Per the request of my Regional Academy Support Center, I am posting this concern here after receiving the following notification:

The Cisco Academy help desk is no longer available by phone:
a. Contact WASTC (Regional Support Center)
b. Use the online Chat, or e-mail

I then sent the following e-mail to my Regional Support Center:

On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 10:22 PM, netcert-teach@usa.net wrote:

Hi Karen,

Happy New Year! Hope you had a great holiday break.

I don't believe that this is a decision that you or anyone at WASTC had any input regarding, but WHY is the Cisco Academy Help Desk no longer available by phone? In my opinion, this is NOT good! The WASTC support staff, (Richard? You?), are not available 24x7 or even 18x6 to cover all hours that classes might be in session. In addition, I don't believe that the WASTC "support staff" has the same access to the Cisco NetSpace system that the Cisco Academy Help Desk staff does.

I could understand terminating student access, but to terminate instructor access is just plain crazy! We need the "instant" live support during class times when things go wrong; when we are starting classes and attempting to get students enrolled, and especially during Final Exams. I had this exact problem during Finals this semester when I received an error message number while trying to activate an exam for a student. The message number was not explained, and the only way I was able to determine the cause was by calling the Academy Help Desk.

How are we going to get that kind of timely support after the 15th when telephone support is shut down? HELP!?!?!??? We REALLY need this support . . . and I just don't see how WASTC or any of the other support centers can provide this regarding hours of operation or system access/knowledge. Are they going to give you folks the same "administrative" level access to the NetSpace system that the Telephone Support Desk currently has? Are they going to give you the same level of training that the current support staff has? Do you or would you have time to do that kind of work? I think the answer to all of these questions is "no."

What can instructors like myself do to convince Cisco that they need to keep telephone support, (probably for Instructors only), at least six days a week? For what it's worth, the Academy Support Staff has always been GREAT!

Thank you for your ear.

Regards,

Lorin Thompson
Mission College - Santa Clara, CA.
Ohlone College - Newark/Fremont, CA.

Hi Lorin

I agree with everything you have stated above. WASTC does not even have access to the resources to solve the type of problems you are noting. WASTC is able to help with lots of issues, but certainly cannot replace the Cisco Academy Help Desk, which has always been exemplary.

You will have access to the "Live Chat" accessible through the "help" feature on NetSpace.

So what to do

1. I will forward your letter to the help desk and John Bjerke. Once done I will find out where to forward it to the best advantage.

2. Please send this same letter to the "Share Ideas" button on the NetSpace site [right side of the screen after log in]

Thank you for your input Lorin

Karen

Received from Joy Hall, Program Manager for the Networking Academy support desk:

The support desk is available for live chat 24x5, from Sunday 7pm PT to Friday 7pm PT.

In response to Joy:

• What about classes or testing sessions that are held on Saturdays?
  
• Online chat is not very good when you don't have access to the system, or when students are waiting for results. It's way too slow and cumbersome, not to mention what gets lost in translation when trying to type out thoughts. (On the plus side, it would be good for cut-n-pasting of error codes and messages.)

Does anyone else share my concerns about this change?

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Lorin Thompson
Mission College, Santa Clara, CA, USA.
Ohlone College, Newark.Fremont, CA, USA.