An image of two figures holding hands, one helping the other

HELP! Getting (Academic) Technology Support at Swarthmore

Your Academic Technology team at Swarthmore loves to talk with you about your teaching and your research! But there are times when you need quick answers or to have something fundamental solved. Naturally, right now, we’re helping folks prepare for the Fall Semester, and we’re ready to answer your course setup questions. We are holding a series of workshops that might address your Fall course preparation concerns. Please reach out when you need help!

Please note: If there is a campus issue with something that impacts a large number of folks, we try to post a notice on the Dash and on the ITS Support Portal.

Answers to Technology Questions

First, for questions about technology at Swarthmore, please check our KnowledgeBase at https://kb.swarthmore.edu. We’ve published the answers here to the most common (and some uncommon) questions that we are regularly asked by faculty, staff and students at the College. Whether it’s a question about Moodle (our Learning Management System), about connecting to the network, or about printing on campus, or whatever, we generally have the answers detailed here. Checking KB is also the fastest way to find your answer, and helps to make sure that staff have the time to fully address your more complicated questions. You’ll notice that we have links to the most common Moodle questions each semester, right at the top of our Moodle page in KB.

Getting More Help

Second, check the support portal: https://support.swarthmore.edu, where we also have search functionality that links into the articles KB, as well as request forms for common IT needs, like requesting a computer move, an ethernet jack to be activated, a new Moodle site to be set up, a Google Group to be created and much more! This is your best way to enter a ticket into our system for something you need human intervention to solve. You can also send an email to support@swarthmore.edu or call 610-328-4357 from on campus, with details of your question or request, and our team will get back to you as soon as possible, during regular business hours. You can find more details about the Help Desk hours, and making an appointment for in-person Help Desk Support at this URL: https://calendly.com/swat-acad-tech.

Discuss Your Teaching and Research!

Third, when you’re ready to come by at chat about your teaching and research, it’s best to set up an appointment with a member of the Academic Technology team. You can do that through Calendly: https://calendly.com/swat-acad-tech, which is an easy to use tool that will help you find at time that works best for a meeting with one of us.

Of course, the Academic Technology team welcomes drop-in conversations too! We just ask that folks recognize that we have many members of the campus community that we support, and we want to be fair to everyone. We’re located in offices along the first floor (Garden Level) hallway of Beardsley Hall. You can find more information about the team and how to contact us on our ITS Web Pages. We look forward to the opportunity to chat about how we can work with you to support your teaching and research!

Who We Are

  • Andrew Ruether – Natural Sciences, Head of Academic Technology Support
  • Ashley Turner – Humanities, Senior Academic Technologist)
  • Corrine Schoeb – Technology Accessibility Coordinator
  • Doug Willen – Social Sciences, Senior Academic Technologist
  • Jen Moore – Course Content Accessibility Manager
  • Jeremy Polk – Media Center Coordinator
  • John Word – Language Center Technologist
  • Michael Jones – Director of Language and Media Centers\Makerspace
  • Tony Weed – Academic Web Developer

Please remember, our team can all be reached through the Support Portal or via email to support@swarthmore.edu, and using that mechanism makes sure that your need is addressed when one of us is out of the office.