Dive Brief:
- Campus IT departments can deploy a number of communication strategies to improve tech service and implementation efforts with students, faculty and staff.
- Strategies detailed by eCampus News include utilizing student advisory councils, open campus forums, interdepartmental integration, social media, and unique engagement strategies and higher levels of transparency as standard best practices in ensuring high marks for responsiveness and service.
- These strategies, experts say, are critical to enhancing the student campus experience and making the IT department more than just a troubleshooting resource.
Dive Insight:
The common perception of IT staff is that its members are often the worst communicators on campus, thanks to tech field stereotypes and a collective history of tech and tech initiatives being rolled out on campuses nationwide with little training or insight into how the campus culture will benefit as a result.
But information technology departments are among the most essential to a university’s operations, given the reliance upon networks and technology to teach and grade courses, and to manage payroll, purchasing and student data. Campuses can bridge the communication gaps with students and IT personnel by granting the department access to regular communications, and by encouraging an information-sharing model similar to those used by campus police to share best practices and prevention tips.