While OIT staff are not teaching in classrooms every day, our efforts have an impact. Even in the midst of a pandemic, we connected with students at virtual Camp War Eagle sessions to help set them up for technological success before classes ever started. The IT Service Desk provides hands-on education to student employees and facilitates education for students with technical questions, whether in person or via chat, email, phone call, or Zoom Room. Campus Web Solutions also provides hands-on education to co-op students who design and build websites and web applications. And our Multimedia and Classroom team provide the in-class technology that allows students to learn in an environment that promotes engagement and growth.
The IT Service Desk is primarily run by 4 full-time staff who are assisted by 22-25 students throughout the year. The Service Desk provides hands-on education to student employees as they work with the staff to respond to tens of thousands of requests every year. Those requests are made up of phone calls, emails, chat sessions, online service requests, and walk-in visitors.
In 2020, the service desk also introduced a temporary new method of support in the form of a Zoom Room which allowed these students and full-time staff to continue working seamlessly during remote operations and respond to nearly 25,000 requests for assistance throughout the year.
Campus Web Solutions, or CWS, is a team of six co-op students who work for the Application Development Team within OIT. Each year, these students are tasked with a variety of projects that allow them hands-on experience while providing an excellent service for the campus.
In 2020, CWS students had to adjust to working remotely while also doing remote classwork. They managed that change seamlessly and were able to work on several major projects including a redesign of the Auburn School of Nursing website, the migration of hosted sites to a cloud-based solution, and several COVID-specific projects for the Auburn Pharmacy and Campus Events Planning.
By way of contribution to the education that takes place in classrooms, the Multimedia & Classroom Design (MMCD) group works year-round to repair and update existing classrooms and outfit new buildings with the necessary technology. 2020 provided this team a unique opportunity to ramp up the speed and efficiency on updates and repairs. While most classes were taking place remotely, MMCD worked through the pandemic to make sure classrooms were outfitted with the technology necessary to allow for remote learning and took the chance to run upgrades on many other rooms while not in use.
In addition to the classroom buildings, the MMCD group also worked on a campus-wide signage system upgrade, a series of suites within Jordan-Hare Stadium, a new band room, upgrades to the Auburn Airport board room, a migration of all campus cable TV to Dish Network, design work on several new buildings on campus, and many other projects.
As mentioned above, OIT staff are not in the classrooms every day, but the Office of Information Technology was integral to maintaining the effectiveness of student education during the alternate operations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the outstanding efforts include:
| Education Numbers At A Glance |
|---|
| 80 classrooms upgraded to HD systems |
| 102 classrooms received capture technology to support remote learning |
| 1.4 million dollars of CARES Act funding allotted to upgrade another 177 rooms |
| 24,957 assistance requests fielded by the IT Service Desk |
| 82% of IT Service Desk calls were resolved on the first request |
Last Updated: March 04, 2021
