Greetings from the World Campus HelpDesk! No, that is not a mistake—the D is capitalized to set us apart from the other helpdesk units here at Penn State. Our job here is to provide technical support and training for World Campus students, faculty, and staff. We provide these services Monday through Friday 08:00-24:00 EST and on the weekends 10:00-19:00 EST. We are staffed with 11 people total: 1 manager, 1 developer, 2 supervisors, and 7 full-time technicians—which allows us to provide the best possible coverage during times students most often contact us.
But we do more than this. We work with course designers to ensure that World Campus courses are functioning properly and as designed. We work with faculty and staff to evaluate whether new technologies can improve our students’ educational experience. We wear many hats to ensure that students are able to complete their courses—from retrieving their User IDs and passwords to providing reassurance to students wanting to know if they are following the proper procedure.
The technicians here at the HelpDesk have access to a number of the University’s systems like ANGEL and the Digital Identity Management Center, where we can retrieve and issue students their passwords and User IDs. For the systems that we cannot access, we do have access to the people that have access. This allows us to quickly work with other departments, if necessary, to resolve any problems a student might be having.
For students returning to school for the first time in many years, even decades, technology can be overwhelming. One of the things we do is break the technology down to size so that it doesn’t seem so daunting.
The HelpDesk staff varies widely so no matter your age or background there is more than likely someone here that can relate to you. We have everything from the young techie band member to the old grizzled veteran “who has been here forever” and everything in between.
Our technicians come from institutional, corporate, government, and service-related technical backgrounds. Combined, our staff has more than 100 years of professional IT experience and twice that in general IT experience—maybe closer to three times that if you include all the gaming experience we have.
Well, the phone is ringing so I have to get back to work. Who knows, it might be you calling. Get in touch and we can chat some more.
Contact the HelpDesk:
- Phone: 1-800-252-3592 (option 4) or 814-865-0047
- E-mail: wdtechsupport@outreach.psu.edu
- Our Chat tool or web submission form can be found on https://tech.worldcampus.psu.edu
