X-Authentication-Warning: gnu.uvm.edu: jdion owned process doing -bs X-X-Sender: Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 10:11:17 -0400 Reply-To: Client Services Sender: Client Services From: "Jessica L. Dion" Organization: University of Vermont Subject: Re: [CLIENT_SERVICES] New Student Indoctrination To: CLIENT_SERVICES@LIST.UVM.EDU What perfect timing, Dean! The powerpoint workshops I recently gave in L/L provided me with a great opportunity to reconnect with students and get some ideas for future training and education. The students I worked with were very curious and had a ton of burning questions, few of which had anything to do with PowerPoint. :-) They didn't know where to go for answers. I would love to have been able to point them to our great web-based knowledge base or list of FAQs, or suggest that they come to our ongoing student workshops or open houses, but nothing like that exists. I found myself frustrated and amazed that we have training and development for staff, and the CTL for faculty, and -- nothing -- for students, our most important clients. They have some computer classes available, but many of them just want a 2 hour intense workshop, or a good web site with info, not a semester long commitment. One student I talked to thought the helpline was only for on-campus people. Another thought it was only for faculty and staff. Ack! CIT has have A LOT of room for improvement here. To answer your survey: > A quick survey for you: > > In working with students this year, would you say that: > > [a] Most students are getting all the key > information about computing at UVM > that they need to make good choices, > help themselves, get help, and take > advantage of everything we have to offer No way. Even many juniors and seniors I meet have no idea what their options are!! I met a spring semester sophomore who didn't even know how to check her Zoo e-mail! Granted, she certainly didn't try very hard to find the solution for that one, but still.. scary. I showed her how to change her password, and showed her webmail and pine. She fell in love with pine (I swear, I didn't bias her!) and was happy as a clam when I left. > [b] A few students are not hearing about: > > ____________________________________ > > ____________________________________ > > > [c] New students are so overwhelmed that > they miss much of what we try to tell > them True - the first month of classes is a bad time to teach much of anything, ironically. However, by mid-semester and certainly by spring semester, many students have a lot of burning computer-related questions and have no idea how to get them answered. Some of them see their peers doing things, and want more information but don't know where to go. I would target student education for mid-fall and early to mid-spring semesters. I also think RAs might be a great place to start. I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but when I was at UVM, students were encouraged to talk to their RA about just about anything.. use them as a resource. I don't think it's realistic to turn the RAs into geeks, but I do think it would be realistic to have some RA training that focused on answering students' most important questions, like "which e-mail program should I use?", "how do I make a UVM web page or move my geocities webpage to UVM?", "what cool things can I do on UVM's computers?", "what can I do to get to the UVM network when I move off campus?" etc. Hopefully they can just point students to our great web pages, but I think RAs should also at least know what CIT does and doesn't do, and the answers to some super-basic questions. Perhaps our new web pages will be good places to point students to, but I do think we need to have a little face time with them. The students I talked to didn't think they could call the helpline with questions like that, but once they found out that I was from CIT, they had questions pouring out of their ears. > [d] We really, really need to work harder to be sure students know about: I think we need to make sure students know about the services that UVM provides. Specifically: - Every student should know how to store their files on zoo from whatever platform they use. How much student time and energy is wasted when floppy disks are left in computer labs, damaged, lost, etc? It's stupid, especially now that many papers and presentations have images and won't fit on a floppy. Students should know that they can store their data on zoo and have it backed up nightly. They should know how to put it there, make sure it's private, and retrieve it. - Every student should be aware that they have several alternatives for checking e-mail. They should know that they can check e-mail from anywhere, if they want to. They should know that they can filter mail, forward mail, use vacation, and all that jazz. They should know that they have the option of using imap, if they want to access saved messages from anywhere. Hopefully the tech support intern this summer will create a web interface for the procmail program - this will help a lot, since making procmail rules is beyond most normal people. :-) - Every student should understand that they have space on our servers for web content. This is a place for their own web page, and also a place for sharing files that are too big to transfer via e-mail. They should know that they have control over whether their files are public or not. They should also know that they can password protect some parts of their web pages, if they choose to. - Every student should understand what the CIT Helpline will and will not help with. They should know what CIT's boundaries are, presuming that we have any. They should know that we will not say "I don't know" and hang up on them, but that we will not run over to their compaq presario and fix everything because they decided to delete winsock*.* (err, ok, maybe we will do that - ugh). Some students call the helpline at the drop of a hat, but others have these weird notions, like "it's only for faculty and staff" or "it's only if my computer is broken", or "only if I bought my computer at UVM" etc. Somehow, we need to lay the boundaries out so students clearly know what they can and can't ask. They should also know that they can ask CIT counselors in the labs for help. I'm not saying that every student should necessarily know how to do all of these things, but they should know that they are possible. The helpline and the counselors need to know how to do all of these things in detail, so they can help people who ask. I understand that there is a high rate of turnover in that population. I'd be happy to help with training - I think all of client services should help with training, to tell you the truth. Many of us would like to know the helpliners a little more, and as far as I see it, every time I teach a helpliner something, it saves me from answering the question dozens of times. I think it's sometimes easier for us to focus on helping and training faculty and staff than students because faculty and staff tend to stick around. Teaching students can be a frustrating experience, since they almost always leave after 4 years. It's really too bad that we have this impression, since really, UVM exists for the purpose of teaching students. It's certainly important for CIT to support the computing infrastructure here, but it's also important that students are aware of the services that we provide. Educating students about UVM IT resources has implications in terms of retention and overall happiness with UVM, and also in terms of producing a graduating class that has valuable knowledge and confidence when it comes to using technology. Right now, I'm afraid most students are falling through the cracks. - Jessica