I had the opportunity to visit our colleagues at Oregon Health and Sciences University in
Portland recently. We compared notes on how we use and support the institutions'
course management systems, which happens to be Sakai for both of us.
OHSU's
Academic Technology group fields basic technical issues
(log in problems, etc.) via phone and email, as we do. All OHSU Acad Tech
team members, including their leader, director Dr. Tom Boudrot, cover the helpline and inbox during the day, and all take
turns carrying a pager so they can offer extended hours, 7 days a week.
OHSU defers the heavy lifting on technical matters to a third party. This allows their team to focus on working with faculty members to build
instructionally-sound courses.The scope of our technical support is much broader.
The fact that everyone on the OHSU team, including the hard-core
technical guy is an experienced educator lends a decidedly different feel
to their support model. The focus is more on using technology to support instructional design instead of system maintenance.
The common element between OHSU's Academic Technology group and our Academic Technology Services group is the emphasis on providing excellent customer service. Tom's comments on the importance of meeting their customers' needs could easily have come from one of our team meetings.
If you're interested in more about IT customer service, you'll want to view Gary Kidney's slides, "Understanding Users and Transforming IT to Deliver."
Pictured above: Mountain stream just outside Portland, Oregon
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