The Learning Space Management (LSM) at the University of Toronto (UofT) is the department that manages the central or 'shared' space at University of Toronto - both academic (classroom) spaces & shared community (non-classroom) areas. LSM also offers services like room information, space booking, tech support, reporting classroom problems, etc.
The Tech2U program under LSM humanizes classroom technical support to foster excellent and innovative teaching and learning in an increasingly technological classroom. The program provides real-time, personalized technical support for instructors through a technical support team, moving from a room-based approach focused on instructor needs.
The TalkMaster (TM) specifically is an online service for remote help. All calls from the intercom of teaching stations in classroom are directed to a TM. The TM has access to control all the classroom technology remotely. TM must listen to the issue a classroom is having and think of best possible solution. This requires a significant amount of knowledge regarding system architecture and possible issues. The TM can respond to the problem in two ways- 1) send help to the classroom or 2) resolve the issue remotely. All this process can take up to 5 minutes for one phone call. The problem arises due to the huge size of UofT. On peak days and times, we can expect up to 100 calls in an hour. Even if 3 people are working simultaneously as a TM, there isn’t enough time to respond to each call immediately.
Our aim is to build a system that would help decide whether the issue can be solved remotely, or a staff member needs to be dispatched to a class location. And if the TM needs to help remotely then a relevant trouble shooting guide or procedure will be displayed using the information from the Knowledge Base with the help of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG).