When I do Tier 2 support, I always feel like I am Sherlock Holmes and I am trying to resolve a WebCT mystery.  Some support requests are easy to resolve, i.e. the ones that our auto-response resolves for the student.  These are “Blues Clues”-type mysteries.  Some support requests are not always resolved by the support form, mostly due to user error because they filled out the wrong information or are not using the correct terminology, but are still easy to handle.  These are “Nancy Drew”-type mysteries.  And then, there are one-of-a-kind whoppers where I am not even sure if the student is using WebCT, and if they are, what kind of system they are using.  These are “Agatha Christie”-type mysteries with an added bonus twist.  These are the ones where you need to do research, search forums, send e-mails, etc., to see if there has been anyone else who has ever encountered this problem ever.  They also tend to require print screens, multiple e-mail involvement, and a lot of time. 

Last week, we enjoyed/are still enjoying a whopper involving a student with an intricate home network and a healthy lack of work ethic.  Currently, it is up to them to provide us with some print screens that I assume will expose their procrastination and fibbery skills.  This morning, we already received a Nancy Drew level request which, after the correct terminology was deciphered, turned out to be an issue with a full e-mail account.  Now, we received a semi-whopper involving Internet Explorer behaving badly.

There tends to be one or two whoppers that we receive from the support form each week.  This does not include the internal requests we receive.  With that, I am lucky that I enjoy putting on the Sherlock Holmes hat and resolving mysteries.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 12:04 pm and is filed under communication, instructional technology, webct. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.