ITS Support Restructure
Information Technology Services has made several organizational and service changes. Details are below.
Phone Support
ITS has outsourced phone support to Blackboard, Inc. This new model will enable IT support to be available 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year. From a quality perspective, once the service has stabilized (eight to 12 weeks), Blackboard has committed to solve 85 percent of issues on the first call. The current quality metric before March 7 was 56 percent, therefore the new service will result in a 29 percent increase in quality.
In the first week of the new model, phone support received 988 calls. The average amount of hold time before speaking to a support staff member was one minute and 44 seconds. Out of the 988 calls, Blackboard was able to immediately resolve 63 percent of the issues. The quality will continue to improve over the coming days and weeks as IT works closely with our partner to provide more information to help resolve issues as quickly as possible.
On-Site Support
Through the role of the Center initiative, we are centralizing all IT support staff into a set of groups instead of having individuals dedicated to a specific academic/administrative unit. The initiative included a reduction in staff; therefore all IT support needs should be directed to 314-977-4000 instead of individual IT personnel. Emergency issues with classroom technology should still be directed to 314-977-4099. To assist with the transition, three contract resources are on site to work with IT staff. Starting this summer, non-SLUCare IT support staff will no longer have offices and will be provided smartphones/tablets so that they can be mobile.
The on-site support groups are outlined in the following graphics. The individuals in each group will be walking through the buildings within their area to provide IT support and to check with faculty, staff and students regarding the quality of their technology. SLUCare IT support staff will continue to focus on the departments where they currently serve.
North Campus Support
South Campus Support
Clinical IT
As part of the IT organizational changes, all clinical IT staff, including SLUCare IT personnel, are reporting to Information Technology Services. The University has hired Nilesh Patil as the assistant vice president, Clinical IT, to oversee all clinical and SLUCare IT staff. Nilesh joins the University from NorthShore University Health System, where he served as the director, Information Technology, Big Data, and Data Warehouse since 2007. Prior to his tenure at NorthShore, Patil served as a project manager and enterprise architect for Siemens Medical Solutions. In this role, he will oversee operational and strategic IT activities and the development of a strategic technology roadmap. Patil reports jointly to David Hakanson, vice president, chief information officer and chief innovation officer, and Dr. Robert Heaney, CEO SLUCare Physician Group, senior associate dean, Clinical Affairs School of Medicine and assistant vice president, Medical Affairs.
David Hakanson, vice president, CIO and chief innovation officer, will be holding two open fora to discuss these changes and to assess quality of IT services. The fora are scheduled for:
- April 7: 10 a.m. in Busch Student Center, Room 251A
- April 13: 10 a.m. in the Learning Resources Center, Room 111
Please contact the IT service desk at 314-977-4000 with any IT support needs that you have. Questions regarding the IT support model should be directed to Mark Anderson at markanderson@slu.edu. Questions regarding clinical IT, including SLUCare IT, should be directed to Nilesh Patil at patiln@slu.edu. Feedback regarding all IT service quality areas can be provided to David Hakanson at hakansond@slu.edu.