Support Services and User Training

Technology training for faculty and staff is more effective when it is based on instructional design principles. This presentation will show how three principles were used to guide training efforts and achieve positive results during a course management system change at Samford University.

Learn a lot fast! This series of five-minute presentations will provide overviews of interesting, innovative, and timely work in user services. Each session will also be shared as a poster later today, giving you a chance to explore the topic more deeply and speak with the presenters.

24 x 7 x 365 Anywhere in the World: Creating an Executive IT Support Unit
Momi Ford, Executive IT Support Manager, Indiana University
When executives have IT needs, the highest level of support available anytime, anywhere keeps them productive. See how Indiana Universitys Executive IT Support unit makes this possible.

Emergency Texts: A Reality Check
John C. Borne, University Information Systems, Louisiana State University
LSU will report on a test of its emergency text-messaging system. This session will examine the strengths and weaknesses of text messaging in an emergency notification package and managing community expectations.

Infusing Academic Support into the Online Environment: A Pilot Program
Craig Lamb, Empire State College SUNY
Empire State Colleges Center for Distance Learning recently launched the Academic Assistance Tutorial System, an online instructor-initiated early warning system. This session will describe its past and planned development and self-paced learning modules.

Lessons from Running a Mega Lab: A Student Outreach Program to Embrace Collaboration and Learning
Sheri Stahler, Temple University
Running a 24 x 7 computer lab and help desk with 700 seats and 6,000 visitors daily meant looking at operations on a megascale. Computer Services adapted to run the TECH Center efficiently.

Maximize Enterprise Productivity by Implementing a Total Cost of Ownership Methodology
Ronan Glynn, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Empirical evidence illustrates that procedurally managing hardware life cycles is strategically superior to a system of ad hoc replacements. Intangibles like industry reputation and risk mitigation are perhaps the greatest advantages.

Using Instructional Design to Shape Technology Training
Lisa McNeal, Samford University
Technology training for faculty and staff is more effective when based on instructional design principles. This presentation will show how three principles guided training to achieve positive results at Samford University.

Who Will Be the Next Rock Star?
Kimberly Brookes, Simmons College
To educate students on the academic and personal consequences of downloading and sharing files illegally, Technology at Simmons sponsors Simmons Rockstar, which combines education on copyright with a karaoke contest.

It is often difficult for IT organizations to acquire, evaluate, and support new technologies before users bring them to campus. This session will discuss how MIT created and implemented a support plan for Mac OS X 10.5 that supported early adopters, without having had access to the final version of the software.

UMB and MCCC will present their end-user training plans from blueprinting to maintenance and support. Learn about two different efforts to develop online resources and delivery tools that have led to reduced maintenance and effort for the training teams, lower cost, and more effective end-user support.

In today's world, technology resources can be overwhelming to the end user. Penn State Hazleton has created training programs and resources that allow users to grow and create their own technology-enhanced environment.

We frequently expect that users will flock to our services with little effort on our part. Sometimes that works. When it doesn't, this presentation may help. It will describe how UNC-Chapel Hill rolled out a new computer-based training service with a dramatic increase in the number and variety of users.

All campuses struggle to provide computing support and training with limited resources. The wide disparity of computing skills among campus employees and the constantly changing software environment pose additional difficulties, as staff must constantly learn and adapt to new features and interfaces. The Technology Liaison Program at Washington and Lee University was developed to address the need to equip staff and faculty across campus with appropriate computing skills in a cost-effective manner.