FAQ for Faculty

Student Technology Assistants in Residence are available to help with any short-term instructional technology project. We handle the technical stuff, allowing you to focus on the content. Since the start of the program, STARs have assisted dozens and dozens of faculty and staff with projects such as the ones listed below.

  • Helping a faculty member develop course-related Web pages
  • Formatting class notes for publishing on the Web
  • Creating animations for a course Web page
  • Digitizing slides and graphics for a course
  • Creating an interactive map graphic for a course activity
  • Scanning graphics
  • Digitizing audio and video recordings for use on the Web
  • Filming introduction videos to be used in podcasts or on Blackboard.
  • Training faculty and staff on using Prezi, Sitecore, and other web apps.

Any SMU faculty, including adjunct, or staff member with a "short-term" project requiring instructional technology support can request assistance from a STAR. The one restriction is the STAR students are available for short-term projects on a first come, first served basis, and not all projects are good fit for a STAR. The Manager will contact you and discuss your needs if there are any questions about the project.

The STAR Program is provided as a services to the SMU community by OIT at NO CHARGE, except for any consumables that may be used such as, but not limited to, CD's, DVD's, film, or videotape.

To request STAR assistance, you can submit a help ticket at or contact the STAR Program Manager, Michael Robertson by email at robertsonm@smu.edu if you have any questions.

While you may request a STAR that was previously assigned, in general, the student and the program benefit when the student has the opportunity to work with multiple faculty members on multiple projects. Also, we may find another STAR is more appropriate for your project's needs.

STARs are available during the academic year except during "reading days," finals, and breaks. A STAR may be available during larger breaks, summer & winter, as needed.

Currently, we usually limit our scanning to about 1 slide tray per semester. As to the labeling, we are not the content expert, so labeling would not only be time consuming, but error prone. Our process is to have the scans are organized in a folder corresponding to the slide tray (e.g., "Tray 5" or "Egypt 18th Dynasty"). Slides are auto-numbered (e.g., Tray5-18.tiff--i.e., the 18th slide in Tray Five). We add no other metadata.