Teaching old dogs new tricksThe evolution of the OUCS Help Centre

Lou Burnard, OUCS

Making IT work for the University?

I’m trying to

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Organizational change: the pattern

Computing laboratory– Research facility for some specific academic departments

Computing Service– Nationally-funded mainframe for the whole university

Computing Services– Machine-defined services (ICL, VAX, ermine…) – Functionally defined services (micros, archival storage,

humanities, typesetting… ) clustering around these– Research oriented services and facilities

Strategic push towards distribution of services

Good news: wider range of expertise and a richer variety of services

Bad news: duplication of effort , risk of contradiction, drowning in data…

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Duplication of effort: for example

Where do I go to ask for help about OUCS ?– Local Support Staff– Advisory Service– Registration Desk– PC Consultancy– Learning and Resource Centre– Centre for Humanities Computing

Aren’t these all doing much the same thing?– Well, yes and no…

Will these all give me the same advice?– errr, probably

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A reminder

University policy is to devolve support to colleges, departments, divisions

As a centrally funded department, OUCS has to consider the needs of the whole University

This means we urgently need– to respond to changes in the pattern of use– to simplify access to our services

By end-users By support staff

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Access facilities

Modes– Walk-in face-to-face consultation– Telephone– Email– Web

Finding the right person Asking the right question

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Wouldn’t it be nice if there was…

An integrated knowledge-base of expertise Single point of contact for front-line walk-in

support, coupled to learning access-points Single automated point of contact for

telephone enquiry Single method of sharing, tracking, resolving

email queries

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The Advisory Services Review Process

October 2001: Helpdesk software procurement abandoned: implementation of low cost alternative begins

November 2001: Internal “stake-holder” discussions (with ITSS representation)

– Staffing, telephone service, training, facilities, email Timetable

– January: Detailed proposals for a unified Front office endorsed at OUCS SMG

– February: implementation begins– April: Help Centre opens

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At the same time…

Internal reorganization of OUCS Four major groups

– Infrastructure Services– Technical Services Group– Information and Support Group– Learning Technologies Group

Repositioning and reprioritization of all services

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OUCS Help Centre

New walk-in service at Banbury Road 0830 -2030 support for

– all OUCS front-end services basic computing queries basic registration queries administrative enquiries

– direct access to self-help materials, books, videos…– specialist equipment (scanners, multimedia…)

Cybercafe-style access to facilities

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Telephone access

Automated attendant installed by University Telecomms

Help centre calls are routed to four pickup points

Seems to be functioning well But email is the new telephone:

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/feedback/

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Email Services

The preferred route for advice and support Hoorah for request tracker!

– Substantial R&D investment is now paying off– Integration with registration data via LDAP – Logging and monitoring of all services

Involves all staff at some level

http://www.bestpractical.com/rt

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OUCS Help Centre

Who does it?– Two fulltime managers– Two rotas

Registration staff, operators, demonstrators Expert advisors from all parts of OUCS

– Volunteers welcome! What’s in it for ITSS?

– Single point of contact– All queries are monitored and tracked– Complements distributed services

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Consultancy Services

The OUCS virtual “back office”– Services all queries from RT– Buck-stops-here queries– Directly accessible for ITSS– Gives specialist advice by appointment

Who does it?– All OUCS staff, potentially– An extension to itss-discuss

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Desktop systems consultancy

Hardware and software By appointment only May become chargeable (Fixed quota for Undergraduates) Need for university-wide agreement on

systems supported

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Who can use it?

Anyone with a valid University card What, even undergraduates?

– OUCS withdrew eligibility for support from all undergraduates in 1995

– This led to a marked improvement in provision of IT support by colleges and departments…

– …and a decline in demand for support from OUCS to the point where it is uneconomic to make the distinction!

It is the OUCS front window

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Where does it fit?

Information and Support Group components– Research Technologies Service– Information Services– ITS3– Registration and Databases

Gateway to complementary OUCS group activities

– Desktop Services and NSMS– Infrastructure Group– Learning Technologies Group

http://staff.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ISG

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Research Technologies Service

Services– Oxford eScience Centre,– Humbul Humanities Hub, Oxford Text Archive– British National Corpus, Text Encoding Initiative

Technologies– Corpus Linguistics– Computational analysis– Database technologies– Grid computing– Interoperability– Text encoding

Keeping in touch with the leading edge…

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Information Services Section

Integration of web sites Single XML source driving

– Web site – (with customizable styles)– Print documentation

RSS feed / alerting service

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ITS3

Promotes professional interests of IT support staff (training, awareness, lobbying…)

Informal communications channel and clearing house

OUCS has now allocated 2.5 staff full time to this activity, and will expand as demand and funding permit

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Database and Registration Sections

Development and maintenance of in-house database systems

Special expertise in University administrative structure

Work closely with Infrastructure in developing new technical solutions

Provide extensive “back-office” support to Help Centre

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How are we doing?

Steady flow of RT tickets over the week

Over 80% of all queries are resolved within a day

Majority of clients are University staff, senior members or postgrads (under 10% are undergraduates)

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Advisory (email) tickets by day of week

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Weds

Thurs

FriSat

Resolved

Created

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Tickets raised in last 6 weeks, by queue

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

w1 w2 w3 w4 w5 w6

Micros

Helpcentre

Registration

Advisory

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All tickets by enquirer (%)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Advisory

Micros

Helpcentre

Non-Oxford

Unknown

Visitor

Undergrad

Retired

College

Student

SeniorMem

Staff

Postgrad

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Password changes in May, by enquirer

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

HeraldErmine Tivoli Other

Non-Oxford

Unknown

Visitor

Undergrad

Retired

College

Student

SeniorMem

Staff

Postgrad

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What’s next?

New equipment to be installed over summer Training and recruitment exercise in the

autumn Work with ITSS to develop common university

policies– On support levels– On software and hardware– On building up the knowledgebase