More with less (or at least the same)
How does a department, organization, or institution provide support for the growing variety of available software, hardware, and networked solutions with no additional staffing? It’s no secret, hiring “enough” support staff isn’t possible. Aside from being fiscally impossible, it’s probably impractical—there are just too many needs.
We all have our favorite operating system, web browser, word processor, collaboration solution, etc. Personally, I like the Macintosh operating system. I use Firefox web browser and Microsoft Word as a word processor. I prefer a Wiki over SharePoint. Others like Linux, Open Office, Google Web, and Google Docs.
So, how can we support this diversity? The above examples are fairly trivial. We should continue to provide full support for key, institutional, mission-critical technology. But when it comes to providing support for specialized software or hardware, the challenges become more complicated and diverse.
One way to provide “support” is through the community. In the “old days” this was done through special interest groups—“SIGs.” The problem with SIGs was that most of the interaction was through group meetings, on a monthly basis. Over time, the interest usually waned. Today, technology can make it possible for any of us to reach out for support 24x7 and receive relevant help through the community of interested users—all through the use of Discussion Forum technology.
I’m a member of several forums related to audio/music engineering. I used them a lot when I first opened my recording studio back in 2001. Before I asked a question, I searched the forum to see if my question had ever been asked before. If so, I had my answer. If not, I would post my question, and within a day or so someone posted an answer. Some questions got lots of answers from various perspectives—many who contributed were world-renowned audio engineers who had been in the business for 30 years.
We can set up discussion forums with subject matter experts as forum moderators. Forum topics can be technologies like Final Cut Pro, Using Google Docs, Effective Ways of Using a Wiki in Teaching, Macintosh Snow Leopard, Podcasting, Creating Multimedia, and many others. The thread is persistent and can probably help another student months and even years later.
Can we support the unsupportable? Yes. We just need to be creative and willing to find ways to make sure that our faculty and students can get what they need—without them having to be technical wizards. There’s a lot of knowledge out there that can be tapped into—we just need to provide “the forum” for them to share that knowledge.