Optimizing User Support through Synergistic Integration of Helpdesk Systems

Helpdesks are an essential platform to engage with users around the central topics and services offered by the NFDI consortia. Thus, many consortia are planning to provide such a point of contact for the community. Topics to be covered by all helpdesks include both general and discipline specific Research Data Management (RDM)-related questions. Several consortia already offer helpdesks from previous developments, others have implemented or are in the process of implementing one.

The organization and technical backbone of helpdesks can be very diverse and can either be based on existing systems or be implemented and developed from scratch. In this abstract, we discuss both variants on the example of the existing systems of NFDI4Biodiversity and DataPLANT. With this example, we would like to start the discussion on potential joint helpdesk efforts in the NFDI community. Combining our efforts certainly offers many advantages, but it also poses challenges that we want to overcome together, with the goal of OneNFDI and, above all, user-friendliness in mind.