Help Desk Newsletter- April

Welcome to our iSchool Help Desk monthly newsletter!! We use this to share updates about what we’ve been up to. Whether you’re a current student, faculty, or staff; or maybe even an alumni or friend of the iSchool Help Desk and want to keep in-the-know about us, we’re glad to have you! You can expect updates about the major initiatives and projects we are working on, pictures and updates from our fun social events, and anything else up and coming at the iSchool Help Desk!

Accessibility Advocate Shoutouts

We have been helping support the iSchool as they work towards more accessible class materials to meet changing federal standards. We would like to celebrate those who have been stepping up to become Accessibility Advocates at the iSchool – whether they have been educating others about accessibility for years, or they’ve recently made the commitment to jump in and try their best, we think it’s important to recognize the effort and amazing impact that we can make as an iSchool community if we all do our part!

In March, we began spotlighting some of these advocates on a monthly basis. This is a great chance to recognize and uplift these efforts, to encourage one another as a community to keep striving, and to help students get to know our instructors a little better! Please check out our shoutout from April, lecturer Craig Evans, and keep an eye out for our last Advocate of this semester to be shared later in the week! Feel free to email us at ischool-support@illinois.edu to nominate any instructors and let us know their impact!

Check out the blog post here!

Help Desk Social Event- Game Night

We had another successful Help Desk social event, a game night! We enjoyed snacks and some fun board and video games as a group, including Quiplash, as you can see below.

Exciting Life Updates!

We have several exciting life updates as our GAs continue to search for jobs, prepare to graduate or to train our incoming GAs in August, and more!

Help Desk GA Audrey has accepted a position as the Librarian for Creative and Instructional Technologies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee!! She is very excited to be starting this position in July! We will be lost without her, but we’re so excited to see her take her amazing skills and positive personality and use them to succeed.

Help Desk GA Victoria has accepted a position as Research and Learning Librarian & Assistant Professor at Stetson University in Florida!! She will be starting in June. We are going to miss her warm presence so much, but we know that no one is more qualified than her and she will do an amazing job wherever she is!

First-year GA Elliot is also very excited to share that they have recently gotten engaged and will be married in October!

We hope you will keep on cheering on our GAs who are about to graduate and looking to find their next steps! We know they’ll all do great, and we all appreciate how supportive our community is.

April Fools Day

As per tradition, the Help Desk partook in many April Fools Day shenanigans. For the day, we became the Psychic Help Desk – offering cootie catchers to tell your fortune, tarot readings by absolute amateurs, and lots of fun graphics on our signs. Check out just a few of them below! Thanks to everyone who entertained our silly endeavors.

Hygiene items in bathrooms

While this is not directly Help Desk related (although we like to think we had a hand in pushing for this to get done), after months of waiting, the bathrooms in our building on the 4th floor now have hygiene supplies in them! We are excited for this building to be just a little bit more inclusive and accessible. Thank you to our awesome Facilities team!

Help Desk Menu

Lately, we have had several creative presentations given at our Team Meetings. If you’ve ever wondered what sort of coffee shop drink one of us Help Desk-ers most embodies, or if you’re curious to get to know us a little better, this presentation about the “Help Desk Menu” by Elliot might be of interest to you. Maybe you will even be motivated to try out one of the Help Desk-er inspired drinks!

Upcoming…

Thank you so much for reading our newsletter, and for all of your support! We are excited to be able to keep everyone updated on the fun things happening at the Help Desk and in our community. Keep an eye out for next month’s newsletter!

Help Desk Newsletter- March

Welcome to our NEW iSchool Help Desk monthly newsletter!! We will be using this to share updates about what we’ve been up to. Whether you’re a current student, faculty, or staff; or an alumni or friend of the iSchool Help Desk and want to keep in-the-know about us, we’re glad to have you! You can expect updates about the major initiatives and projects we are working on, pictures and updates from our fun social events, and anything else up and coming at the iSchool Help Desk!

Digital Accessibility

One of our biggest undertakings this semester has been to provide resources and support for the iSchool as it begins working to meet upcoming new federal accessibility standards. You can learn more about how the U of I is preparing for digital accessibility compliance here. Updating all course materials to meet these standards by April of next year is a big task, and we’re working in many different ways to provide support.

Our GAs have created workshops for faculty and Teaching Assistants about topics such as PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and Canvas accessibility practices and tools. We are currently working on adapting these and recording them as videos so that these trainings can be taken on instructors own schedules. We are also working to create short videos about specific common accessibility issues and how to remedy them, as well as important tools that can be used while updating materials to be more accessible!

Keep an eye out for these materials, and feel free to reach out to us with any questions. We’re always happy to help!

March Madness- Battle of the Books!

For our own version of March Madness, we had a bracket-style battle of the book genres! Starting with 16 genres (fiction and non-fiction), we had the iSchool vote for their favorite literary genres at the Help Desk each week to narrow them down.

Book Genre Bracket at the Help Desk. There is a container with drawers that are labelled with different genres to place votes in, and a paper underneath showing the different genres that are facing off with each other.

And we finally have a winner! Drumroll……

Comics!!! Enjoy a picture of our display celebrating the iSchool’s chosen favorite genre! Thank you so much to everyone who passionately participated every week, had good-natured debates, and shared your voices with us!

Collage of comic-style illustrations. In a speech bubble it reads “Winner of the March Madness book genre bracket: comics! I came down to between history and comics, with one vote determining comics as the winner. Your vote matters! Thank you for playing!”. In another text bubble beneath, it reads “What are your favorite comics?”.

Accessibility Advocate Shoutouts

As mentioned above, we have been helping support the iSchool as they work towards more accessible class materials. We would like to celebrate those who have been stepping up to become Accessibility Advocates at the iSchool – whether they have been educating others about accessibility for years, or they’ve recently made the commitment to jump in and try their best, we think it’s important to recognize the effort and amazing impact that we can make as an iSchool community if we all do our part!

In March, we began spotlighting some of these advocates on a monthly basis. This is a great chance to recognize and uplift these efforts, to encourage one another as a community to keep striving, and to help students get to know our instructors a little better! Please check out our first shoutout from March, professor Steve Oberg, and keep an eye out for our next Advocate to be shared later in the week! Feel free to email us at ischool-support@illinois.edu to nominate any instructors and let us know their impact!

Check out the blog post here!

Black background with a spotlight, and a headshot of Steve Oberg in the center. It says “Steve Oberg” at the top and “March ’25” at the bottom.

Community Shelf Updates

As we shared last month, our GA Delia has created a wonderful community shelf with free items to share. It now has a lovely new Grateful Space shelf, where anyone can come and share something they are grateful for, a cute drawing, or anything else uplifting! Please feel free to come add to this positive community creation.

A shelf with a sign that reads “Grateful Space. This is a space to share things that make you happy on sticky notes, leave a doodle, and express your joy.” There are coloring pages, sticky note pads, and crayons on the shelf. Surrounding the sign are various sticky notes reading things like “I am grateful for movies”, “I am grateful for pasta”, “I’m grateful for my friends”, etc.

Help Desk Social Events

For this month’s social events for the Help Desk GAs, we went to two wonderful escape rooms at Champaign Urbana Adventures in Time and Space! In two teams we tackled the Forest of Fables and Rise of the Icarus escape rooms. Both teams made it out successfully (one team with only 30 seconds to spare!) and had a wonderful time!

Several Help Desk GAs & friends posing in front of a large storybook with various props from the escape room.

Several Help Desk GAs and friends posing with the spaceship set of their escape room (one of them is holding a rocket).

Ramadan Fast-Breaking

Here at the Help Desk, we are well-known for our free candy. At the suggestion of one of our GAs, the Help Desk has also decided to provide dates and water bottles in the evenings during the holy month of Ramadan for any iSchool friends who happened to be fasting. This is a traditional way of breaking one’s fast after the sun goes down during Ramadan. We always strive to be a welcoming space for all of our iSchool family, and we hope this was just one of many ways we are able to show that!

A water bottle, a bag of dates, and a sign that reads “Observing Ramadan? Please help yourself to complementary dates and water!” on the front of the Help Desk.

Job Search Updates

As they prepare to graduate very soon, our second-year GAs are all searching for jobs and trying to find out where they’ll end up next.

Audrey has had a couple of interviews and had another big interview this week. Wanheng has an all-day interview on May 2nd. Another GA has several interviews coming up, and shared this:

“The search process really takes long and the feeling of not being selected makes it longer and stressful. But I think the experience makes it worth it. I just will keep trying and trust God!”

We know they’ll all do an amazing job! Please join me in wishing them the best of luck! ❤️

New Graduate Assistants

Our Help Desk managers have interviewed and found 5 amazing new incoming students to hire as Graduate Assistants starting this Fall, to replace the fantastic GAs that we will be losing after graduation. We are so excited to welcome some new faces – stay tuned to find out more about them later and welcome them to the team.

Stormy Weather

So far, all of us at the Help Desk have been staying safe from the bad weather. We hope you are all staying safe and sound as well!

Welcome back, Ky!

Our beloved newest manager (Senior IT Specialist), Ky, has returned from parental leave and we are all so excited to have them back! They are glad to be back, and the new baby is doing well. Please enjoy a recent picture of their absolutely precious little ones.

Ky’s two-year-old child and 3-month old baby sitting on a couch together, looking precious.

Upcoming…

Most of the current Help Desk GAs posing behind the Help Desk with paper hearts, one party hat, and smiles. Left to right: Victoria, Mohammed, Daniel (his face is covered), Maggie, Kyleigh, Delia, Audrey, Britany, Elliot, and Gates.

Help Desk Newsletter- February

Welcome to our NEW iSchool Help Desk monthly newsletter!! We will be using this to share updates about what we’ve been up. Whether you’re a current student, faculty, or staff; or an alumni or friend of the iSchool Help Desk and want to keep in-the-know about us, we’re glad to have you! You can expect updates about the major initiatives and projects we are working on, pictures and updates from our fun social events, and anything else up and coming at the iSchool Help Desk!

We’ve been keeping very busy this semester with lots of new projects. One of our largest projects has been to provide resources and support for the iSchool as the university begins working to meet new upcoming digital accessibility standards. You can learn more about how the U of I is preparing for digital accessibility compliance here. Updating all course materials to meet these standards by April of next year is a big undertaking, and we are working in many different ways to provide support throughout this process.

Our GAs have created, written, and led monthly workshops for faculty and Teaching Assistants about topics such as PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and Canvas accessibility practices and tools. We have also offered drop-in hours where instructors can bring in any materials that need updating or questions and get one-on-one help with them, and will continue offering these regularly.

Blind Date With a Book

On Valentine’s Day, the Help Desk hosted a Blind Date with a Book event, which was a hit! Lots of students came by and were paired with a new, free book (or two) from our little free library, all wrapped up and decorated with adorable designs! We had so much fun meeting students and helping them make new connections.

Collage of photos of students checking out our shelf full of books that are wrapped in tissue paper with cute illustrated designs.

Bluesky!

Did you know that we are on Bluesky now? While we have not completely transitioned away from other social media platforms, we are excited to try out this new platform and make new connections there! You can follow us at @uiuchelpdesk.bsky.social! You can check out our recent series of posts to help you get to know all of us GAs a little better! Here’s an example:

Photo collage with an image of our GA Delia in the center. It reads “Meet Delia” at the top and “She likes soup and recommends reading *The Marvelous Invention of Hugo Cabret*” at the bottom.

Social Events

Every month, the iSchool Help Desk GAs have a social event together to have some fun and enjoy time together as a team! This month’s event was a mystical Fortune Telling Tea Party, complete with snacks, crafts, and some fun activities! Enjoy some photos from this below.

Photo collage of some of our GAs hanging out with a fortune telling cake, tarot cards, and a cup of tea.

Graduation

As graduation is swiftly approaching for about half of our GAs, our second-years are working hard on their job searches. Join us in wishing them all good luck in finding the right next steps in their journeys! We know they will all be doing amazing things in the future, and we will continue sharing any exciting updates as they come!

In this process, our second-year GAs have also been putting together a compilation of career resources, including successful application materials and other useful information that will help future Help Desk GAs in their career preparation.

Community Shelf

Another great example of one of our GAs working to make things better for other students is our new Community Shelf! This is located next to the Help Desk, and Delia has worked hard to put together free resources for any students to give and take. There will also be a beautiful new zine full of resources and information about the iSchool coming to the shelf soon, and a shelf for people to leave notes and writing/art projects to share! Come check it out next time you’re near the Help Desk.

Upcoming…

Thank you so much for reading this, and for your support! We are excited to be able to keep everyone updated on the amazing things happening at the Help Desk and in our community. Keep an eye out for next month’s newsletter, as we have many exciting new things coming up!

Tech Tip: Course Registration

Course registration has started! As you register, you may experience issues using the system or get frustrated by navigation issues. The Help Desk is here to help you resolve these issues and set you up for success in the coming semesters.

Here are several quick tips if you experience issues registering for courses:

Clear your cache and cookies. Sometimes that’s all you need to do to fix the registration system!
Check for holds on your account – you may need to resolve them before you can register.
Double-check your registration time.
If you experience an error registering for a course, double-check the course requirements. It might be the wrong section of a course, or you may need to meet certain pre-requisites before you can register.
Make sure you hit the “Submit” button to register for selected courses – otherwise, your registration will not be saved!

The registrar also has resources to help guide you through the registration process. It’s a great resource for a variety of questions about the registration process, changing the amount of credits you register for, and more!

New Student Information

Welcome new students! Need help setting up technology for classes? reach out to the Help Desk! Image of person calling staff for help against a navy blue background.

Welcome new (and returning) students! We’re happy to have you on campus, and we hope you’re well rested and prepared for the semester. As you prepare for classes and settle in for the semester, you may need tech support to help set up accounts or manage computer settings, to borrow a piece of equipment, or you might just need a piece of candy. That’s what we’re here to help you with!

The Help Desk provides tech support for the iSchool community. You’ll probably see us show up at the beginning of an in-person or online course to offer tech support to your professors! You can also find us on the 4th floor of the new iSchool building at 614 E. Daniels St if you ever need in-person support (we also always have bowls of candy, if you just want a snack). In addition, we also loan out technology like computers, chargers, keyboards and mice to iSchool students, staff, and faculty.

Lastly, if you aren’t able to meet us in person, never fear! You can email us at ischool-support@illinois.edu, call us at 217-244-4903 or 800-377-1892, or message us using TechChat. We’re extremely friendly and would love to help you however we can.

One last time: welcome, new students! We’re excited to have you here.

Tech Tip of the Week: Installing Printers and Using Papercut

Have you ever needed to print something and not known where to do it? Never fear! The iSchool has some printers that you can use!

Location:

We recommend the use of public printers Optimus, located conveniently right next to the Help Desk on the second floor or Chip who resides next to room 12 on the first floor, both located in 501 E. Daniel St. In the new building, we recommend using Luna, located next to the Help Desk on the 4th floor. To learn more about the public printers and where they live, check out this Wiki page. We will do a second Tech Tip in the future regarding printers to use in the new building once everything is set up there!

Printing Cost and Quota:

iSchool Masters and CAS students have $21 a semester for printing costs. You must be currently enrolled in an iSchool course to use this budget. School Faculty, Staff, and PhD students are not charged for printing, although it is tracked. Both black and white and color printing costs $0.07/page. Color printing is available on Optimus, located on the 2nd floor near the Help Desk. Check your printing balance on the Illinois Papercut page. Unused printing quotas do not carry over. Additional printing quota can be purchased on the IlliniCash website.

Undergraduate iSchool students have access to printers across campus, including the ones in the iSchool. Undergraduate printing cost is $.10/page on monochrome printers and $.40/page on color printers. Color printers charge $.40/page even if monochrome documents are printed.

Printer Installation for your computer:

Though we do have self-service kiosks for both Chip and Optimus where you can log in and print from, there is also the option for you to download the printers on to your computer, so when you are in the building you will be able to print. Instructions for how to install the printers on Mac are here and PC here! Always feel free to drop by the Help Desk if you need assistance with installing printers or have any other questions!

Tech Tip: Tech Tips in QR codes!

We are happy to announce that QR codes will be available near the Help Desks in both 501 and 614 East Daniel. These codes will, when scanned by your smartphones’ QR code reader app, link directly to previous Tech Tips you may find useful. These QR codes will be labeled. Please feel free to drop by and learn a new Tech Tip!

In the future we hope to add more of these QR codes, revisiting Tech Tips that have otherwise been forgotten.

QR code to scan with smartphone — This QR code links to a recent Tech Tip post, “Services Available After Graduation”. Scan it with your phone and QR reader app to link directly to the tip on our blog.

Longing Gazes into the Weekend

This week the Help Desk was graced with nobility the likes of which we have never seen.

We had to make sure everyone saw Eartha Kitty, and hope that her proud stance will inspire you into the weekend! Thank you Kiri for sharing this adorable floof with us!

Photo of cat looking out a window

Want to see your pet featured? Email their picture to ischool-support@illinois.edu!

Hello!

…And welcome to the School of Information Sciences Help Desk Blog!

We are happy to have you here.

We hope to post relevant news and technology tips here on the Home page. This blog is maintained entirely by iSchool graduate students.

For more general information about the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois, check out the website here.