Why our help
documentation might as
well be in Dutch!
Peter Rayment, Cardiff University
Michel Visser, Eesysoft.

About Cardiff University

Learning Central
Learning Central is made up of;
Core of Blackboard Version 9.1 (Classic)
Plus;
 Blackboard Mobile
 Learning Objects Campus Pack
 Wimba Voice Tools
 Questionmark Perception
 Turnitin
 Echo360
 Panopto

Learning Central use
265,000 student enrolments on 5000 modules
accessing an ever-increasing variety of
functionality
On a busy Monday in October there are in the region
of 19000 logins to the system.

Background to support issues
Upgraded Core Learning Central system
 In summer 2010 we undertook a major software
upgrade from Version 8 to 9.1 of Blackboard.
 Although we attempted to review and prioritise
support documentation the release of the new
software resulted in a significant increase in
support calls throughout the start of term.

Comparison of support calls
Below are comparison figures for help requests for
2009 and 2010.
1st August 2009 to 1st December 2009
 Total VLE calls recorded on INFRA = 502
 Resolved by Service Desk Staff = 94
 Resolved by VLE Team = 408
1st August 2010 to 1st December 2010
 Total VLE calls recorded on INFRA = 997
 Resolved by Service Desk Staff = 311
 Resolved by VLE Team = 686

Context regarding support calls
Essentially during this four month period two members of staff
cleared just under 700 support calls.
Questions arising from this;
1) Why did we get so many calls?
2) How many of these calls could we have prevented from being logged
by having an easy self help system?
3) How can we improve the situation for our customers (and ourselves)?

Question?
Why did we get so many calls?
This was in part due to increased functionality and complexity of
the new system plus an increase in usage of the system
An underlying factor was that customers did not generally read help
documents.
In part this was due to difficulty locating relevant information,
compounded by the fact that our help files are located across a number
of systems, making relevant and focused help difficult to find.
Titles of help items did not always make it clear what the content was.

Investigation into…
Remaining Questions-
- How many of these calls could we have prevented from being
logged by having an easy self help system?
- How can we improve the situation for our customers (and
ourselves)?
Action-
At the end 2010 an investigation was undertaken into the situation with
our Help Documentation, and options for improving the customers
experience.
A 14 page report was produced, by Jin Tan who had recently joined our
team.

Report overview
The Learning Central Help Service does not provide a robust self-
learning environment for users.
To provide this type of service,
 We need to know what help guides we have,
 Where they are?
 What is missing and / or required?
Once we know the answers to the above we can discuss how our help
system needs to be improved and how to improve it.

Report findings
At the beginning of 2011 an audit and analysis was undertaken of our
help materials, and the resulting report highlighted deficits and the
fractured nature of our help documentation.
“The current problems of the Learning Central help resources are:
 Help resources are managed/created by different systems, and the
LC team does not have an integrated entry for users to access help
resources,
 Many old Help content pages needs to be updated to Bb v9.0,
 Some guides are not easy to read and need to be improved,
 To make the LC help resources a user self-learning resource, new
help guides need to be added.”

Our help files - Staff

Our help files - Student

Help files everywhere

Current Support
Jin Tan 2011

Recommendations
This report made recommendations that our help documents needed to;
– Be easily accessible (Searchable)
– Centralised
– Timely (up to date) and relevant.
– Provide the ability for users to provide feedback on help
materials
A further requirement was a need for improved communication about
functionality changes or outages within the system i.e. a method of
cascading this information in a targeted way to customers. These
materials needed to be;
– Proactive,
– Contextual.

Proposed support model
Jin Tan 2011

Problem….
Following the report we knew that we needed to do a
complete update of the way we provide our help
materials but were unsure of the best way to proceed.
It seemed like a problem without a solution.

So…

Leeds Blackboard Conference

Leeds Blackboard Conference

Plan to improve help.
Contacted Eesysoft
Looked at possibilities of using system to resolve the problems we are
having.
Software seemed to meet our requirements and particularly mirrored the
results of our report.
Currently finalising contract.
There is much work to do still but now we are hoping that we will have a
framework around which we can build our support system.

Learning Central use
265,000 student enrolments on 5000 modules
accessing an ever-increasing variety of
functionality
On a busy Monday in October there are in the region
of 19000 logins to the system.
Question? What are they doing and how do we
prioritise helping them to help themselves?

Plan process
Investigations into how the system is used, Students and Staff.
 The existing help and support documentation will be used to start to
populate the system .
 Additional materials will be added based on need, with factors such
as time of year, emergent issues and common support enquiries
considered, along with consultation with Service Desk.
 Once this first tranche of population is completed, population of
further materials will be undertaken as part of the team’s business as
usual work.

Proactive approach facilitated.
 Proactive notifications of change in functionality etc. will be
populated as part of the appropriate associated project work
 Any notifications about service outages would be handled as part of
the usual process.
 Will have ability to provide Role and Situation based notifications to
our users. In the past we were only able to act reactively.

Demonstration
Demonstration of Eesysoft Software by Michel Visser
http://www.eesysoft.com

Navigation system for
Blackboard users Context sensitve
help
Situation:
‘How to?’ questions
EesySoft’s Application Positioning System (APS) monitorsof end-users
where
users are working within an application (like GPS for your sat nav)
 It provide reports on how frequently specific functionality within
Blackboard is being used and by whom
 Based on the context users can receive (pro-active) support
information about e.g. know problems, changes, faq’s, unused
functionality

Blackboard
Demo overview Users
Pro-active
information Context sensitve
Situation: help
Information about Situation:
known problems, Find the Info Pull & ‘How to?’ questions
Info Push Feedback
changes, FAQ’s & expert of end-users
unused
functionality
EesySoft APS
Application Mapping,
Content
Reporting &
Management
User Feedback
Plug-in free building block
Installed in < 10 minutes
Hosting in UK
Expert
Tools
Application Manager SME‘S

Questions?
Should you have any questions please feel free to
contact
Peter Rayment
Learning and Teaching Manager, INSRV.
Telephone – 029 208 70290
Email – raymentpj@cardiff.ac.uk
Michel Visser
Managing Director, Eesysoft
Telephone - +31 (0)20 6586204
Email michel.visser@eesysoft.com