User Technical Support

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1379] User Technical Support
From: Tim Ponder (tponder_at_archon.educ.kent.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 13 2004 - 09:14:09 EDT

Debra's message regarding maintenance led me to think of user technical support, another area sometimes overlooked in planning and budgeting.

For those who have participated in online courses:

  • Did you have access to support for questions relating to usability or technical problems?
  • Did you feel the support you received was sufficient?
  • Do you have any recommendations, as a user, for those providing the support for online courses?

For those providing online courses:

  • How do you handle both instructor and end user technical support?
  • How time consuming do you find this?
  • Do you have any recommendations on what has worked or what has not?

thank you,
tim -- Tim Ponder
Ohio Literacy Resource Center/Midwest LINCS
tponder_at_literacy.kent.edu
865-637-7074
http://www.midwestlincs.org

Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1380] Technical Support
From: Hale, Lydia (lhale_at_lhup.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 13 2004 - 10:02:26 EDT

I would like to answer Tim Ponder's question regarding how providers of online courses handle technical support questions. At the West Brach Technology Center, where ABLE Academy is located, we use Blackboard for our online courses. We currently use Blackboard through a strategic alliance with Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania (LHU).

The participant contacts the instructor about any problems. If the instructor cannot answer the question, the instructor will contact the instructional designer. From there, if the question cannot be answered, our contact with LHU will be asked the question. If she cannot answer it Blackboard is contacted by the LHU contact.

When a technical problem does happen and it is resolved, the participant is contacted as soon as possible. Once that contact is made the rest of the online instructors and instructional designers are sent an e-mail explaining the problem and the solution.

This process is really not time consuming and most problems are esolved within 24 hours. This process has worked so far.

Lydia

Lydia Hale
CNEPDC Coordinator
(570)893-4038
lhale_at_lhup.edu

www.wbtc.ciu10.com/cnepdc

Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1381] Re: User Technical Support
From: JHAM5325_at_aol.com
Date: Tue Apr 13 2004 - 10:24:43 EDT

In a message dated 4/13/2004 8:13:55 AM Central Standard Time, tponder@archon.educ.kent.edu writes:

For those providing online courses:
  • How do you handle both instructor and end user technical support?
  • How time consuming do you find this?
  • Do you have any recommendations on what has worked or what has not?

We offered several online courses via Blackboard for elementary school teachers. These courses used Blackboard, interactive web sites and interactive CDs. Initially, the facilitators provided step by step instructions to students on the first day of class in a group setting at a computer lab location. This worked well unless there were extremes of computer experience within the group, such as very beginners and pros. However, some of the pros then helped the very beginners, so that worked out well in the end, but not always. Prior to this we also provided in person step by step instructions for the course facilitators, some who had very little computer experience. This was pretty effective, but they needed refreshers and help with all those quirks that seem to surface after the class is up and running. That's when we decided to create very detailed support guides.

We provided separate detailed student and instructor technical support guides that included step by step instructions along with screen shots that demonstrated each step. We also provided online instructions and help along with details on downloading various programs that were needed for the courses. We provided phone support, which worked well as long as the student or instructor were sitting at their computer and could follow along while we walked them through what they needed to do.

For the most part, the support guides did the trick, unless a student was using an older computer or older version of various supporting software or had absolutely no computer skills. One problem we ran into was that teachers had access to one type of operating system and computer with certain software at school and then at home they had a different version of the operating system and a different computer and software. We were using Quicktime and had to work through the quirks.

We found that very patient and positive phone support was effective with students who had no computer skills, because we helped them get through the hesitation and then get moving with the course as they overcame their fears and learned that they could follow the directions and the computer steps correctly and get things to work. The technical support took approximately 10 hours per week (depending on the amount of students and courses you are running) in the beginning of the courses and then tapered off after students got started and felt comfortable. The time consuming part was creating the detailed support guides and then testing those guides to make sure we covered all of the steps. However, these were well worth creating as the feedback we received was very positive and resulted in less dependence on phone support.

Jackie Hamlett
Adult Literacy and Technology Consultant

Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1383] Re: User Technical Support
From: Eunice Askov (ena1_at_psu.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 14 2004 - 11:28:33 EDT

Tim, you raise some really good questions. Technical support for online course development and delivery is extremely important. I'm not sure I would venture into online delivery if we didn't have Penn State's World Campus technical support. Students can email or call them day or night at no charge. It is not uncommon for them to spend hours with some people helping them with technical problems or configuring their computer to use our learning management system (ANGEL). [The World Campus also handles registration, initial advising, financial aid, etc. so that the faculty can focus on teaching and advising master's degree students! In our Certificate in Family Literacy <www.worldcampus.psu.edu/pub/famlt/> they handle all of the logistics of a certificate program.] Without technical support I can only imagine that offering an online course would be very difficult. Nickie Askov

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