CANHEIT 2012 Building the Digital University Crowd Sourcing the Technology Support Centre Wayne Hansen – UNB Saint John

Contact Info whansen(at)unb.ca Web: waynehansen.ca Images Obtained Through Creative Commons License

Todays Presentation Discuss technology trends Examine ‘crowdsourcing’ and how it works Learn about the UNB Saint John model Discover if the the implementation works Discuss what can be learned

What this presentation will not be It will not be a sales pitch or full blown demo of our hosted solution

The Argument I intend to argue that the proliferation of information technology has had a profound effect on all aspect of our lives including the way we do our jobs. Crowdsourcing can be a useful tool to help combat shrinking budgets, relieve overwhelmed staff, and provide comprehensive support in a new way.

What is crowdsourcing … and what is mass intelligence ?

Crowdsourcing is an action that produces a tangible result Mass intelligence or wisdom of crowds is the aggregation of information in groups

Mass Intelligence … is achieved through the following Diversity of Opinion Independence Decentralization Aggregation

Crowdsourcing IT Support Asking for community participation to create mass intelligence.

Does anyone know the story behind GoldCorp and crowdscourcing?

Changing IT Landscape Changing more rapidly than ever IT departments not gatekeepers Embracing BYOD ICT and knowledge commodified democratized Experiencing ‘future shock’

What We Are Seeing Democratization of knowledge and the ‘death of the expert’

As a Result IT support staff are simply overwhelmed by the volume and variety of hardware, software, and dynamic needs of our clients.

My Last AUCTC/CANHEIT Presentation Focussed support. One on one service. Dedicated staff. I still believe there is a place for this model though a hybrid solution may work better.

Don Tapscott Collaborative innovation is revolutionizing the way we work, live, learn, create, and govern

Don Tapscott

What Can We Learn From Tapscott ? I would argue that his model is too simplistic (deterministic ideas that technology solves everything) BUT He does make some very relevant points that if true in larger society surely we can apply them to IT Support

UNB Saint John

Hans W Klohn Commons

STC Challenges Mixture of FTE/Student Employees, Downsizing iMacs, PC’s, Multiple Buildings, infinite software Personal Devices, BYOD, cell, tablets, PC’s

GetSatisfaction

Social Media Integration

Web Integration

Integration It has become our knowledge repository. We can , tweet, or like our solutions to students.

The Bigger Picture We have embraced students helping student and this is a logical extension of that model.

The Bigger Picture It is part of our solution – not the only solution.

Larger Community Buy-In Rolling out to recruitment and registrars office

Conclusions

Why This Will Work The support centre cannot be open 24x7x365 but this can Student are ‘tech savvy’ and anxious to help each other It a logical extension to prevailing trends not just within Higher Education Transparent open data

Why This Will NOT Work Student wants the the problem solved.. Not the answers Students are not tech savvy will not be active participants We overestimate the relevance of IT in our students lives

Interested ? There are some leaders out there. Check out Indiana University, Ohio State James Surowiecki. Wisdom of Crowds. Contact me. We can talk.

Questions/Discussion