As a follow-up to the Round Table discussion at Central Michigan
University, we have put together a web site to help coordinate future
collaboration between University Help Desks and Avante.
After that
Round Table discussion, I had an opportunity to speak with representatives
from several institutions. Everyone I spoke with expressed a desire to share
information and collaborate on future projects.
The site features a
variety of message boards and a live chat room (with the intention of
facilitating discussion on technical problems real time).
In my
opinion, one of the biggest challenges University Help Desks face is a lack
of staff and resources, leaving Help Desk management and staff little time
for anything but getting their day-to-day work accomplished. Large Help
Desks in Industry have the resources to hire several subject matter experts,
and then direct problems to a person with the proper expertise. In education
our staff is small, so inevitably we're expected to be experts on
everything. By combining the resources of several Universities, we
essentially gain the resources of a single large Help Desk.
I
honestly believe that with a large amount of participation, and some time
invested upfront, collaboration between Universities will inevitably lead to
value added to all our institutions, without any additional costs. In my
experience, providing technical support in an education environment is
similar across the board, which means a large percentage of what we all do
is probably duplicated effort.
Imagine teams from several
universities working together to create knowledge bases, internal training
programs, and end-user self-help documentation. Imagine a resource where you
can tap the combined knowledge of several (perhaps even hundreds some day)
when researching more complicated technical issues.
As a University
Help Desk Manager myself, I understand how hectic things get, and I can
certainly sympathize with how busy you must all be. I recognize that it will
be difficult to get the ball rolling, but I encourage you all to make the
time and start talking. At this point, I don't even think the subject
matters (we could even start by venting our frustrations). What matters is
that we start communicating. If we can do that, I believe that productive
discussion will happen naturally.
If you are in agreement, and think
there is potential here for all our institutions to benefit through
collaboration, the site is listed below. This is the first announcement for
the site, so there hasn't been any discussion yet. I encourage everyone to
ask a question, bring up an issue; basically just start
communicating:
http://www.roundtable.cmich.edu/-Jeffrey McDowell, Central Michigan
University