Why & How Getting Help is Changing @ UMBC

DoIT launched a new Help site, help.umbc.edu, the week after spring break. After sharing it with different stakeholders on campus and getting some feedback, we wanted to provide more context about why and how Getting Help is changing.

Why?

The way we work and learn has shifted, with students and staff demanding easy access to online support systems anytime. Given these new post-pandemic realities, as the campus began looking at new service management platforms, it became clear that a new campus-wide help experience was needed. myUMBC Help’s phone number and link-driven page was very helpful when most students were visiting offices in person or calling for support; post-pandemic, these services are expected to be online, searchable, and easy to find and use. This user-focused redesign began with engaging stakeholder offices around campus and students. DoIT employees and stakeholder offices changed their focus of help from what office you visit to what function you want to perform. The new help.umbc.edu prioritizes tasks over departments, offering comprehensive online support for all student, academic, administrative, and computing needs.


Pictured left - myUMBC Help, prior to March 2024	Pictured right - help.umbc.edu, launched in March 2024.

How?

The new framework for help.umbc.edu allows us to tie together disparate systems, including the campus knowledge base at umbc.edu/faqs, many of the service request forms that are part of Request Tracker (RT), DocuSign forms, and direct links to PeopleSoft or cloud systems. The help categories use keywords to find the right support action, and context-sensitive search allows us to show FAQs that may match your search criteria. The use of knowledge and FAQs is being integrated on every level including search, the support category, and increasingly the support forms themselves. We’ve published an FAQ on navigating the new experience if you have any questions about using these new features.

A cross-functional team of employees within DoIT came together to make the vision a reality. This included staff experts on the programming, design, content, and stakeholder outreach necessary to make this project successful, including:

Ally Hepp, M.P.S ’22, technical management - IT Project Coordinator
Jacob Lutz ’17, computer science - IT Developer
Andrea Mocko ’12, psychology, M.S. ’18, human-centered computing - Manager, Technology Support Center
Ken Schreihofer, M.S. ’15, information systems - Director, Business Systems
Vy Nguyen ’26, computer science - DoIT Student Employee

While we are excited to share the benefits of the new help.umbc.edu experience, we know that once users start using it they will have feedback to improve this. We welcome any questions or feedback that you may have. This is the first step, and future improvements will be coming soon.

We also want to acknowledge the contributions of Asst. Vice President Joe Kirby ’85, information systems management, who led the original help system development that has served UMBC well. Joe’s involvement with the help system has a long history. His article “Beyond the IT Helpdesk” (2013) in the EDUCAUSE Review was one of the first explorations on delivering a holistic help system at scale across an institution. Joe served as a consultant and mentor to the help.umbc.edu project team. The campus may also want to revisit Joe’s 30th-anniversary service award and digital story here.