I recently got some feedback from a campus where we have a Digital Commons setup. As you may know, we support campuses by occasionally visiting them and conducting in-class workshops, faculty consultations, etc. The rest of the time, faculty and students at the campus can call us (toll-free), engage in screen sharing (which enables us to see their screen and virtually work alongside them), or use our numerous web-based resources if they want to work at their own pace. This support is provided 9am-9pm every weekday. We also train local staff (whoever wants the training) so that they develop the ability to support students in their digital media endeavors (if they want to). This is our support model, in a nutshell. From my perspective, we're doing everything short of driving across the state every time a student has a question. It's not a perfect situation (perfect would be physically being there all the time), but it's pretty darn good.
The feedback we got is that at this campus, students expect to get face-to-face support whenever they need it, and anything short of that is not sufficient or acceptable. And it got me wondering if this was really true, or does our own definition of quality support maybe not line up with student expectations. I suppose that we are in an age of "helicopter parents" that are constantly at the beck and call of their children, and thus when these kids grow up and come to college, they expect the same level of support. Certainly there's some merit in this. They pay good money to come to this institution, and we should (and sincerely try to) do everything in our power, within each of our roles, to help them learn. However, a) they are increasingly digitally literate and b) we're training them to be functional professionals. They know, or should be learning about how to use the web (and especially the social web) to develop their skills. In my opinion, we have just as much of an obligation to make ourselves physically available to every student when they need us as we have an obligation to teach them how to use modern tools and alternative forms of (digital) communication to get the help they need.
Of course there's the practical reality that we can't be physically available for every student, 24/7. But I'm not trying to make excuses for not always being able to be there, or argue the merits of face-to-face vs. online, or synchronous vs. asynchronous help. I'm simply saying that there are viable options available, and that we'd be doing students a disservice by not making them aware of those options and not equipping them with the ability to make informed decisions about which options are appropriate for any given situation.
With that being said, I commend this campus for holding such high standards. And I hope that we can help them provide the quality, breadth, and depth of support their students need when they need it.
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