The search for the elusive Office of Information Technology Help Desk begins with either walking through the construction zone of Perkins or driving off the Duke Campus to Research Drive.
The squat brick architecture, unique for its total lack of curves, arches or any angle other than 90 degrees, might resemble an aging elementary school. Tour the scenic parking lot of ten spaces before parking illegally in a Service spot.
Congratulations! You have now arrived at the North Building, where the OIT Help Desk resides.
After a brief lookout for any stealthy parking official, enter into the warren of offices, hallways and stairs. Tour the alternating linoleum and carpeted halls, pay a quick visit to the ROTC offices and follow a combination of engraved plaques and paper signs that helpfully point out the OIT Help Desk. Here awaits kind professionals ready to solve technological woes.
The OIT Help Desk fields calls seven days a week, providing online support, email, phone, fax and in-person access to computer experts. They listen to students' woes concerning spyware, accidentally deleted term papers or the latest email virus.
"The OIT Help Desk averaged approximately 7,350 contacts per month during the fall 2003 semester," writes Director of Customer Support at OIT Ginny Cake in an email. "The beginning and end of each semester are the busiest times of the year since OIT supports the primary applications (email, ACES, Blackboard, etc.) and the central computer clusters used by students."
Although students do not staff the Help Desk, they are present on campus at the beginning of the year as part of the SWAT team, a group of troubleshooters that help work out the back-to-school and freshman glitches. "The Help Desk and Service Center are staffed by OIT professionals who have the appropriate experience and training necessary to support such a diverse, multifaceted environment as Duke's," Cake says.
The trained staff at the OIT Help Desk helps with the daily hiccups, crashes and failures of computer life. Just yesterday, for example, students began receiving emails from "administration@duke.edu", telling users that their accounts will be disabled unless they open an attached message with a numeric code, which is, in fact, a virus. And although Curriculum 2000 may seem like punishment to some, no Duke official wishes email users wrong. A quick phone call to the Help Desk confirms, "It's a hoax."
The majority of Duke students seem to have fairly neutral feelings about OIT. "I only used them once and they fixed my computer so I don't have a complaint," says senior Paul Toomey. Vipul Sharma, an '03 Trinity graduate remembers his OIT experience, "I only had to use them one time. They couldn't figure out the problem, but that wasn't their fault and they tried." Overall the number of people virulently opposed to the Help Desk and its ardent supporters are small and seem to balance out. This sentiment, however, could change with the upcoming fall course registration.
When asked about any frustrations with OIT during what Cake refers to as "their busiest times," Sharma says waking up at 7 a.m. to register only to discover that the system has exceeded capacity is never endearing to undergrads. "When trying to register for classes, I could never get in until all the good classes were already taken." Sharma says. "They should have tested for the user load."
In response to student complaints like Sharma's, changes including the new log-in system for Duke net services are already in progress. Cake notes, "Provost Lange, Dr. Trask and Tracy Futhey are working collectively to meet the changing OIT needs of students and faculty. This is evident in their continued allocation of resources to existing services and new ones such as Multimedia Lab, ePrint, and the newly launched undergraduate portal, DukePass."
The Help Desk offers a five-day turn around on most problems, barring a winter snow storm or fall hurricane. They call when a computer is ready and explain what the technicians did, or could not do. OIT will never erase a student's hard drive without checking first and offers free updates and software as part of their services. However, after the searching to find the North Building, one large problem remains--especially for those on foot, carrying a desktop.
"The North Building? Where is that? Is that on campus?" Joel Mendes asks during a student meeting. Yes, it is technically on campus, but a brisk 10 minute walk from the nearest undergraduate dorm.
Ginny Cake understands the dilemma of location. "OIT will move to the American Tobacco Warehouse in late summer/early fall," she writes in an e-mail. "With this in mind we hope to relocate a portion of the Help Desk to a convenient, central campus location such as the Bryan Center or Union West. We're now a little off the beaten path, which is inconvenient for most students."
The new location will hopefully entice more students into seeking computer help as OIT looks toward a future on campus with the Duke community, one glitch at a time.
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