| University of Plymouth
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Background:
The University of Plymouth is one of the UK's most prominent and
dynamic universities with an educational history dating back to
1862. Consistently ranked as one of the top three modern
universities, Plymouth serves over 30,000 students with a staff
close to 3000 members.
With campuses in Plymouth, Exeter and Exmouth , their commitment
to being accessible to a wide cross-section of the community is
supported by flexible learning opportunities, and a broad portfolio
of programmes, with strong academic and vocational emphasis.
Plymouth has performed very well in all teaching reviews carried out
by external bodies since 1996.
The University is committed to improving the experience of its
students, demonstrated by a high level of investment in new
facilities and technological updates.
Situation:
The University's "Information & Learning Service
Department" serves both faculty and students. Library, Media
and IT Computing services are all provided through the department
staff. The huge volume of enquiries required a large staff to manage
the face-to-face and telephone inquiries. As demands increased, the
University considered the option of a self-help service to provide
24/7 support and free up department staff to perform other needed
tasks.
Strategy:
The University of Plymouth evaluated and selected the Novo Knowledge
Base System. With its easy deployment and intuitive editor tool, the
knowledge base was up and running very quickly. No longer does staff
need to understand html or update information in multiple areas
across departments, now articles reside in one central repository
for all to access. From the simple to the technical, university
faculty and students are finding answers to their requests within
the knowledge base system.
Results:
The transition to self help has been a big success. The department
states that "the knowledge base is very stable and
robust". End users are doing searches at a rate of 70,000 per
month. Staff has been freed up and reassigned to other duties and
users are very happy to be able to do the searches themselves. The
system is now being used by the University's "Learning
Development Team", who use it as an online resource for basic
"how to" information on study skills.
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