After years of outsourcing, Technology Services brings services home

By Bryan Scanlon, The Mirror

Drury's Technology Services is bringing the help desk back in house.

For the past few years, the department outsourced those services, so calls for computer assistance from students and faculty were answered by Zavata, a private contractor in Georgia.

Beginning today, the calls will be answered by a Drury employee on campus. Though the help desk will be open fewer hours, Technology Services doesn't anticipate a problem answering calls for service.

"The overall benefit will be that the Help Desk will have first-hand knowledge of Drury," said Bob Zipf, assistant director of technology services, "which is something our current solution cannot do or have."

Costs will be reduced by under $10,000 a year.

The organization did look at various alternatives and found that localizing Technology Services would benefit Drury the most. As technology grew, support demands grew, and the outside organization did not have enough resources to support the volume of help requests.

One full-time help desk coordinator, Albert Rauch, will be in the office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each weekday. About 10 students will assist him during the day and will handle all calls on evenings and weekends.

Previously, the help desk was open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week. With the location and staff change comes changes in operating hours. The Help Desk will now be open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Technology Services reviewed call traffic patterns to find the most efficient way to shorten hours, Zipf said.

Drury isn't the only one with a local help desk. Missouri State University has a local help desk, but it is divided into different departments because of the school's size. Ozarks Technical Community College, however, is looking at outsourcing its help-desk operations.