Help Desk

Phone 713-348-HELP (4357)
Room 103, Mudd Lab

Traveling this fall or winter? Handy tips from the Help Desk are available in two formats: Word document (64KB) or PDF (37KB).

The Help Desk is a central point of contact for technical help or service needs. From routing requests for service to providing accurate assessments of Rice's emerging trends for computer support specialists, the Help Desk has quickly become the hub of technical problem and incident management for the university.

Request Assistance

Any type of request for computing assistance can be logged with a phone call to the Help Desk at 713-348-HELP (4357) Monday through Thursday between 8 and 6 and Friday between 8 and 5, by completing the request form at http://helpdesk.rice.edu, or by sending e-mail to helpdesk@rice.edu. In fact, the e-mail option works best for off-campus customers who are submitting a request at a time when the Help Desk is not open.

Personal Contact

As soon as the request for service is received by a Help Desk staff member, the incident is assigned to a support specialist or an infrastructure specialist. In the case of requests made through the web form (http://helpdesk.rice.edu), automatic assignment is made based upon the answers provided to the various questions in the form. Although the majority of incidents can be resolved remotely, each request for service is assigned to a real person; support staff members are located throughout the campus for fast response to issues requiring hands-on repair.

Help Desk Hours

The Help Desk is open Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm and Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. To report network or server outages outside these times, call the Operations Center at extension 4989.

Support Staff

Many incidents are assigned to divisional support specialists with offices throughout the campus. Undergraduate student technical incidents are assigned to Student Computing Consultants (SCCs) or student consultants working in the Help Desk.