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Digital Arts and Humanities Lab Guides

Operating

Problems are inevitable, get help fast

This page outlines some steps you can take to be forewarned of problems, and to fix them quickly and efficiently when they do occur.

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Read this first: solve your problems faster

  1. Is it a genuine emergency?
    1. If there is a safety issue on campus, contact security.
    2. If not a safety issue, but teaching will be impacted in a non-recoverable way (for example an assessment is being disrupted) you may want to go straight to step 4.
  2. Not an emergency? Then first consider if there is someone you know who is doing something similar. Our communities of practice can be really helpful. Often it can be simpler to take this route, as your collegues understand your context and what you are tryingh to achieve.
  3. Can you find a simple solution online? Online guides are being published and improved to help with many IT systems, and AV tools.
  4. If you can't find a solution online, contact technical support services (details below), your request will be routed through to the relevant team (often the Academic Technology Team). To speed up the process, follow this advice:

When you seek help from technology support specialists, bear in mind that they support many different, often very complex, systems. They may not understand your context - who you are, what you are trying to achieve, what you have already done, what you know and don't know. Before contacting them, pause to think about what information may be of use to them, and formulate a clear, simple statement to get them up to speed fast.

    • clearly state what you want to achieve, in relation to the specific help you want, and more broadly in terms of the goals and design values you are working towards (for example, if you are trying to simplify things for students, say so);
    • identify other related systems that you are using (so if you have a problem with Talis Aspire, and you are also using Moodle, say so, as there may be a connection);
    • explain what you have already tried, and support you are getting from others.

Accessing IT support

For problems with university-provided IT systems (including Moodle, Mahara, Microsoft tools, Tabula, University-provided computer hardware), make a request for help through:

The Help Desk will open a "call" with an ID. They may then pass this on to specialists who can deal with it. You can track progress in the Help Desk web site.


Support for classroom technologies and audio visual systems

AV website

Call on 024 765 22463