Exam-time can be stressful enough, but moving assessment online as a necessary response to the Coronavirus pandemic had the potential to add new levels of complexity for the University’s student community.

One of the means of supporting students was to create a 24-hour exam helpdesk, which will remain operational until the end of the exam season in late May.

As of early this week, there had been just over 500 enquiries to the helpdesk on a range of issues – from how to get the exam to download to problems submitting the answers. Only a few students have encountered technical issues, generally with their home broadband.

Dave Anderson, Director, Business Relationship Management and Engagement in Information Services, is delighted that the exams have gone so well, with the helpdesk there to reassure students if they have any issues.

He said: “A huge amount of work went on to bring colleagues from across campus together, prepare Moodle templates and agree a broadly standard process for online assessment. Resources to support staff getting exams online were produced incredibly quickly, while School teams worked round the clock to ensure exams were ready. That effort has paid dividends, and while there have been 876 exams to date with 34,153 candidates, the number of requests for support has been low.

"Where issues have arisen these have been resolved quickly, with our fantastic Exam Helpdesk team able to provide reassurance, identify a solution or escalate as required. While only a very small number of candidates required assistance, the early feedback we have is that those students greatly appreciate the support received and we will look to provide a similar round-the-clock service during the summer resits.”

The regular IT Helpdesk comprises four full-time permanent staff and a number of students working part-time, and is part of the ‘Reach Out’ initiative. To upscale this to become a 24-hour Exam Support desk it was augmented by students who work as ‘roving’ Reach Out Student Ambassadors helping library users, and students who work for the Development and Alumni Office on fundraising campaign calls. All in all, this makes a team of 31 providing round-the-clock staffing.

IT Helpdesk Team Leader Jenny Booth explains that everyone on the Exam helpdesk has access to an online toolkit of resources, including exam timetables, support procedures and escalation routes. Enquiries related to the exam paper or its availability, which have made up the bulk of the enquiries, have been escalated directly to the student’s School, who will respond to the student as soon as possible; although they are not also working 24 hours a day, they are available during the first three hours of the exam. Some enquiries can be answered by the Exam Helpdesk team by referring to a knowledge base of information compiled in advance within the UofG Helpdesk online system. This is available via ‘self-service’ too, giving enquirers the opportunity to find solutions themselves, which many have done.

Mark Temple, Project Delivery Manager for the University’s online Enterprise Service Management system, ‘UofG Helpdesk’, has been working with colleagues behind the scenes to implement the Exam Helpdesk, and provide ongoing support. The online UofG Helpdesk, which also supports Reach Out, has been an essential part of the Exam Support effort and this has worked really well as a vehicle for routing enquiries, and for making relevant ‘knowledge’ readily available in a short space of time.

Mark added: “I’m really pleased by how well our switch to 24-hour support has gone, and how everyone has risen to the challenge, especially with everything else that has been going on as we’ve moved to remote working; it has been a pleasure working together with staff from other services as we’ve taken support to a new level, even having staff in a number of countries and time zones - perhaps this will be the new norm.“

A practice exam site run by LEADS and other Learning & Teaching colleagues before the exams began has been particularly useful in identifying the most likely questions that students would ask – the site also gave students practice in how the online exam format would work.

One of the volunteers who covers the night-shift is Katie Schmierbach, who works from her parents’ home 60 miles south-east of St Louis, Missouri.Katie Schmierbach, a student volunteer on the exam helpdesk

As she is working in a different time-zone, her shift starts at 4pm and finishes at 2am – more congenial than the 10pm-8am shifts worked by the night-shift staff based in the UK.

Katie had been doing a one-year taught Masters in Conflict Archaeology and Heritage in the College of Arts when the U.S. government called on all Americans living abroad to come back home. She left Glasgow on 22 March. As she had worked in the past for DAO on two fundraising campaigns, she received an email inviting her to join the exam helpdesk.

She took part in a training session led by Mark Temple; she connects to the University network via VPN and uses a ‘soft’ phone to answer calls.

“We have a list of the exam timetables and who’s in charge of what exam and most of the time just escalate the issue to the School. It is pretty good – just very challenging to sieve through all the information we have on the database,” says Katie.

The timescale can also be challenging, she acknowledges, if the Helpdesk has to respond quickly to a student who’s doing a timed exam.

“I really didn’t want to leave Scotland and didn’t want to leave the School – I was disappointed that between strikes and the virus I only got ten weeks of school. But this is a way of being able to contact other students, even if they are not in my School,” she says.

The vast majority of enquiries are online although a few students have phoned the Helpdesk on the computer-based phone system which was put in place.

Katie’s message to other students at this time is a simple one: “We know this is a very stressful time with exams – we are trying to help you and we are here to help you.”

She very much hopes to return to Glasgow; she has accepted a PhD offer and says she is really hoping there will be graduations in December.

Jenny adds: “A 24-hour helpdesk has been a huge thing for everyone to pull together but it has been a really positive thing at a very difficult time for students and the University. It has been very much a team effort right across the board. The main thing about the 24-hour helpdesk is that we are just trying to be there for people all the time during the exams.”

First published: 19 May 2020

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