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45 Teaching Our Customers to Help Themselves: The Resource Desk as the next step in the evolution of the Help Desk Environment
Cynthia
Burdick, Texas A&M University
In the beginning Help Desk support was directed towards Mainframe Programming, which included interpreting error messages and debugging JCL. Our focus today is on providing support for a multitude of software, including presentation software and equipment, as well as web page design and email support. The Student Computing Center at Texas A & M University has over 500 PCs with 24-hour access during the week. Three classrooms with state of the art Proxima Projectors are available to the students and faculty for use. In providing support for our customers we walk the very thin line of Academic Dishonesty. One way to avoid stepping over that line is to help our customers learn to help themselves by using on line help, manuals and handouts. This is an evolving process of educating our customers and our staff. To help facilitate this evolution in the help desk environment we have implemented a Resource Desk, a stand-alone area in the lab, which provides our customers with handouts, manuals and equipment for check out and support. This paper will outline the evolution of our change in support focus, as well as the development and implementation of our Resource Desk.
Keywords: student workers, Resource Desk, Academic dishonesty, evolving help desk environment, support