As the recipient of AskOnline’s Innovator Award, The University of Southern Maine, and its Learning Commons, represent the best in what happens when university libraries partner with academic support, faculty, information services and other stakeholders to create an environment that is truly dedicated to enhance student engagement and academic success.

This award is presented to institutions that are expanding the boundaries of AskOnline’s technology through creative application of its software platform to enhance student engagement and academic success. In the case of The University of Southern Maine, it is presented to a team of professionals and a unique learning environment called The Learning Commons.

In announcing the award, Jessie Bourneuf, President of AskOnline cited, “We have known for a long time that we have unique clients who use our platform in myriad ways. Many, like the University of Southern Maine, have stretched our technology through applications even we hadn’t thought of and it occurred to us that this story was worth sharing with colleagues across the country.”

Paul Dexter, Coordinator of Academic Support in The Learning Commons, shares the story of how this uncommon physical space and uncommon collaboration within the academic community, actualized a winning environment for student engagement.

Background

A little more than a year ago a conversation was started at the University of Southern Maine around a fundamental challenge facing the university’s academic support program; many students were either reluctant to ask for help, or did not know how to find it. Beginning with this simple yet extraordinarily complex question, conversations began across multiple departments, titles and disciplines that became the blueprint for the creation of The Learning Commons.

Getting it Right, Right from the Start

The inception of The Learning Commons resulted from collaborative conversations between the Division of Student Success and the Division of Academic Affairs. The University Libraries had implemented an Information Commons a few years earlier in which library services and higher levels of computer and technology resources were combined in a service model. The Libraries were interested in partnering with other academic support services as part of its response to the changing landscape of libraries and to promoting the libraries as centers for learning. Conversations began with Student Success followed by visits to and talks with other libraries where the learning commons model had been adopted.

A unique characteristic of the approach was an early decision to offer a fully integrated commons with staff working from a single desk for one stop assistance for students.

The organizational structure of The Learning Commons does not include a single leadership position, rather a diversified team of professionals (sometimes referred to as “The Bullpen”). The team includes the Director of University Libraries, the Coordinator of Academic Support, the Head of Reference & Information Literacy Programs, the Library’s Head of Access Services, and the Circulation Associate on USM’s Gorham campus. “It was a conscious decision that the responsibilities of managing the Commons are shared equally,” offered Elizabeth Higgins, the Executive Director of Student Success, “We wanted to build a collaborative partnership that shared ownership and responsibility for a successful student learning experience.”

At the beginning of the process this multidisciplinary team met with the Student Senate and the Student Marketing Association, working up a wish list for what the physical space should look and feel like. They pre-marketed the program through tutors and invited student leaders to visit the space while it was being built out, giving tours in hard hats. More importantly, they solicited input from faculty, research librarians, technology staff, students and tutors throughout the process, resulting in a Learning Commons that students have made their academic “home”’ and a place where collaborative learning happens naturally.

Today, each location of USM’s Learning Commons is comprised of a variety of flexible spaces, including new group study rooms, a seminar room that doubles as a testing room for twelve, carousel and café style work stations for MAC’s and PC’s with access to the Internet, video on demand, wireless printing and other resources. Groupings of deep and comfortable chairs and movable tables are set up for collaborative and individual study.

Faculty engagement is critical in The Commons and two private rooms with white boards are designed as an inviting area for members to collaborate with each other and meet with students. Through partnerships with USM’s Athletics Department and Greek chapters, students required to complete study hours can now document academic time on task in The Learning Commons via a card swipe system. And through fortuitous financial planning and structural ingenuity, the Commons has a small recording studio for creating audio and video projects.

In all, each of the locations of The Learning Commons can accommodate 150 people doing various tasks and collaborations at one time, creating an environment that is both charged with energy and bursting with creativity.

The integrated service model has dissolved many of the “silos” of the past. Students access both research and writing assistance in the same place, previously segmented between USM Libraries and The Learning Center. Reference Librarians work side by side at the same desk with tutors, resulting in a more comprehensive service experience.

The Learning Commons delivers a compendium of student support including face-to-face tutoring in multiple subjects, technology support, research assistance, and group study spaces in innovative and inviting settings that encourage collaborative learning. In addition to research assistance and subject-based tutoring, The Learning Commons provides students with opportunities to strengthen learning strategies through peer academic coaching and via web-based academic resources.

An integral part of The Learning Commons is AskOnline.net, a software platform USM adopted and customized for scheduling, communications and management of its multi-site face-to-face and online tutoring. Through web connectivity students can submit questions by email, talk via chat, schedule an in-person tutoring or research assistance session, or schedule an online tutoring appointment on subjects including writing, math, biology, accounting and finance, and technology. They can find and book appointments using Smartphones, iPads or laptops from anywhere.

The AskOnline platform not only provides students with “one-stop shopping” for finding many types of academic support, but also serves as a bridge between USM’s three campuses. The Writing Center at USM’s Lewiston-Auburn College now lists its available appointments on AskOnline, along with the Portland and Gorham campuses. Reference Librarians from all three campuses had already been providing live chat assistance via Ask-A-Librarian, a service now complemented by scheduled appointments via AskOnline.

Achieving Success

Today, The Learning Commons is a vital, vibrant student-centric part of USM, and Dexter and the entire team are looking at the future.

As Dexter looks at the evolution of the Commons he describes a space and program that both belongs to the students and is, in many respects, actually managed by them. They schedule the study rooms and drive activity in tutoring services. They fuel the demand for tutors as they look to achieve academic excellence as well as for classic support.
Just as importantly, he has seen the faculty and library services embracing the potential of collaborative learning that happens naturally in The Learning Commons environment.

Today the Learning Commons appears blessed with a good problem; great tutors, great space and high demand. Utilization of research assistance among the Reference Librarians is up 28% over last year, and utilization of math tutoring has increased by 147%. Perhaps most importantly, the team believes they have been successful in breaking down some of the barriers students have in asking for help. Students know they can come to The Learning Commons to arrange for, find and get the support they need as well as settle into a comfortable, collaborative environment that is naturally conducive to achieving academic success.

The Learning Commons team are now preparing themselves for what’s next. On that list are partnership with additional academic departments, promotion of virtual collaborative opportunities such as group study via Google Hangout, and new workshops on research, writing, and technology-based academic time on task. There is also discussion about the creation of a Faculty Commons on the floor of USM’s Glickman Library directly above the Portland campus location of The Learning Commons, with interface between the two learning environments as a key conceptual component.

USM’s Learning Commons demonstrates innovation and collaboration on many levels; where university departments have been boldly blended making student engagement and academic uccess and achievement infinitely more attainable. Certainly there is more to come.

AskOnline Recognizes University for its Exceptional Collaborative Environment for Academic Support

May 1, 2013, Braintree, MA. Internet software provider AskOnline has awarded its first Innovator Award to the University of Southern Maine’s Learning Commons. This award is presented to institutions that are expanding the boundaries of AskOnline’s technology through creative applications of its software platform to enhance student engagement and academic success.

The USM’s Learning Commons is cited for its ambitious design and concept; both in the physical spaces that invite unique student collaboration and the expanded use of on-line technologies, platforms and communications that provide academic support for students.

In making the announcement Jessie Bourneuf, President of the Massachusetts headquartered AskOnline commented, “We’ve watched USM continually stretch our products as the full impact of the Learning Commons has gained traction on campus. USM is an outstanding example of how the re-purposing of physical space, combined with the unique partnering with the Library and other departments in the university, can make collaborative learning accessible in new and exciting ways. We’re proud that our technology has been an integral part of it,” she continued.

The AskOnline platform is an internet solution for scheduling and managing academic support and advising programs. It extends face-to-face and multi-site tutoring programs on-line through synchronous and asynchronous interactions and a variety of communication tools like whiteboards and chat rooms.

The Learning Commons was developed through a partnership between USM Libraries and the Division of Student Success. The Learning Commons itself was designed as an active, collaborative physical space where students can work with reference librarians, tutors, faculty and each other in a dynamic environment.

The operational structure of The Learning Commons is also unique because it’s managed not by one person, but by a multidisciplinary team of professionals that include Dexter, Edward Moore, Circulation Associate at University Libraries in Gorham, David Nutty, Director of Libraries at USM, Bill Grubb, Head of Reference and Information Literacy, and Casandra Fitzherbert, Head of Access Services. The project has oversight from Elizabeth Higgins, Executive Director of Student Success.

Today, each of the two Learning Commons (Portland and Gorham campuses) is comprised of a variety of flexible spaces, including new group study rooms, a seminar room that doubles as a testing room for twelve, carousel and café style work stations for MAC’s and PC’s with access to the Internet, video on demand, wireless printing and other resources. There is even a small recording studio for creating audio and video projects. Groupings of deep and comfortable chairs and movable tables are set up for collaborative and individual study.

AskOnline.net, the software platform USM adopted and customized for scheduling, communications and management of its multi-site face-to-face and online tutoring, is an integral part of The Learning Commons. Through web connectivity students can submit questions by email, talk via chat, schedule an in-person tutoring or research assistance session, or schedule an online tutoring appointment on subjects including writing, math, biology, accounting and finance, and technology. They also can find and book appointments using Smartphones, iPads or laptops from anywhere.

The Learning Commons team are now preparing themselves for what’s next. On that list are partnership with additional academic departments, promotion of virtual collaborative opportunities such as group study via Google Hang-out, and new workshops on research, writing, and technology-based academic time on task.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are shaking up the world of higher education. Through MOOCs, students can take courses taught by world class faculty from anywhere in the world, for free or close to free. No longer limited by constraints of time or place, students can take the very best courses from across the globe as they further their educations. Colleges and universities face an unprecedented strategic challenge: to define how they will manage this disruptive innovation and chart their own course through this new world.

MOOCs are going to be a part of the educational landscape for the foreseeable future because the value they deliver to students is tremendous and the cost to the MOOC providers of giving a seat to each student in a MOOC is very low.

For all their strengths, MOOCs also have weaknesses. Just as they create threats to some traditional methods of teaching in higher education (most notably to the large, on campus lecture-based class), they also create opportunities for colleges and universities to distinguish themselves.

Though MOOCs are in their early days, some interesting contours of the MOOC ecosystem are already quite clear.

Students who take MOOCs report high satisfaction, but very few typically complete the entire course. In fact, completion rates of under 10% are the norm for students taking MOOCs.

These low completion rates create opportunities for colleges and universities to distinguish themselves in a number of different ways, and AskOnline is providing the tools to help them do it. The company has 10 years of data proving how great online academic support, delivered with AskOnline’s tools and an institution’s staff, improves success, engagement and retention. When tutoring, mentoring and advising are successful, students succeed.
Mac Dougherty developed AskOnline ten years ago while a student at Harvard University and he remains its Chairman and Chief Innovation Officer. As Dougherty sees it, there are a number of potential scenarios for colleges and universities in this world of MOOCs:

• Institutions can offer their own MOOCs along with best in class online academic support to ensure that students not only take the course but succeed in mastering the concepts and completing the MOOC.

• Colleges can offer academic support to students taking MOOCs offered by other institutions. These students need support to complete the classes. Colleges can choose to charge these students, and market their institution to them as they consider where to get their degree, etc.

• Universities can opt out of participating in the MOOC ecosystem entirely and deliver tightly integrated online academic support to students in courses at their institution; courses they can’t get anywhere else.

“I think everyone’s vested in cracking that <10% completion statistic, and academic support will be more critical than ever to making sure the student finishes that MOOC. Delivering superior academic support in this environment will be critical to that success, because MOOCs don’t come with any [support built in]”, Dougherty contends.

Working with colleges and universities across the country and Canada, AskOnline has created more than 125 unique learning platforms that reflect the pedagogy of each of those institutions and these are a testament to the adoption and evolution of technology in academic support. In response to the arrival of MOOCs, the company has announced the launch of AskOnline 10+, an enhanced software platform and set of services that will now support strategies that an institution can use to chart a course through this new landscape.

Building AskOnline 10+

According to Jessie Bourneuf, AskOnline company President, “we’ve achieved success by keeping our tools simple to use by administrators, tutors and students, and by evolving as the demands of education, our users and clients have. We’ve stayed close to the chatter about MOOCs and are in conversations with content distributors and know the challenges surrounding academic support in this new environment. But some things remain the same, students still need supplemental instruction. That’s a pretty simple problem to solve. But when students are taking courses anywhere on the planet and an institution needs to determine how to monitor, credit, retain and perhaps even recruit that student, it becomes a whole new academic support scenario”.

The new AskOnline 10+ is built around one or more of the strategies an institution may be executing around MOOCs. It offers Strategy Consulting, Implementation Consulting, Custom Programming, and Marketing Consulting, including a tiered program of activities and programs to help institutions successfully build awareness and adoption. AskOnline already provides essential communications via text, mobile, calendar integration, email, phone and chat, and has a comprehensive menu of academic support options that run on the AskOnline servers 24/7, so there is no software to install. Strategy Consulting for AskOnline 10+ are currently available to new and existing clients.

AskOnline’s newest platform fundamentally enables an institution to deliver superior service to students through its existing academic support centers and staff while driving critical student success.

Re-thinking Academic Support

Bourneuf and AskOnline 10+ are proposing a timely “re-think” of academic support. While course content may become a free commodity, how institutions support students to succeed in those courses can become a much needed point of differentiation and an essential strategy in retaining students and staying relevant. After all, who is better equipped to tutor than the very university the students have already come to trust and respect to do it right?

As Bourneuf sums it up “Re-thinking academic support is more important than ever. To compete in this new business of education it’s a must. But it’s also ripe with opportunities for institutions daring enough to consider the possibilities in carving out an important niche for themselves in an educational landscape being reshaped, like it or not, by this MOOC phenomenon”.

Mac Dougherty, Chairman, Chief Innovation Officer, AskOnline

Jessie Bourneuf, President, AskOnline

April, 2013

For more information:

Contact Jessie Bourneuf @ 617-642-8055

Jessie@AskOnline.net

Open Forum for Learning Professionals – This is a robust and active list-serv where education professionals carry on lively and topical discussions on any number of topics related to tutoring; from managing programs, to developing innovative solutions to common problems and sharing best practices. This is a terrific opportunity to create an online conversation on issues that matter to you most. It’s free, easy to sign up for, and the professionals on line are a broad representation from across the country. http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/lrnasst-l.html

Association for Tutoring Professionals – The ATP began in 2003 as an idea to offer a network for tutors and tutor trainers that was unencumbered by corporate intrigue and independent from corporate interests and provide a clearing house of ideas about tutoring and tutor training. Today it is a national organization with state chapters, holds an annual conference (Atlanta Spring 2013) and is active in promoting policy, collaboration between practitioners and research. http://www.matp.org/

College Reading and Learning Association – CRLA is a group of student-oriented professionals active in the fields of reading, learning assistance, developmental education, tutoring and mentoring at the college/adult level. With a diverse membership, CRLA’s most vital function and purpose is to provide a forum for the interchange of ideas, methods and information to improve student learning and to facilitate the professional growth of its members. CRLA is a voluntary association of over 1200 post secondary learning assistance colleagues and professionals who work primarily in Canada and the United States. http://www.crla.net

Learning Support Centers in Higher Education – Started with a collection of handwritten notes in 1965 by the late Frank Christ, LSCHE has evolved into a robust portal to over 82Mb of Learning Support Center tools and information. This massive web site includes everything from updated calendars of conferences, to best practices, periodical reviews, professional development courses and degrees, links to related professional association web sites and listservs — all focused on the needs of learning support center directors and their staff. Visit www.lsche.net

National College Learning Center Association – Founded in 1988 as the Midwest Learning Center Association, the organization went national in 1999. Its mission is “ support learning assistance professionals as they develop and maintain learning centers, programs, and services to enhance student learning at the post-secondary level”. The organization hosts a national conference (September, 2013, Charleston, SC) and an Institute (August, 2013, TBD) publishes newsletters and a resource directory and holds workshops and webinars. http://www.nclca.org/

Albany College of Pharmacy students hard at work.

Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (ACPHS) is one of the nation’s premier colleges for pharmacy and health care related programs. The College enrolls approximately 1,700 students, and prepares them for careers in a number of fields including pharmaceutical sciences, biomedical technology and research. The main college campus is located in Albany, New York, and there is a satellite campus in Colchester, Vermont.

Julianne Messia

Julianne Messia is the Director of Academic Learning Services at ACPHS. Julianne manages the tutoring services at both the Albany and Colchester campuses, and one of her greatest challenges as the College opened its satellite campus was how to manage two different tutoring programs. This was not an easy task, because the Albany and Colchester campuses are 160 miles apart, and initially there was no central location for tutors to meet with students on either campus. Today, through collaboration with Library Services on both campuses, students regularly meet with tutors in library rooms and spaces designated for Peer Tutors.

Not every institution has campuses in different states, but many schools do have multiple learning center locations which can be difficult to manage effectively. Julianne has some “best practices” she was willing to share that she has implemented throughout her years of developing the tutoring program.

Here are some practices that Julianne put into place:

• Provide schedules online that are accessible to students by smartphones. If your campuses are close to each other, students may have the option to schedule an appointment at either campus. Julianne knew how important online tools were for her programs, and reminded the administration in her budget discussions that “students are using cell phones, so let’s give them the ability to make appointments with tutors using technology they already have.”

• Develop training standards so that every tutor, regardless of where they are located, will provide consistent services. Julianne requires all of her tutors to complete at least 6 hours of real-time training conducted both in-person and through distance technology, and offers the CRLA level 1 certification training program.

• Establish a strong working relationship with the Dean or Program Administrators at the satellite campus so they will support your efforts. Because Julianne cultivated a strong relationship with her colleagues at the Colchester campus, they were able to work as a cohesive group during the development of the tutoring program.

• Record keeping is important for balancing assets. Have the tutors take attendance when they meet with students, and record basic information about what happened during the sessions. Compile this information at the end of the week on a spreadsheet, and update your administration on what’s happening at the end of each semester.

• Design surveys for the tutors to give to the students. Compare surveys to make sure that the quality of tutoring is consistent at both locations.

• Communicate with the tutors at the satellite campus as often as possible through Skype and visit them in person on a regular basis. Julianne said, “I noticed an improvement in the tutors’ responses to me once I had regular face time with them.” Personalized messages at the end of the year were also appreciated by the tutors.

Houston CC Is Finalist for the 2012 Bellwether Tutoring Prize

Houston Community College has earned state (Winner — Texas HIgher Education Coordinating Board Star award) and national (Finalist — Bellwether Award) recognition for the dramatic success of its trailblazing self-staffed tutoring program.

Comprised of six colleges with 22 campuses,, Houston Community College System (HCCS) is accredited as a single institution and requires uniformity and continuity amongst all. Students can attend classes at any campus/college. Prior to 2006 tutoring services were found at almost all the campuses, at different times and on different days. In 2006 HCCS partnered with AskOnline to implement a centralized online tutoring program to supplement the on-campus centers. Moreover, going online introduced electronic record keeping. Now HCCS knows which students have signed on and how often, the services they use, and what in subjects they seek help. HCCS uses this comprehensive data set for analysis leading to more efficient delivery of services to their students.

When introduced in 2006, the online program had four goals:
1. To make tutoring available all the time to accommodate students’ busy, complex lives.
2. To help students improve their use of educational technology and manage their time and workload more efficiently while destigmatizing tutoring.
3. To make tutoring as efficient as possible by saving overhead.
4. To collect reliable data allowing HCC to analyze the program’s efficacy and make improvements.

HCCS now has five years of online experience in offering both discipline-specific tutoring and writing critiques/analyses across the curriculum. During busy times, 200–250 student submissions are received per day. Since September, 2006, online tutoring has been provided to almost 30,000 individual HCCS students in more than 30 subject areas. Since its inception, the tutors have processed 136,096 posts (as 7/17/2011).

Online tutoring is cost-effective. In 2009, HCC’s per contact salary cost was $12.65. By 2011, that cost was reduced to $10.23 due to more efficient scheduling, increased tutor experience, and improved training. The addition of an equation editor in the software platform has substantially reduced the time and cost of math/science contacts. In 2009, it took, on average 27 minutes to review and respond to a downloaded student paper. This year, it is 18 minutes. HCCS online tutors are paid only for the time they are actively tutoring. Because it’s web-based, tutors 
work anywhere there is an internet connection, freeing campus space for classes or other activities. The service operates 24/7/365, providing asynchronous tutoring even when other physical college resources are unavailable. Tutors work through times when campuses are typically closed such as during holidays and inclement weather. Online tutoring is the wave of the future. Managed appropriately, it is an economical, efficient, personal, and professional answer to student needs – and it works!

AskOnline extends its congratulations to Houston Community College for its success and leadership in online tutoring.

Post Script: HCC has conducted significant quantitative research on the correlation 
between online tutoring and student success. A recent study 
provides a base for future studies so that HCC and other schools can continue to make educated decisions about how to improve online tutoring. The study indicated that students submitting 3-5 assignments to online tutors per semester had a GPA that was .25-.3 points higher (on a 4-point scale) than students with similar placement test scores, age, gender and ethnicity. Click Here for a copy of the full study. The research protocol (Coarsened Exact Matching
– CEM) has been used by half a dozen other schools as a result of HCC’s success. However, quantifying the specific effects of any tutoring is difficult. Whether and how a student learns or retains information is the sum result of classroom instruction, self-motivation, family involvement, time and a variety of other issues.

√ Make presentations to Faculty and Staff Meetings about your offerings.

√ Send your tutors to introductory classes to promote the service and lower the fear factor.

√ Create a simple Facebook page for your center to promote study groups and drop-in sessions.*

√ Link your home page to the many of the informal websites that surround your campus. You may not know all of them but your tutors will.

√ Create a poster to put around campus that includes a square “QR” code readable by smart phones. Link the code to your center’s home page with study tips and up-to-date-hours.*

√ Be sure your students have easy access from the main institutional portal to your home page.

√ Keep your web page current with up to date schedules that allow students to make appointments online.

* Please contact me, Jessie@askonline.net, or call 617-642-8055, to learn more about how to create and use Facebook and QR code technology. Our clients have some great stories to share.

Do you have a system in place to combat no-shows? We have some suggestions for you that might help, so that you aren’t wasting your time chasing down your students:

— It’s all about reminding the students. Send a text message or email reminder, and mention the time and day of the booked appointment at least 3 times in the message.
— Create an effective schedule for sending reminders. Try sending 2 message reminders: send the first reminder 3 days prior, and the second reminder one day prior to the appointment.
— Ask the student to enter the date and time into their calendar when you schedule the appointment with them.
— Track the reasons each student gives for a no-show. Trends in excuses will point to solutions.
— Set a “no-show” policy and restrict future appointments if a student exceeds your “no show” limit. Provide a procedure for restricted students to move off the restricted list, perhaps including signing a written “no show” policy document.
— Send “sorry we missed you” messages if the student does miss the appointment.
— Limit student appointments to one per week until they show they are reliable.
— Schedule appointments so that students won’t have long wait times.

We wish you a productive semester and would love to hear your experiences at eliminating “no shows” from your calendar.

If you would like to discuss other learning center management issues, please contact us at:
AskOnline: 888-818-9914.
AsOnline provides academic support tools to colleges and universities across North America.

Dana Jones, Peer Tutor Coordinator, and Cindy Yamnitz, Assistive Technology CoordinatorCoordinator, chose AskOnline in an effort to expand the Webster University Peer Tutoring Program to include online support. Yamnitz added, “we were looking to expand our tutoring services to support all our students including those enrolled in our online programs and at extended campuses. Webster offers graduate and undergraduate education online and at more than 100 distinct campus locations throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.”

In order to institute AskOnline, Stewart, Jones, and Yamnitz worked extensively with a team from Webster’s Online Learning Center (OLC), which is headed by Dan Viele, Associate Vice President & OLC Director. Team members included Elizabeth Hamtil, Online Student Services & Retention Coordinator; Brian Merkel, Technical & Creative Services Manager; Jonathan Schlereth, Academic Administration & Faculty Coordination Manager; and Pamela Bryan Williams, Training & Instructional Design manager. The team implemented AskOnline components into the online classrooms and concentrated on providing a seamless interface for the students.

For the Fall ’11 semester, the ARC introduced online tutoring to support graduate level – MBA online students. Reflecting on their first semester with AskOnline, Yamnitz noted, “AskOnline has enabled us to offer support to students enrolled in our MBA program across the globe. These are students we did not have a way to assist in the past.”

Webster plans to expand its use of AskOnline to include undergraduate courses starting in Fall 2012. With the future of online tutoring looking up, the Academic Resource Center is focused on developing online tutoring in such a way that enables students on any of their campuses to receive the academic support that they are seeking.

Working together with a tutor in Chat, the student simply clicks the “Smartphone Photo Upload” button located below the whiteboard canvas. An email address will popup on the whiteboard with which the student shares the photo. In seconds, the picture will display on the whiteboard. Several AskOnline clients tell us that their students save phone photos of their work to their computers, and from there, upload the photos to the whiteboard. AskOnline’s new app simplifies this process.

Using their smartphones with the Ask tool, students can submit questions to their tutors at any time, day or night. Typically, a tutor will answer the question within a day. Students can also use their phones to login to their AskOnline system to check tutoring schedules, make appointments, or view announcements.

AskOnline’s Multi-Mode messaging system sends notifications via SMS texts as well as email to students alerting them when a tutor responds to their questions or when system announcements are posted.