Open for person to person advice 17.00 to 08.00 weekdays 24 hours weekends/public holidays, all year round. This includes the Christmas closure period.
Contactable by: Phone, Free Phone, Email, SMS Text
Transfer your daytime helpline phone through to a dedicated line and/or transfer your email through to us while you are closed. Students or staff ringing your published number out of hours will receive a message specific to your institution to let them know they are through to the out of hours service for your institution.
Alternatively a separate contact number or address may be published.
Optional Extras
The Out of Hours Helpline also provides extra coverage periods which can be added onto your standard subscription:
- Extra Morning One - Extends cover to 09:00 (from 08:00)
- Extra Morning Two - Extends cover to 10:00 (from 08:00)
- Extra Afternoon - Brings forward cover to 16:00 (from 17:00)
Email info@outofhourshelp.ac.uk for further information
All queries are logged on our helpdesk system referencing the student or staff username, making all queries traceable and available for ongoing analysis and reporting. Reports of all queries logged are sent daily to the home support team.
We aim to resolve the most frequently asked questions for each institution, along with all standard desktop software queries.
Local information is loaded into our comprehensive Knowledge Base. We use GotoAssist® for online help sessions.
Staff are recruited for their IT skills as well as excellent customer service. Depending on the level of access granted by the home institution our staff can offer help in a wide variety of areas including:
- Virtual Learning Environments e.g. Blackboard, WebCT
- Wireless connections
- Halls of residence connections
- Password resets
- Off site access to local services
- Anti-virus software advice
- Accessing electronic journals
- File retrieval and conversion
The Helpline can perform first line diagnostics before escalation of unplanned outages to home institution emergency contacts.
The service is run on a cost-recovery basis and rates are kept as low as possible to keep the service viable but cost-effective for academic institutions. Please contact us by email to info@outofhourshelp.ac.uk for the current rates.
