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Managing Alternate Media Student Staff Remotely in the Pandemic and Beyond  

Handouts

Presented at 11:15am in Plaza Ballroom D on Thursday, November 18, 2021.

#34085

Speaker(s)

  • Annissa Stout, Alternate Media Coordinator, University of Arizona
  • Chris Storms, Document Conversion Coordinator, University of Arizona

Session Details

  • Length of Session: 1-hr
  • Format: Lecture
  • Expertise Level: All Levels
  • Type of session: General Conference

Summary

UArizona DRC rapidly shifted into a remote environment for student staff in the past year and developed a hybrid return-to-the office for student workers in Fall ‘21. We’ll highlight several challenges and successes in our new environment related to management, communication, technology use and training which allow continued collaborative work.

Abstract

UArizona DRC employs around 20 student staff in positions related to document conversion, testing, and academic support. Changes in technology, communication, hiring, and training were necessary to make the rapid transition to remote work while keeping up a high standard of service. In this presentation we will discuss the support structures necessary to make this transition successful, including IT support, use of a departmental database for managing workflow, increase in online communication, changes in training and hiring practices, and student worker engagement. With a return to campus scheduled in the fall, we will also discuss how we manage a hybrid return-to-work for student employees for the 2021-2022 academic year. We will go over lessons learned and share technology we found to be successful and cost effective.  

Keypoints

  1. Leverage existing structures in campus networks to transition to a work-from- anywhere approach 
  2. Robust communication needed among DRC professional staff, IT staff and student workers to maintain production
  3. By redesigning the training program for student staff, remote work becomes more sustainable

Disability Areas

All Areas

Topic Areas

Alternate Format, Captioning/Transcription, Uncategorized

Speaker Bio(s)

Annissa Stout

Annissa has worked in disability services for almost 15 years. She started as a student employee in document conversion and took on the role of the document conversion coordinator at the Disability Resource Center after graduating from the University of Arizona. Since that time she has received her degree in Higher Education from Northern Arizona University and is now the Alternate Media Coordinator overseeing both document conversion and video captioning. 

Chris Storms

Chris Storms has been with the University of Arizona Disability Resources Center as Document Conversion Coordinator for about a year.  Chris previously spent almost 20 years with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as a web developer and health communication specialist. 

Handout(s)