Everyday, students call in or email IT help desks on college campuses. Accurate and timely, the IT help desk staff members provide logical and technical answers for fixing student computer hardware and software problems. The help desk process is a great invention;however, with such a high cost to uphold, IT help desks must have an alternative. Creating a student crowdsourcing database will not only save money, but also stimulate student interaction.
College IT help desks are essential on college campuses because of the amount of students, teachers, reasearchers, and administrators. With such a high demand for technical help and support, twenty-four hour help desks charge high prices for calls and emails. For example, the help desk at Indiana University charges $11.41 for calls and $9.39 for emails. In the last year, the IT help desk accepts 150,000 questions. As more problems occur with corrupt documents and poor servers around campuses, the need for help continues to rise.
Dewitt A. Latimer, the CIO at The University of Notre Dame, is a main force behind an idea to cut costs severly--by crowdsourcing. The idea is to allow students and faculty to answer each others' questions. The benfit is a low cost and an increase in interaction with one another, but there are pitfalls. Are all answers going to be accurate? Can you trust the person sitting next to you about the virus that just ate your midterm essay?
The answer is no. In order to satisy the budget cuts, crowdsourcing is a project that must be done. If a university can keep the old helpdesk, but focus on a new interaction-based help desk, the effects are all positive.
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