The rest were connected within the first week of classes. The idea was also not to overload or increase the size of the staff, says Ginny Cake, director of Customer Support, who is proud of Duke's success in self-help. We want to maintain the size of our staff, even though the inquiries are increasing. We want to help people help themselves. With this process, students who do need real-time help get quality response right away.
Cake explains that self-help starts with published hardware and software guidelines.
More than 27,000 documents addressing common issues exist on the Web site, and more documents are added as inquiries filter through the Help Desk. Although the total number of inquiries more than doubled to 53,200 during September of 1997, the number of direct inquiries rose only to 18,200, while Web inquiries rose dramatically to 35,000. The success of the Help Desk is credited to DUNK, the Duke University Network Knowledge Base. The village, which this year had 1,300 residents, is named after Duke's head basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski. Bob Currier, director of Data Communications, convinced Akom, a manufacturer of wireless Internet connections, to use Krzyzewskiville as a test site for their new equipment.