By Justin Boyle
Each passing year in education brings with it a host of technological innovations, and it’s fair to say that just adjusting to online course content, BYOD classrooms, e-textbooks and other high-flying edtech concepts is plenty for students, educators and administrators to handle. There is a hidden side to all this reliance on technology in education, however—only a small percentage of people on any given campus actually know how any of it works.
The plight of the beleaguered IT department is an old joke among, well, IT departments, but it’s true that a special brand of professional pressure comes along with maintaining complex systems whose users are rarely—if ever—counted on to understand how they work. Campus IT personnel do tend to manage their enterprise networks without a great deal of undue trouble, but students on today’s tech-focused campuses are seeing course content sometimes moved off the enterprise network and provided to students on their personal devices. Let’s take a look at some contemporary setbacks in university IT and a few ways the department might be able to make itself more available to students who need support.
A Problem of Responsibility
Eric Figueroa, a university helpdesk technician in Texas, helped put the IT side of things in perspective: “It’s hard to know what might be causing the issue,” he said. “If you’re using your own tablet or laptop to access university content, it might be on our end and it might be in the device. If you’re accessing the campus network remotely, then the issue might be your own networking hardware, your ISP, or what have you. Some issues might be cut and dry, but we’ve got plenty to do just supporting the stuff we administrate.”
He also said that it’s typically not impossible for IT pros to diagnose issues across such a wide range of potential causes. There just may not be enough specialty training in a university’s IT workforce for technicians to confidently support every possible issue. Uninformed tech support, he said, has as much of a chance to make matters worse as it does to correct them.
There’s another aspect of responsibility that stands in the way of university IT departments being in the best position to help students: faculty and staff support. University helpdesks typically have their hands full with requests from hundreds of university employees, who tend to be their first priority. The amount of big data on campus these days can require quite a bit of information technology support to keep everything running smoothly.
Some universities have hotlines set up specifically for students, but they’re by no means ubiquitous and they may have abbreviated hours or a limited scope of support. Online schools are actually ahead of the curve on this one—many online universities offer 24-7 technical support to their students. It may only be a matter of time before brick-and-mortar schools catch up in that regard, but for now it may be necessary to think outside the box to come up with an effective solution.
Crowdsourcing IT Support
There are a couple of ways that universities might address the IT support gap. Hiring more IT personnel would be the easiest one to suggest, although that’s probably not the most expedient course of action. There’s also the option of restricting student access to a list of approved devices, but that may ratchet up the cost of student supplies, which is already a touchy issue on many campuses.
But what if IT departments could run student-staffed services, like the centers for on-demand tutoring that some campuses already use? What if administrators allowed tech-savvy students to volunteer or work-study as helpdesk specialists after passing a competency exam for a specific device or service? One consequence of the tech invasion on campuses and everywhere is that everyday people are taking the initiative to learn the finer points of the technologies they use, which produces a fairly significant untapped resource of tech knowledge. That resource could likely be used to good ends, if approached responsibly.
Helpdesk staff could consult with the student specialists, or students could visit them directly if, say, their tablet won’t boot and they need the notes on it for tomorrow’s exam. Particularly dedicated volunteers could even set up accounts on social media services that display their support availability, making it possible for night owls to work the late shift and rescue their peers from 11th-hour tech meltdowns. Some students might even enjoy it.
Helping Them Help Themselves
As nice as it may be to think of a small army of students providing on-demand tech support for the good of the school, there may be even easier ways to help university IT departments help students. For instance, students in technical writing and other language arts programs could be commissioned to create troubleshooting worksheets in plain English, so professors can hand them out to students in tech-enhanced classes.
There’s also the suggestion that Eric provided, although it may have been tongue-in-cheek:
“Just teach them how to use Google,” he said. “Just find a working computer and ask Google. You’ll find an answer to just about any trouble you’re having, if you know how to look. We do it around the office all the time.”
Maybe that’s how university IT departments can best help students—teach them how to make better use of freely available resources. As long as they’re comfortable giving up their big trade secret, that is.
About the Author:
Justin Boyle is a writer and journalist living in Austin, Texas. He is a contributor to several websites, including OnlineSchools.com.