Text: Nienke Deuss

Photography: Mark Kuipers

Customer in foCus 19

TOPDESK ON YOUR DIPLOMA

the roC college in tilburg, the netherlands comprises 18 schools, all of which are supported by a toPdesk-based shared service Centre. the school for it and media technology is taking the use of toPdesk even further: students are taking toPdesk exams and they have made plans to set up their own toPdesk environment.

Wout Quispel (l) and Fons van Oosterhout - ROC Tilburg

20 Customer in foCus

Photography: Mark Kuipers

The school for IT & Media technology is unique: they are the only school with their own network environment. We provide IT education, so you want to give your students the opportunity to practice IT management. This means the network should be accessible and exible, explains Wout Quispel, teacher at the school. We use our own network environment. If you let students practice in a central environment, the security measures cause you more problems than benefits. Fons van Oosterhout, IT consultant, explains further. Ive worked at a school where they didnt think network separation was important. They hadnt considered that students could change their own grades! Providing students with their own network environment gives them a skill set which they can immediately put into practice. This is in line with our competency-based approach: students learn skills that they will be using in the field, says Quispel. The exams are also combined, so students can link knowledge acquired from different courses.

Were always developing ourselves, but schools can never quite catch up with the industry. Fons van Oosterhout was also hired as an external expert by ROC Tilburg. Last year he coached students in using ITIL and processedbased approaches. It is difficult to make ITIL speak to the students imagination, says Van Oosterhout. The process description is extremely abstract. I want to make these processes concrete by demonstrating how they work in practice. Ive been working with TOPdesk since the start of my career, and suggested using it as a practical example. The TOPdesk lessons give the students an accurate representation of a service desk. Its a good sandbox, says Van Oosterhout. Our goal is to provide each college level with a different challenge. Level two students will be taught the basics: processing incidents in TOPdesk. Level three students will also work with registering incidents and system management in the Project Management, Change Management and Problem Management modules. Once the students have completed their assignments, they have to link them to the incident and close the incident. It really gives them great hands-on experience with the software!

TOPDESK IS MARKET LEADER, AND IT COLLEGES SHOULD FOLLOW TRENDS

Fons van Oosterhout - ROC Tilburg

External demand
There was a strong demand to further develop the lessons at the ROC. The basic skills for IT management should include the ability to receive and process incidents, but these skills were barely discussed in class, explains Quispel. We received this feedback from companies providing the student internships. Seven out of these ten organizations use TOPdesk, but the students hadnt learned how to work with the software. Van Oosterhout adds, TOPdesk is market leader, and IT colleges should follow market trends. Thats why we decided to discuss TOPdesk in class.

The importance of trends

It is very important that IT studies are closely related to practice. You need to keep up with current market developments, explains Quispel. When our students graduate, they should be able to use the latest programs and most recent Windows version. Teachers also need continuous training to keep up with the latest market trends. We follow courses, but also hire experts to give classes. Teachers also join these classes to learn how they can give the course next time: the train the trainer concept.

Trial period
The first TOPdesk lessons were a tryout to see how the course could be structured. It was the first time wed given these lessons, so we had to take some time to find the right pace and approach. For instance, one of our students had completed his assignments three weeks early. We then gave him a demo account to experiment on his own a great learning experience for us!

IT management training
Van Oosterhout already had a good relationship with TOPdesk, so when the ROC wanted to use TOPdesk for their IT management lessons, he simply called the account manager. I made one phone call to Raoul and everything was arranged. We set up the application ourselves, which enabled the students to use it for their assignments.

Text: Nienke Deuss

Customer in foCus 21

After six weeks, the students took a mock exam to find out whether they had grasped the material. We handed out lists of incidents for the students to resolve, explains Van Oosterhout. Everyone seriously set to work. You could have heard a pin drop. In the end, the incident registration left much to be desired: most students only managed to register one or two out of seven incidents, of which only twenty-three per cent could be used. It made us realize that a lot of students didnt understand the point of registering incidents.

ment and the Knowledge Base. Slowly but surely we want to move on to other modules, because the TOPdesk lessons really show the students how ITIL can be used in practice. The ROC Tilburg also wants its other teachers to be able to give TOPdesk classes. This period was a great learning experience, says Van Oosterhout. Now we know how much

time we should spend discussing each topic and how we can make the lessons more engaging. Next year we would like to set up a service desk at the school, manned by interns, for which TOPdesk specialist Tim Lansbergen will help us set up a TOPdesk 5 environment. It will give the students a taste of what its like to work at a service desk.

Suddenly the phone rings

Quispel explains that the real exam was given at the end of the term. This time we truly tried to simulate a service desk in practice. The students were assigned three or four incidents on paper. We then shouted phone call at random intervals and new incidents started coming in by email, including a number of incidents with standard solutions. This immediately showed the students the added value of working with TOPdesk. Van Oosterhout also considers this test a success. It was a high-pressure exercise, because they didnt know what to expect. You could tell straight away that some students really understood what they were doing. They used the Knowledge Base or the Caller Card.

Development
The TOPdesk lessons are being further developed after this term. We started with the basics, says Quispel. First we covered Incident Management, Configuration ManageFons van Oosterhout (l) and Wout Quispel have set up TOPdesk lessons