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