Students get Questions answered
The Utah State University Advising and Transition Services will have a new “answer center” designed to help students find answers to nagging questions.
Wade Oliver, assistant director for Advising and Transition Services, is working on starting this program to help fill the void of a “one-step” area for students to obtain accurate and quick direction and referrals.
The online answer center is “a place where students can go online to obtain answers to their basic questions. Students will be expected to browse the easy to navigate database of questions and answers to begin with,” Oliver said. “If their question is not there then they will be able to ask it through the Web site.”
John Mortensen, director of the Advising and Transition Center, said, “The idea was to have a physical location, similar to an information desk, where students could go and get questions answered on a number of issues.”
But because of lack of space and funding they could not. Therefore it will only be offered for students online.
Current USU students and those thinking of attneding will receive a personnel reply to their questions and then a generic form of their question and the answer will be put into the online database to help other students with the same question.
“The database will grow dramatically over time as the site is used by more and more students,” Oliver said. “I anticipate that this service will be used more by newer students than those that have been here for a while, but it will be available and useful to everyone.”
Mortensen said, “I would hope that students would utilize their academic advisers as much as possible. Although the online answer center is available to everyone, its main purpose is to serve individuals who may be thinking of attending USU or current students who do not know who their adviser is.”
Oliver said the online answer center will not be up and running until in its entirety May 1, 2002 because the sight is currently in development and will not be available to students until that date.