Faculty Support Services at Oakland University

Who am I? Shaun Moore, Manager of Support Services. 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 Tools Moodle – 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.

Moodle Moodle is integrated with Banner, our student information system (SIS). Everyone logs in with their OU NetID, which is their 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.

ePortfolio Also 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.

Scantron Scantron 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.

Elluminate Provides 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 Life Hosted 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>clicker Previous 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 Staff There 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 Support Walk-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 Support Phone 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.

All help forms and communications through the e-LIS Manager go through a single address we have – Everyone in our department is sent a copy of what is sent through to their individual OU 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 Filters Not everything that comes to me from deals with help issues. Filters are necessary to keep my inbox organized. The 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 Architecture ColdFusion for the web application. MS SQL for the back end database.

Manager and Forms Each 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 Form Elluminate Request Help Scheduling Request Second Life Request Help i>clicker Roster File Request

Moodle Help Screen

Helpful Features Automated 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 Control Elluminate 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 Help Completion 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.

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