Supporting Sakai: The Model for User Support at the University of Florida

Supporting an open source course management system presents interesting challenges, from providing sufficient documentation and training to managing and resolving individual user issues. One has to look at adopting various support models and channels to make this both meaningful and sustainable. How do you support the diverse needs of the users of Sakai? How do you support, report and manage the technical issues within Sakai?

UF Sakai administrators will present the model of support that will include issue reporting, management, documentation, communication and resolution for both faculty and students at the University of Florida. This model can be extended to the broader Sakai community. Attendees of this session may also take away best practices to incorporate into their own support mechanisms.

Transcript

1. www.it.ufl.edu Supporting Sakai The Model for User Support at the University of Florida Presenters: Rayne Vieger and Narasi Ramachandran
2. www.it.ufl.edu Session Overview  Overview of Sakai at UF ◦ Key Support Units  Challenges to User Support  Avenues for Support and our model  Tracking ◦ Support ◦ Development  Lessons Learned &Take Home  Questions?
3. www.it.ufl.edu  Adopted Sakai in 2010 after review by a faculty review committee  Pilot was run in Summer 2010 with a select few courses  Fall 2010 went live with 3100 sections and 39,000 students  Old CMS (WebCT Vista) was retired in May 2011!!!  Adoption grew to 5039 sections with 1518 instructors, 40,993 students with total enrollments of 139,541 in Spring 2013 Overview of Sakai at UF
4. www.it.ufl.edu  11 roles configured for UF clients (Student, CE Student, Auditor, Observer, Instructor, Guest Lecturer, Facilitator, Designer, TA, Non Grading TA, Grader  Course and project sites deployed with slight variations in roles and purposes  Course sites setup by LSS and enrollment managed by ICS programmed CM Synchronizer  Project sites open for all any valid UF user can create his/her site Overview of Sakai at UF
5. www.it.ufl.edu Key Support Units Instructional Computing Services Development e-Learning Support Services Training, Q/A and User Support Open Systems Group Infrastructure Three core groups that support Sakai at UF:
6. www.it.ufl.edu  Tool Installation/Upgrade/Patching  Feature Programming  Integration with UFL SIS  Integration with HR and Continuing Education Registration  Bug/Issue Resolution  Build Creation and Scheduling Instructional Computing Services
7. www.it.ufl.edu  Clustered Oracle support (configuration, support, DBA)  Hardware Support (Storage tier, OS tier, tomcat tier)  Build Promotion (SQL scripts, Sakai binary builds)  24/7 monitoring and support (system-wide to user)  Resource management and growth (utilization of each tier) Open Systems Group
8. www.it.ufl.edu  e-Learning Support Services supports front end clients faculty and students with several e- learning technologies  Provides feedback and input for developers and infrastructure unit on bugs, performance etc  Q/A on new builds at various stages  Request new features and report bugs  Communicate with several stakeholders on changes e-Learning Support Services
9. www.it.ufl.edu  Why do we provide support? ◦ Issue Resolution ◦ Technical Assistance ◦ Training  Our users seek support that is: ◦ Timely ◦ Responsive ◦ User-centered and tailored to their needs ◦ Single point of contact ◦ Resourcefulness/knowledgeable staff UF’s Support Model
10. www.it.ufl.edu ◦ Accessibility & Variety  Instructors are remote and on campus  Different types of learners need different types of support  Mixture of text based and video tutorials  Face to face workshops  Open Assistance ◦ Efficiency  Form submission for user tickets to gather information and feed into ticketing system seamlessly ◦ Time, staffing and funding  large enrollment courses Challenges in User Support at UF
11. www.it.ufl.edu ◦ Sakai is a dynamic system  It is constantly changing and improving  There are a variety of ways to do the same thing in Sakai and many ways to organize a course  This creates a demand for increased documentation, training and support Challenges in User Support at UF
12. www.it.ufl.edu Avenues for Support Walk-in support at the UF Computing Help Desk, Open Assistance Dedicated faculty support line LSS Website: User tutorials, Known Issues forum Training Team: e-Learning Workshops Dedicated faculty support email/ticketing system Adobe Connect “Live Help” during peak times UserVoice faculty feedback forum for feature requests
13. www.it.ufl.edu  LSS Staff Seat at UF Computing Help Desk ◦ Walk-in assistance, Monday – Friday, 8:00 AM – 5 PM ◦ LSS Staff member always present during normal business hours  First tier support for faculty  Second tier support for students  Open Assistance ◦ Provided once a week in a computer lab ◦ Staff members assist faculty and TAs with any e- Learning questions/issues Walk-in support at the UF Computing Help Desk
14. www.it.ufl.edu  352-392-HELP Option 3 ◦ During normal business hours, these calls will be routed to LSS staff ◦ After hours, calls go to the UF Computing Help Desk  Help Desk staff and student employees will create a ticket for LSS staff to contact client Dedicated Faculty Support Line
15. www.it.ufl.edu  ‘Message Us’ contact form requires faculty to authenticate and enter in course and section number, along with a description of the issue. Dedicated Faculty Support email/ticketing system  The submission is sent to our Incident Management System
16. www.it.ufl.edu Incident Management Console
17. www.it.ufl.edu  Software we support: ◦ Turnitin ◦ iThenticate ◦ VoiceThread ◦ Additional e-Learning tools such as Qualtrics Training Team: e-Learning Workshops
18. www.it.ufl.edu LSS Website: User Tutorials
19. www.it.ufl.edu  Known Issues wiki updated regularly to inform faculty of current e-Learning issues  This forum is useful to other schools using Sakai LSS Website: Known Issues
20. www.it.ufl.edu Adobe Connect Live Help Live Help offered during busy times of the semesters, including the beginning of the semester and finals week. This allows an instructor to quickly log in, ask a question, and get back to his or her day.
21. www.it.ufl.edu UserVoice e-Learning Suggestions  Faculty can search for ideas and vote on them, or create a new one.  Once an item is resolved, the instructor gets his or her votes back. E-Learning Suggestions provides a way for faculty to voice their opinions on ways in which e-Learning can be improved.
22. www.it.ufl.edu  Agent system – can see how long staff members are logged in and “ready” ◦ Can track how many calls each staff member assists with  A ticket is created every time a client calls, emails, walks in to the Help Desk, etc. ◦ Can track how many tickets are generated in the ticketing system at any time. Tracking Support Efforts
23. www.it.ufl.edu  Use of ICS Trac to track builds, bug fixes and features with developers Tracking Development
24. www.it.ufl.edu  All staff members are involved in QA process ◦ Training team works with QA staff to update user tutorials and workshops  Known Issues ◦ Updated by QA staff after testing is completed ◦ For each build, QA staff look at development feedback, review the build, and review current Known Issues  If an issue is resolved, it is moved to Resolved Known Issues  Bridging ticketing system, Trac, and UserVoice Sustainability of this System
25. www.it.ufl.edu  Use of a single authentic source ◦ collaboratively development of resources  Ability to query and review changes  Communication channels like Announcements and MOTD ◦ Ability to forecast upcoming changes ahead of release ◦ Communicate Known Issues and Workarounds  Maintain a structured approach for support & documentation Lessons Learned & Take Home
26. www.it.ufl.edu Questions?