faculty support services at oakland university. who am i? shaun moore, manager of support services....

Faculty Support Services at Oakland University

Who am I?Shaun Moore, Manager of

Support Services. samoore@oakland.edu

My primary job here is supporting the various teaching with technology tools we have.

Employed at OU for about 8 years.

Obtained my undergraduate degrees from OU in English and French.

What teaching with technology tools are you using?

e-LIS ToolsMoodle – OU’s Learning

Management System, an open source platform.

ePortfolio – A second instance of Moodle used for a portfolio system.

Scantron – Scoring Scantron sheets using the ParSCORE software.

Elluminate – Online conferencing software, used as a virtual classroom for online courses.

Second Life – Virtual 3D world that OU has purchased an island on.

i>clicker – Student Response System software.

MoodleMoodle is integrated with Banner, our

student information system (SIS).Everyone logs in with their OU NetID, which

is their email name and password.All courses are created one month ahead of

time. Every course has a Moodle presence, so no requesting is required.

Teachers have access to Moodle one month before semester starts.

Students gain access one week before semester starts.

ePortfolioAlso integrated with Banner, but no courses

on this server.Everyone logs in with their OU NetID.Every student and faculty have a portfolio

“course” created for them.Guest access can be given to anyone to view

the porfolios of the students and faculty.Other groups have spaces on this server as

well, such as committees and departments for meetings and file sharing.

ScantronScantron machines work with ParSCORE

software.No integrated with Banner, so separate

accounts must be created.Courses are created by the faculty when they

scan each semester.Used for test, assessment and couse

evaluations.Integration with our in house course

evaluation system.

ElluminateProvides a real-time, video-conferencing

classroom environment.OU users log in with their OU NetID. Outside

users can be given access as well.OU has an unlimited seat license, allowing us

to do things like virtual office hours.Sessions are created either in Moodle for the

courses or via a web form.

Second LifeHosted by Linden Labs, users

create accounts through Second Life’s web site.

OU purchased an island on the Second Life server, and we hold virual classes there.

Areas can be designated private for class needs.

Decent video card and RAM needed to run.

i>clickerPrevious to purchasing

i>clicker, OU supported multiple Student Response Systems (SRS).

i>clicker software is installed on the machine itself, or on a USB drive, making it difficult to keep everyone up to date.

There is no integration with Banner, but grades can be imported into Moodle.

What are you doing to support your teaching with technology tools?

e-LIS StaffThere are five full time faculty here, and two

student employees.Though we’re all technically support staff,

the main line of support consists of myself, Nic as my backup, and the two student employees.

With that number we support the few thousand full and part time faculty we have, and the some 17,000 students.

e-LIS Face to Face SupportWalk-ins are welcome from 8-5 Monday-

Friday.Faculty Lab – 8 computers for faculty use.

Can walk in and work and get one of our support staff if they have questions.

Media Lab – A new PC and Mac are in the Media Lab, used for recording help documents or lectures using tools like Camtasia, Visual Communicator and iMovie.

e-Learning Lab – Our 24 seat computer lab where we hold workshops for all of the different applications we support.

e-LIS Phone and Online SupportPhone support 8-5 Monday-

Friday. Nights and weekends support for Elluminate through Classroom Support department.

Made custom web forms that offer 24/7 support* for the different tools we have.

Integrated the help forms into Moodle and ePortfolio.

Created an application that allows us to manage the help forms.

online@oakland.eduAll help forms and communications through

the e-LIS Manager go through a single email address we have – online@oakland.edu.

Everyone in our department is sent a copy of what is sent through online@oakland.edu to their individual OU email account.

Responses that go through that are seen by everyone, so we’re not answering people two and three times if people forget to carbon copy their answers.

Gmail FiltersNot everything that

comes to me from online@oakland.edu deals with help issues. Filters are necessary to keep my inbox organized.

The email that is generated by the forms is really only a reminder, as there is always the record of it in the manager.

e-LIS Manager

e-LIS Manager ArchitectureColdFusion for the

web application.MS SQL for the

back end database.

Manager and FormsEach box on the manager’s home page has a

form on our site that users can fill out for specific help. We’re currently using the following forms:Moodle

Request Help Development Courses Faculty Test Accounts Archives Combined Courses Course Sharing Permission Faculty Guest Accounts Faculty Improvement Suggestions

ePortfolio Request Help Request a Space

Scantron Course Evaluation Header

Sheets Order FormElluminate

Request Help Scheduling Request

Second Life Request Help

i>clicker Roster File Request

Moodle Help Screen

Helpful FeaturesAutomated Messages - Pre-generated

answers to our most asked questions.Automated Responses – Certain forms allow

for automated responses, such as combined courses and i>clicker roster file requests.

Moodle Integration – Allows us to combine courses and create them automatically in Moodle.

Reports and Statistics – For all requests in system.

Knowledgebase – Complied information on processes and documentation for e-LIS.

Web site and FAQ Management

e-LIS Helpdesk Statistics

About 9,000 help requests since 2001.

Elluminate Desktop ControlElluminate can be used as a powerful

helpdesk tool, thanks to the desktop control feature.

You can get a user to join a session and request desktop control. Elluminate works with PC, Mac and Linux, so it won’t matter what OS you have and what OS they have.

Future of OU HelpCompletion of general help landing page,

including an FAQ and links to help forms.Further integration with Moodle and e-LIS

Manager.Online chat help using either Elluminate or

TinyChat that will allow us to support users who wish to quickly get onto our site and get help. Both programs support screen sharing, a vital part of helping us to see what the problem is.

Questions / Comments