March 28, 2024

spit3BY SHAFAQ PARWEZ

Conestoga’s IT Support website has a new look, with some of the features updated and made more accessible. The department was quick to act on suggestions from students, working diligently over the past year to enhance the features of the website and make it as user-friendly as possible.

The work was completed by website developers, all of whom are Conestoga students.

According to other students on campus, the most frequent problem is being logged out of either eConestoga or college email. Humna Sayed, a second-year business administration student, said, “Sometimes we get locked out of the Wi-Fi at college.”

This happened mostly at the beginning of the new term. When asked about this issue, Jesslyn Wilkinson, an IT training specialist in the IT department, said, “The reason why you get locked out is because a lot of people don’t know that when you change your password for your account, that password change doesn’t get pushed out to your other devices.”

This is why a lot of returning students get locked out of all the devices they use to access eConestoga. To solve this problem, the IT department says that students should turn off their Wi-Fi and then reconnect to the school’s Wi-Fi again. The new IT website notifies students that they must change their password first and then reconnect to the Wi-Fi.

This ensures the security of the students.

The department also says that it strives to do its best to solve all issues that students face promptly. However, the department wants students to understand that there is a small staff serving the more than 12,000 full-time and more than 30,000 part-time students. There are three members at the IT Service Desk and a rotating group of approximately eight to 10 students who are limited in how many hours they can work. For the most part, it is 10 hours a week per student.

The department also actively tries to encourage staff to work at the IT Service Desk in order to cater to as many issues as quickly as possible.

One of the other problems experienced by students is the slow speed of the Internet. When asked about this issue, Wilkinson said,” It really is reliant often on downloads. And streaming.”

According to Wilkinson, regular training sessions are held every three days for staff.

One thing students may not be aware of is Conestoga’s IT department has been offering free downloads of Microsoft Office Suite 2010, 2013 and 2016 for the past five years. Windows 7 and Windows 10 are also available. For Mac users, the department offers Parallels. Students can also get Adobe Creative Cloud for $10 a month.

These downloads enable students to carry out all academic programming not only on campus, but also in the comfort of their homes. Despite offering this service for more than five years, students aren’t aware of it.

Students can access the free downloads by going to it.conestogac.on.ca and clicking on the “downloads” tab. The department is looking into the possibility of doing a campaign to increase awareness.

This summer, the college began providing free access to Lynda.com to Conestoga students in collaboration with the college library. This website is the most widely used online platform for business, software, creative skills and technology. The website provides tutorials in five languages in a range of fields such as photography, animation and Dreamweaver. This helps students to take their learning experience to the next level without even having to come to school, say, for the weekend.

Lynda.com can be accessed through the library’s website.

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