing guidance to RCCs as computer and network issues arise including:
  • Answering direct questions from RCCs
  • Accompanying RCCs to appointments with residents to assist in particularly difficult computer-related problems
• Providing and updating online documentation including the RCC Manual
• Planning and assisting in beginning of year training (must return for Fall RCC training)
• Planning and assisting in on-going training and RCC meetings

The Mac and PC RCAs report to the RCC Manager and typically have a work load of approximately 5 hours/week with potentially more hours at the beginning of the school year and during RCC training.

Systems Support (2 positions)
The Systems RCA team assists central staff in supporting ResComp servers and systems by:

• Maintaining servers and systems with necessary patches and software upgrades
• Installing and setting up new software, server features and hardware
• Monitoring for and responding to potential server and systems problems
• Aiding in exploring and deploying new ResComp intiatives that include server or system level requirements

The Systems RCA team reports to the Network and Systems Administrator and the Systems Software Developer and is usually composed of preferably two system administrators. In a team of two, each system administrator has a typical workload of about 8-10 hours/week; if there is only one, the typical workload is about 10-15 hours/week. The Systems RCA team is also expected to occasionally be available during weekend or evening hours to help with emergency situations.

Web Support
The Web RCA acts as assistant Webmaster (to the Systems Software Developer) and provides overall Web support by:

• Maintaining the ResComp Web site and performing necessary content updates
• Examining and improving overall usability, visual design and organization of the ResComp Web site
• Exploring and integrating new Web technologies for management and deployment of the ResComp Web site

The Web RCA team reports to the Systems Software Developer and has a typical workload of 5 hours/week.

Compensation
RCA compensation is keyed to the RCC salary and each RCA receives a salary proportional to expected workload:

Desktop RCA	50% graduate RCC salary
Systems RCA	75% graduate RCC salary
Web RCA	50% graduate RCC salary

Eligibility
RCAs will be selected from the pool of existing and previous ResComp student employees who express interest.

To be eligible for the position, you must meet the following requirements:

• You have worked for ResComp before as a tech, RCC or student developer

AND one of the following requirements:

• You will be an undergraduate RCC (dorm or Row) or graduate RCC for the same academic year to which you are applying to be an RCA
• You are an undergraduate student going through the draw
• You are a graduate student with an eligible year of housing

Procedure
If you meet the above requirements and are interested in an RCA position, please email a summary of your qualifications and why you want to be an RCA:

Desktop RCA	rccboss@rescomp.stanford.edu
Systems RCA	systems@rescomp.stanford.edu
Web RCA	development@rescomp.stanford.edu