Given the COVID-19 pandemic, students’ experience moving into their residence halls last Saturday and Sunday was like no other Carolina move-in weekend.
(Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)
Despite changed circumstances and physical distancing requirements, ITS ResNET team members exerted all their creativity and know-how to keep students engaged, entertained and feeling supported as they moved into on-campus housing.
Central to ResNET’s move-in support was using Zoom, the video conferencing platform. Via Zoom, ResNET conducted live demonstrations and held conversations with students on how to set up equipment in the residence halls. For one-on-one discussions with students, ResNET Residential Computing Consultants (RCCs) used Zoom break-out rooms.
The RCCs are student residents who live in the halls and have experience supporting a wide range of technology with additional tools available to help make things easier for residents. They handle issues ranging from connecting a PlayStation to the network to printing to the CCI printers.
Virtual support aided students
Every year ResNET tries to focus all of its team to help as much as possible at its move-in support sites.
“This year we took that experience virtual,” said Lee Hyde, ResNET Director. “We used every trick in Zoom to keep students engaged as they popped into our virtual move-in support site.”
ResNET invited students to jump into ResNET’s live Zoom last Saturday and Sunday from 3 to 6 p.m. Students were paired instantly with available RCCs to address their technical questions and issues. Students who had questions but couldn’t make the scheduled Zoom time were able to submit help tickets for ResNET to follow up on.
Efficiently used resources
Prior to move-in weekend, ResNET emailed campus residents about all the resources they would have available to them while maneuvering their belongings — including all their digital devices — into their new abodes.
Among that guidance and helpful tips was a reminder to students that the entire support community is always available and is only a short help ticket away — that they can call the ITS Service Desk at 919-962-HELP or visit the Online Help website, where they can also search for help documents that might reveal the answer they need. By reminding students that the Service Desk would likely be able to instantly resolve any issue with that first phone call, ResNET efficiently targeted its own resources to issues specific to living on campus.