While OIT staff are not teaching in classrooms every day, our efforts have an impact. Even during 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. Campus Web Solutions also provides hands-on education to co-op students who design and develop web applications. And our Campus Audiovisual Systems 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 2021, the Service Desk's most requested support topics were:
Campus Web Solutions (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 2021, CWS students developed and enhanced some very high-visibility applications, including the Board of Trustees election site to fill three vacancies, transform a vaccination scheduling application to replace the aged Healthy Tigers application, and Ticket Transfer for special events. Most notably, CWS worked with the Harrison School of Pharmacy to create the application used for COVID-19 initiatives, including Sentinel Testing, Contact Tracing, and Vaccinations. For this effort, OIT won the President's Outstanding Collaborative Units Award.
The Campus Audiovisual Systems (CAVS) group continues to work year-round repairing and updating existing classrooms and outfitting new buildings with necessary audiovisual technology. In 2021, the group completed 130 projects and resolved 1,420 issues. The projects included 97 classrooms receiving CARES funding to enhance course capture capability, including 45 classrooms in Haley Center, nine classrooms in Davis Hall, six classrooms in both Broun Hall and the Student Activities Center, and four classrooms in both Miller Hall and the Forestry building. Other significant projects included enabling video-over-IP content distribution for 26 classrooms in Lowder Hall, digital signage projects in Haley Center, O.D. Smith Hall, and the OIT Building, and completing the audiovisual systems for the new Central Dining facility. The combined budget for these projects was $2.8M. The CAVS group was also heavily involved in the design and initial installation of audiovisual systems in the new Academic Classroom and Lab Complex and the Rane Culinary Sciences Center, which are both still under construction.
OIT and the Biggio Center for the Advancement of Teaching & Learning partnered on a project to encourage faculty to implement innovative teaching methodologies in their courses using virtual and extended reality. The project solicited proposals from faculty and awarded $192K to six faculty members who will first introduce their innovations in courses taught during the Spring and Fall 2022 semesters.
Last Updated: March 30, 2022
| Education Numbers at a Glance |
|---|
| $192K awarded for teaching with virtual and augmented reality |
| 130 CAVS projects completed |
| $2.8 million of CARES Act funding allotted to upgrade another 97 rooms |
| 31,235 assistance requests fielded by the IT Service Desk |
| 86.37% first call resolution rate by the IT Service Desk |
