‘Debugging’ the Utah State University campus one computer at a time
For many people, staring at the screen of their computer wondering why it won’t respond is a daunting thing, but help is just a phone call away.
No, they are not Steven Hawkings or Bill Gates, but the employees of the help desk are waiting to assist with just about any problem imaginable – that is, problems within the computer world.
“We’ve expanded the help desk in that we don’t just help people over the phone, we also can provide hardware support,” Stephen Funk, manager of the help desk, said.
The office, located in Room 108 of the Science Engineering Research Building, is staffed by Funk and nine other employees, though he said the number will likely grow to 11 student employees by fall semester. That is a large jump from the number of people who were employed when the help desk opened in 1996.
Funk said the major requirement for those who work for him is the ability to communicate well with the customers. Though a background in some computer skills is needed, Funk said training provided at the office can compensate for that while communication skills are harder to come by.
Employees at the desk find they are very busy at the beginning of each semester.
Eric Umina, a senior business information systems major and employee of the help desk, said, “When a semester starts we are really busy. We are swamped for the first month.”
A lot of the calls they take are from freshmen wondering how to hook into the network and not knowing how. Umina said most need to have ethernet cards put into their computers in order to connect.
“We’ll have 10 or 20 [computers] lined up to put ethernet cards in,” he said.
Funk said in 2001, the help desk assisted more than 10,500 calls.
“We handle probably on average between 80 to 100 calls a day,” he said.
The calls normally last about nine minutes with the majority dealing with dial-up problems including both modem and ethernet connections, he said. During fall semester, he said a great deal of the problems came from a virus in office and on-campus housing.
The office also deals with many Windows-based problems.
“Windows keeps us real busy,” Funk said.
Many of the problems come from individuals who are trying to install new software and need to have their entire Windows system reinstalled, he said.
The desk can work with many different operating systems from Windows 3.1 to XP and Mac OS 7.1 to 10 though Funk said there are very few calls related to Macintosh computers because they are not as popular.
“Between 60 to 70 percent of our calls come from students,” he said.
But during the breaks from school, that changes as students leave campus and staff and faculty are on campus working and upgrading their computer, he said.
In addition to the basic services the help desk provides, they also provide support for the classroom technology.
“We are kind of the hotline for the professors to call when they have problems in the classroom,” Funk said.
Classroom equipment includes many different things, from overhead projectors to computers and media players, he said. Many of the teachers are just unfamiliar with the classroom and may not know how to power the equipment or how to use it. He said when professors call in the help desk personnel tries to fix the problem over the phone, but if they are unable, a technician will be dispatched and be in the classroom within five minutes.
“We try to hurry so it doesn’t leave a professor standing there wondering what to do with his class,” Funk said.
But dealing with the day-to-day problems are not the only calls the help desk gets.
Umina said one of the strangest requests involved a new modem that a customer had put into her computer. When it would not work, she took the computer in to the help desk and left it for tests. After running several, Umina said they opened the case to find the modem had just been “thrown” into the computer and was not plugged into a port.
With the new year, Funk said the help desk is changing their policy in regard to pricing. In the past, Funk said, work was done on computers for free, but that will change as of Jan. 7.
For personal computers the first half hour of diagnostic work is free, but after that a rate of $15 per hour will be charged for all work. For university computers the same fee will be assessed and a $10 fee will be charged if the computer is picked up and delivered when done.
“We are trying to ensure that computers that come in to us belong to students, faculty or staff and not their neighbors and such,” Funk said.
To contact the help desk, call 797-4358 or visit the office located in Room 108 of the SER Building.