The National eXtension Initiative is a partnership of the 75 U.S. Land-Grant universities to create an interactive educational environment to deliver high quality, researched-based learning. eXtension connects knowledge consumers with knowledge providers – experts from the universities who know their subject matter inside-out. A major aspect of the initiative includes a system where-by citizens can ask questions and receive answers from university-based faculty. The Ask An Expert system was rolled-out as a part of the initiatives public website in February of 2008. In its first year of operation the system has answered questions from 8530 people. Many of these questions have been converted into FAQs that have subsequently received over 300,000 unique page views. The eXtension initiative has started a project using the SenseMaker® software suite to better understand how people have been served by using the system. The project will collect narratives from people who have used the Ask an Expert service to better understand their perspectives, and to determine how the service can be improved, and scaled to serve larger numbers of people going forward. For more information please contact kevin_gamble@ncsu.edu

• Client:

  National eXtension Initiative

• Location:

  USA