Creating a Help Center from Scratch: A Recipe for Success

Creating a university Help Center from scratch can be a challenging yet very rewarding experience for an IT professional. Buying computers, building networks, and installing software was just the beginning. The challenge faced by Towson University was then to make all of this technology pay off for the Faculty/Staff/Student population. Prior to a formalized Help Center, there was a scattered approach to support. Second and third-tier support personnel were getting overloaded with “How do I?” type calls which took them away from their tasks at hand. The campus community didn’t know whom to call when they had a computing problem. The frustration levels began to quickly escalate among both the IT staff and the end users. Something had to be done to change the status quo. Once the idea of creating a centralized Help Center for the university was approved by the IT Oversight Committee, it was time to begin planning. We started with our mission statement: “The Help Center is your si...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: SIGUCCS
• Authors: Patrick McKoen
• Keywords: Help Center, Information Management, SIGUCCS 2000, Towson University, University Help Center