The UNK Staff Senate is honored to recognize the Information Technology Services’ Help Desk as the March 2007 UNK Department of the Month.
The ITS Helpdesk, with two full-time staff and a group of indispensable part-time student workers, provides assistance to all UNK faculty, staff, and students. Helpdesk consultants answer hundreds of questions each week where they reset passwords, provide assistance with operating systems and desktop applications, set up new computers, troubleshoot hardware problems as well as respond to phone calls, emails and in-person visits. Following last summer’s upgrade of Blackboard, they handled a large number of questions from faculty during the Fall term. They work on many student computers, providing free service to students with software and operating system update issues and with problems connecting to the UNK network – both wired and wireless.
The Helpdesk takes great pride in solving problems for users, but when they are unable to do so, they escalate the problem to a technical specialist. They talk to angry, frustrated users and to happy users with simple questions, yet they are patient and professional and approach the answers from the level of expertise of the user. The daily activities of the Helpdesk can seldom be planned in advance. Each person’s crisis is their crisis.
In addition to the time spent answering questions, they must learn new skills to stay up-to-date with changes in technology. As the campus moves to the new Windows Vista operating system and Office 2007, the Helpdesk will field a number of calls as users adjust to the new system.
For their commitment to the campus and their exemplary day-to-day service, the ITS Helpdesk is well-deserved to be recognized at the March 2007 UNK Department of the Month.
Thank you to the sponsors of the Department of the Month: UNK Athletics and Staff Senate