September 24, 2018

2018 Spring Technology Survey Recap

We want to thank all who took the time to provide constructive feedback on the IT survey that was sent out last spring semester. Below we have outlined some initiatives that came out of that feedback.

Helpdesk Support

- There were many positive comments around helpdesk support but also a number of comments that suggested room for improvement:

Student training and standardized procedures. Student training starts with standard procedures that the can easily be looked up to provide solutions so we are working on updating all of the HD procedures and bringing them into our SharePoint intranet which provides a rich search capability and allows helpdesk students to quickly find established procedures.
More professional staff presence. We have relocated the helpdesk manager’s office closer to the helpdesk and we have a new work station in the helpdesk area where the Client Services manager will be spending time as well as a regular rotation of all IT staff.
Coverage in main student lab. We have shifted the responsibility to support in the primary student computer lab in Swenson Hall to the helpdesk team and will be providing coverage during peak usage times.

Classroom Technology- We saw many comments around classroom technologies and here are some initiatives we will be working on this academic year:

Weekly manual checks- We are going to have our student employee’s manually check all the campus technology classrooms at least once a week.
Software needs of Faculty – We are going to reach out to ADA’s, Chairs and Faculty weeks before the start of each semester to ask what software needs there are for the coming semester. We will also be standardizing our classroom software images and are working to delay those automatic software updates to run during overnight hours.
Classroom technology training - We will be offering one on one and group training before the start of each semester as well as working with HR to provide opportunities during on-boarding of new teachers.
Aging Equipment- We are dealing with aging equipment across the campus and the lack of functionality to monitor that equipment remotely and proactively . The broader questions is what should a technology enable classroom look like in the coming years? This academic year we will be forming a cross functional team that teams with CETL and other stakeholders to review that question and create a plan to move us forward.

Communication, Training and Outreach – Lots of comments about the ticketing system emails and training ideas:

Working on an upgrade to the ticketing system software - We will be upgrading to a new version and will be streamlining the communications that come out of that system
New IT training and outreach position – We will be hiring a full time staff member who will be responsible to coordinate our IT outreach activities including providing in-person campus training and software support with an emphasis on the Office 365 suite and to provide training when major upgrades occur.
Establish a monthly newsletter - We have created “Tech Talk” as way to share tips and tricks for daily use of the technology, safe computing strategies and announcements of coming IT changes.