Campus Resources: Making the Most of SMU's Technical Supports
Written by Alex Fisher
Thumbnail & Banner Photo by Gaurav Dhwaj Khadka on Unsplash.com
Computers, phones, and networks can be confusing at times. Whether you’re running into a frustrating technical issue or unsure what digital tool would be best to use for a project, it can sometimes feel like too much to handle—especially with the stress of university.
Fortunately for you, however, Saint Mary’s University has a great deal of supports and resources for all of your technical needs.
The EIT Help Desk: Your Go-To Support System
Technical issues with your devices are frustrating no matter when they occur, especially when they prohibit you from completing your schoolwork. Many students across campus have surely experienced the stress of a computer or software error preventing them from finishing their work.
The EIT, or Enterprise Information Technology, help desk is the most general form of technical support at SMU. They provide help with a huge range of technical issues: everything from your phone refusing to connect to the SMU Wi-Fi network to a classroom PC dying in the middle of a lecture. It is the job of the EIT staff to support you with any and all problems that SMU technology and networks may give you.
While the EIT staff can be reached by phone or email, they also have two physical locations on campus where you can bring your questions or your device and get more immediate support. One of these desks is conveniently located at the heart of campus, mere steps away from both McNally South and the Sobey Building, on the second floor of the Loyola Academic building. If you prefer to spend your time in the Library, however, or often have classes in the Science or Burke buildings, there is a second EIT help desk in the Atrium. Both locations are open Monday through Friday, except for holidays and university closures. During the academic year, the Atrium location is also open on Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM and on Sundays and weekends from 12:00 PM noon to 10:00 PM—because technical issues never choose a convenient time to happen.
The EIT help desks should be your go-to location for any issues that may arise when using the technology or networks on campus. Even issues that may arise in the classroom can be solved through the EIT department’s Classroom Support staff, who are specially trained to fix and maintain the technology that you can find in nearly every class or meeting room on campus. Even in cases where they’re unable to help, the EIT staff will be able to point you in the right direction for further assistance.
The Software and Application Support Centre: Finding the Best Tools for the Job
In some cases, you might have specific questions about a certain program or app that you need to use. This is where the SAS Centre, or the Software and Application Support Centre, can come in handy. A smaller part of the Studio for Teaching and Learning, the SAS Centre can provide support and training around Microsoft Office 365 applications, Brightspace, and digital media tools.
Through a number of written articles, as well as regularly scheduled events on campus, the SAS staff can help you learn more about the tools you use on a daily basis. Are you a Teaching Assistant for a course that releases grades through Crowdmark? They have an entire webpage dedicated to helping you navigate that. Are you trying to design the perfect presentation for a class’s final project? They have a page to help with that, too.
While the EIT help desks are there to support you when something goes wrong, the SAS Centre is there to guide you and teach you about the various applications that SMU provides. Located on the first floor of the Atrium and open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday, the staff of the SAS Centre will undoubtedly be able to help you with finding and mastering the right tool for any job.
ACENET: Supercomputer Access in Atlantic Canada
While not a service directly provided by SMU, ACENET is partnered with the university and provides resources—most notably, access to a powerful supercomputer—to researchers here at Saint Mary’s University. Their services cover a wide range of topics, including mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, and the humanities.
While most of these resources are limited to researchers, ACENET provides a series of training programs in a variety of fields, especially in programming and machine learning. These programs can help you learn more about their topics and improve your technical skills, something that could prove very useful in your future career.
The Patrick Power Library: Your Guide to Finding Resources
The PPL, or Patrick Power Library, is, of course, SMU’s very own on-campus library. With the entrance located in the Atrium, three floors of study space, seemingly endless books, and its own archives, the PPL is unsurprisingly another pillar of support at Saint Mary’s. In fact, we briefly touched upon the supports available through the library in a previous SMU Journal article. What may surprise you, however, is the great depth of technical support you can receive from the library.
If you have a big research project coming up, it may feel overwhelming, and you may not know where to start. The staff at the Patrick Power Library can help! One of the services offered to students is help with their research projects, including Honours theses. This help is offered through several means, including appointments and texts, making it highly accessible as well.
If you’re having issues with citations in your research project, the library can also help with that. There is an entire website available to help you navigate your citation needs for any project. This includes resources on citing legal documents, Canadian government documents, artificial intelligence, as well as guides to all of your favourite citation styles. It is truly a wealth of knowledge, and taking advantage of this free-to-use resource will ensure that you never lose marks on your citations again.
So, now you’ve gotten help with your research and finished your citations. What about any copyrighted materials? The PPL has you covered there, too. The Copyright Guide website is another great resource that can help you understand what copyright is and how to use copyrighted materials appropriately. They even have a section entirely dedicated to Indigenous knowledge and the copyright laws around that topic, with links to related resources.
You’ve finally finished your project: you’ve completed all of the necessary research, cited every piece of material you used, navigated the complexities of copyright law, and all that’s left to do is finish writing your assignment and hand it in. That’s when disaster strikes: you spill your coffee, splashing it all over your laptop and completely destroying it. You turn once more to the library staff, and they have the perfect solution: you can borrow one of the Patrick Power Library’s laptops. While there are some limitations to this, such as needing to create copies of your files on a flash drive or backing them up through OneDrive, the library’s loaned laptops allow you the flexibility of working anywhere that’s comfortable for you while still having access to a reliable computer. You do have to return the laptop by the time the library closes each day and renew the loan every three hours, but in a pinch, this is still a great resource to ensure that you can complete your coursework even if something happens to your computer.
Whether you’re trying to solve an issue with the Wi-Fi on your phone or learning how to create a program in Python, there are a variety of resources available at Saint Mary’s that can help you. While the services outlined in this article are only a few of all that are available, they are nonetheless incredibly helpful in getting you through your academic journey. If you ever have any questions about what resources are available to you and the best way to go about using them, the staff in any of these departments would be more than happy to guide you.
Let us know in the comments on our social media pages: how were the technical supports on campus able to help you in the past, and are there any additional services you would like to see?