FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — University of Arkansas students, faculty and staff will have an easier and faster time finding the answers to computing questions thanks to a new software program being implemented by University IT Services called AskIT, powered by Skywire Software. University IT Services will roll out the new program during a two-day event to be held 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Oct. 19-20, in the Connections Lounge in the Arkansas Student Union during an AskIT Scavenger Hunt.

Hundreds of USB Flash drives pre-loaded with a direct link to AskIT and free virus protection software will be given away to freshman AskIT Scavenger Hunt participants. Other participants can register to win a free T-shirt or USB Flash drive.

AskIT is a highly integrated computer support knowledge base, which is similar to a database, located on a Web site designed to provide self-service answers to questions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It provides answers to questions on topics ranging from setting up e-mail, accessing University of Arkansas accounts, computer viruses and using dial-up or DSL connections. Users may type in a computing question and be offered an answer to their question. If that answer doesn’t directly address the user’s problem, a Request Help option is available to route the support request to the appropriate University IT Services support professional. This will ultimately save computer users time and effort, but also streamlines University IT Services’ Help Desk operations, which responds to thousands of monthly support calls.

“Say you’re at home and trying to use XpressMail and can’t get it to respond,” said Marie Riley, network client services manager for University IT Services. “You can go to the AskIT site and type in 'XpressMail.’ Rather than pulling up a list of everything there is to know about XpressMail and making the user wade through pages and pages of information, typical in most Web searches, the AskIT knowledge base isolates the information to address the specific issue. If the answer doesn’t help the user, then their question can be routed to an XpressMail support professional. Overall, the AskIT knowledge management system provides a systematic process of searching, organizing, refining and presenting information in a way that improves a search result in a specific area of interest.

“This also saves time because it streamlines services between participating departments. For example, if a user calls the University IT Services Help Desk with a Dell warranty question, the Help Desk attendant can create a case and refer it to the Computer Store. This way, the user doesn’t have to take that extra step of calling someone else. Referred to as case management, the case history will provide us with a means of ensuring accountability and documentation for the user by showing the steps that have been taken to solve the problem,” Riley said.

Computer users are familiar with knowledge base and may not even know it, Riley explains. Ebay, Amazon.com and other online shopping sites currently use a similar technology to help shoppers find products and other information.

AskIT’s other service features include a message center for broadcasting urgent computing support messages and outages, support history for reviewing and tracking past and present questions and answers, a powerful advanced search engine, and a feedback option so that the system may continual to improve. AskIT may be accessed online at http://askit.uark.edu.