REACH

Type in your netid, and we'll lookup your department and find your REACH members: (If you are off-campus, you'll have to authenticate to use this search.)

Or you can also use the following form to get a department listing that will have REACH members, PBContacts, and other departmental contacts.

Resident Experts Are Convenient Help is a group of departmental members who are willing to advise their colleagues on computer matters. A member might be faculty, staff, or student; he or she might be employed for computer support, or might be a volunteer. But all members have agreed to share their knowledge with their colleagues, and if they don't know an answer, to at least point people to the appropriate computer center consultant.

If you have a computer question, particularly about local connections or services, by all means consult your departmental REACH member. But please don't ask REACH members from other departments. Many REACH members are not paid to do computer support, and they have other lives.

REACH is not a replacement for CSO or consult@uic.edu. But sometimes there are more difficult questions, perhaps about installation or configuration of programs, or upcoming policy changes, or new software, that are better handled by asking your friendly neighborhood REACH member. For this reason, all REACH'ers are asked to attend a 1-day mini-conference each year where they are brought up to date on changes at the Academic Computing and Communications Center. Also, each REACH'er has access to a private LISTSERV list, to ask other REACH members and ACCC staff members for advice. They are quite willing to ask questions on your behalf, if the question is not appropriate for consult@uic.edu.

An additional, important function of REACH is to allow the ACCC to keep in better contact with departmental needs. If your computing needs are changing, or if you find yourself seeking new options, the REACH'ers will let us know that our support focus must change, also.

Each department head was asked to nominate someone to join REACH. Most departments have one member, although a few active (computer-wise) departments have two. If your department doesn't have a REACH member, your department head (and possibly some others) can appoint one, directly on the web. Please see who is authorized to appoint REACH members:

REACH Internal Page