George Steele

The Ohio Learning Network

Anita L. Carter

Wayne State University

Introduction

The adoption of electronic communication technologies over the past decade has changed the nature of advisors' daily work. Voice mail, e-mail, and Web sites were introduced with the promise of helping us connect to our students. Judging from the flood of student contact these technologies produced, it can be said they have been successful. Most of us are drowning in incoming e-mail messages with overflowing inboxes and blinking lights on our voice mail. Responding effectively to student inquires requires an integrated managed use of these technologies. This article offers suggestions for advisors seeking to better manage these electronic technologies while responding to their students' often times repetitive requests.

Repetitive Requests

Good advising has many elements. One of these elements is the ability to cheerfully and accurately communicate the same message over and over again. Working in bureaucratic structures has ensured that this characteristic of our work will always be present. Most advisors recognize that the repetition of stating the rules, the procedures, the course sequences, etc. is an important and necessary part of our work. Long before the latest necessity of using technology in advising, advisors sought a variety of ways to present answers to commonly asked questions. Advisors and their institutions created a plethora of bulletins, publications, and brochures to answer students' questions regarding curriculum, course registration, policies and procedures, and general advice. The idea was to write, print, store and distribute information when it seemed appropriate.

Less than a decade ago, student contact for many advisors, was mainly through appointments or walk-ins. At this personal level of contact, advisors had many types of printed information at their disposal. Providing this printed information was an integral part of most advising interactions. If the student needed additional clarification, the advisor was there to assist. If the student was satisfied with the information received, then the advisor and the student could move on to other topics. These earlier efforts where undertaken by advisors because they sought more effective ways of answering common questions from students, so they might have greater time to answer the more personal or uncommon questions.

With advisors being expected to use a greater repertoire of electronic communication devices, their management has become even more critical. Whereas in the past, most student contacts entered through our office doors, now they arrive electronically in digital formats. Referring student to printed bulletins or brochures is not a viable option in these cases. In today's environment, focusing on how Web pages, e-mail and voice mail technology can be integrated to address repetitive or common student inquiries is imperative for helping both the students and advisors establish better and more effective communication.

Frequently Asked Questions Web Pages

Moving the content of what was once found in yesterday's bulletins and brochures to the Web is critical. Frequently asked questions (FAQ's) web pages allow students to locate the answer to questions without having to speak or write to a particular advisor. It is an information source they can access at any time of the day or night without waiting for a response. FAQ's also serve as a point of reference for advisors addressing common student inquiries. The URL of the FAQ's Web site is a handy bit of information for advisors to keep ready in their e-mail replies to students. For FAQ's to be truly effective, it is important that they address and answer questions that students most often ask.

Compiling your FAQ's will take a concerted effort and collaboration among the staff. A good starting point is by asking staff members to submit questions they have been asked during the previous months along with their responses. Once these questions and answers have been compiled, they can easily be converted for Web use with the assistance of the information technology staff.

Once these FAQ's have been posted, the next step is to ensure that students access them. One way to do this is to provide a link to the FAQ's from your department's home page, add it to a quick index web page from your home page, and provide a link to your FAQ's at the bottom of all your web pages labeled Questions. Examples of FAQ's are found in Table 1.

Providing an e-mail link to a "generic" e-mail address at the bottom of all of your "FAQ responses" would also be very helpful. Students who don't get the answers they seek can contact your office for additional assistance. Assigning the responsibility for answering questions that come in to the generic e-mail address to one or two advisors might be appropriate.

Template Responses For E-mail

The e-mail software packages of Eudora, Netscape, and Microsoft Outlook all have capabilities that permit advisors to write and store template responses. Template responses are written replies that answer specific questions that can be easily saved and retrieved. For this reason, they are best used for repetitive questions. They are similar in nature to FAQ's. By having them in your e-mail repertoire, advisors can easily access and use them in responses to the numerous common e-mail inquiries that they receive. Writing template responses is rather simple and offers advisors an opportunity to create many specialized messages. Once you become familiar with the technical process, which will be addressed shortly, you will need to compose and save the responses. The topics of the templates should reflect your replies to the most common student requests you receive. Some of these topics might be:

• process to add or drop a course;
• a URL link to an open course Web page;
• campus resources grouped by a common categories such as career or study skill resources with the necessary contact information;
• procedures for making an appointment;
• your e-mail policy;
• reminders regarding departmental course offerings, or specialized services;
• referrals to FAQs;
• or, phone numbers and explanation for leaving clear voice mail messages or directions to your FAX machine.

"I got closed out of two of my classes this semester. I need to sign up for two more real quickly to be full-time. Can you help? - Pete"

Your response to the student, compiled from your template responses might be:

"Dear Pete,

Access to adding a course is still open. You can call 555-5555 to register by phone. If you have difficulty with this process, directions are found at http://www.howtoregister.html.

Open courses are listed at http://www.opencourses.html. You have access to the system. It is in your best interest to act as quickly as possible.

If you are having difficulty knowing what courses to take, curriculum guides for your major are found at http://www.curriculum.html.

If you have any difficulty with these steps, please set up an appointment to see me by calling 555-1111 or e-mail me back as soon as possible.

Thank you,
A.J. Advisor"

In this example, each paragraph of the advisor response can be a separately saved template response. Each of these can be saved under the file names "adding open courses," "open course list," "curriculum guides," and "invitation for an appointment." In compiling this response, only the student's name needed to be added.

Template responses are not meant as a substitute for good advising. In the example above, the advisor might well be aware that "Pete" needs special attention before registering. A special template message can be developed for this contingency and the file named "intervention".

"Dear Pete,

You have been locked out of registration. Before you enroll, you need to see me for an appointment. Please set up an appointment as soon as possible by calling 555-1111. We really need to talk soon.

I am looking forward to seeing you.

A.J. Advisor"

A short cut to identifying topics and writing responses might already exist for most advisors if they have saved past responses to students. By going back and looking at these saved messages, advisors have an easily identified source for topics and text to use for responses. If messages have not been deliberatively saved, it might also be the time to check the trash bin in your e-mail software. This could be a case when not dumping the trash has saved you some valuable time and effort.

Most advisors will quickly discover that template responses will need some editing once they are used to response to student inquiries. Issues of grammar, text flow, and individualizing responses may need some editing. While initially this process may seem a little tedious, many advisors will find that they can quickly adapt and that the speed and quality of their responses improves in terms of composition, grammar, and information provided.

Creating Template Responses

Before discussing how to create template response in three different software packages, two cautionary notes must be sounded. Most of the lighter versions of these software packages do not include the capabilities necessary to write and store template responses. The lighter versions are often the least expensive versions of these software packages and the ones that are most often loaded as free on to the computer at the time of purchase. Also, different versions of these software packages may vary in terms of their procedures. Procedures for creating template responses described in this article are related to specific versions of the software. Modifying the procedural steps may be necessary based on your version of the software.

In Eudora, versions 4.2 and 5.0, creating template responses is done through the tools section at the stationery function.

1. Tools menu, choose Stationery. This will cause the Stationery Window to appear.

2. Right-click anywhere inside the Stationery window to select the drop-down menu and choose New. Eudora opens a new composition window.

3. Write or paste the text you want to save as a template response to student e-mail inquiries into the message body.

4. From the File menu, choose Save As Stationery. The Save as Stationery dialog box is displayed. Enter a file name and click Save to save the stationery file.

Choosing the right file name is important. For example, if the message is to inform a student how and when to pay fees, your file name should be titled "paying fees." This simplicity will save you time and confusion later. The file is saved to your Stationery folder. You should see the file appear in the stationery directory. Details for these steps are also summarized with graphics, under "How to use stationery".

Now that you have made template responses, how do you use them to reply to students' e-mails? The Eudora Web site, unfortunately, offers two less-than-perfect ways for advisors to use saved responses from your stationery files for practical advising purposes for several reasons. With one suggested approach, the advisor's selected template response will appears below the student's request, not above it. This is not standard e-mail practice. Students might not detect your response, which could lead to a flurry of additional e-mails, thus defeating the purpose and effectiveness of this effort. The second approach also limits an advisor to only one template response. The second approach limitation is disadvantageous to an advisor who may want to include several different template responses in a reply to the student.

A more functional way of using saved responses in Eudora stationery appears at first blush to be a little more awkward. This approach involves copying the text of your template responses from your stationery files and pasting it into your response to a student's inquiries. The advantage of this approach is that your reply is addressed to the student; you can paste your response before the student's inquiry; and you can include multiple responses from your stationery file that let you individualize your response to the student better by addressing a variety of his or her concerns. To do this:

1. Click the reply button to the student's e-mail inquiry. A response window will appear.

2. Next go to tools, with the left mouse key and click open the stationery file from the scroll down menu.

3. Click and open the stationary file that contains the template response you want.

4. Move your cursor to the beginning of the text in the open window.

5. Hold on to the left mouse key and drag the cursor to the end of the text.

6. Click on the right mouse key and scroll down the menu and select copy.

7. Close the stationery window and your response to the student's inquiry should still be there.

8. Place the cursor at the beginning of the text, click on the right mouse key, and select paste from the scroll down window.

9. The template text should appear before the text of the student's inquiry as well as having the headers of "to," "from," and "subject" completed. You can add more template text as you see fit to respond to the student's e-mail by repeating the process.

Cutting and pasting is not as high-tech as many would want. To its advantage, it does balance easy storage of common responses with the ability to individualize them to specific student inquiries. Also, this basic approach can be used with other software.

Templates in MS Outlook

With Microsoft Outlook, common responses can be created and saved as Drafts, and then opened for the purpose of copying and pasting into student inquiries.

To create a template in MS Outlook:

1. Click on the New Message icon in the menu bar to open a blank message window

2. Leave the To: input box blank

3. Create the title of the template in the Subject area

4. Write the text in the Message window

5. Save

6. Under File, select Move to Folder and select Drafts as the destination

To reply using a template:

1. Click on the Reply icon to open a message window

2. Open the Drafts file and select the appropriate draft title or titles

3. Copy and Paste selected files into the message window of the reply

4. Select Send under File

Templates in Netscape Communicator

To create a template:

1. Select New Message from the Netscape menu bar to open a message window

2. Leaving the To: area blank, enter the title in the Subject input box

3. Write the text of the message in the message input box

4. Select Save As... under File on the top menu bar and select Template

To reply using a template:

1. Click Reply in mail menu bar to open a message window

2. Open the desired template response

3. Copy and paste into the message window of the new e-mail message

4. Send the message

What if you have a light version of one of these programs that prevents you from creating and storing template responses? If this is the case, there is an easy way to address this perceived difficulty: you can always write and save common written responses in a word processing file. By creating a short cut to the document on your desktop, you can then easily pull the document up and use it with e-mail.

Voice Mail:

Voice mail is often promoted as having one's own receptionist. Depending on the configuration of your voice mail system, it can take your calls when you do not want to be disturbed, record messages from callers when you are unavailable, screen your calls, and then let you review your calls so you can establish a priority for returning them. Many voice mail messages express the concern that the recipient has missed your call and asks the caller to leave a message. Better integration to the other means of electronic communication available to the advisor is easy to do. By tailoring your voice mail messages, advisors can help screen calls and provide timely information to students.

"I am sorry I am unable to answer your call right now. If you wish to make an appointment to see me for registration, you might first want to review your options at our Web site's FAQs located at http://college_office/FAOs.html. Here the 1) process for registering, 2) how to acquire closed window access, and 3) general curriculum requirements are all found. If you still need to see me, please call the receptionist at 555-5555 to set up an appointment. If you need to discuss another issues with me, please leave a message and I will get back in touch with you as quickly as possible. Please speak slowly and clearly state your request, when I can reach you, and your phone number. I also respond to e-mail inquires. I can also be reached at advisor@university.edu. Thank you."

Advisors are familiar with the flow of work in their offices. There is a time for registration, schedule adjustments, and special events. By tailoring message to these traditional periods, accurate and timely information can be relayed to students. By including referrals to your other electronic resources, greater depth can be provided than what can be recorded in the limited allocation of space provided on your voice mail response.

Conclusion

Integrating your electronic response to answer common student inquires provides an excellent opportunity for advisor to use their collective wisdom to brainstorm possibilities, review them, then decide on responses. By keeping a focus on how these three technologies can be used in collaboration with one another, an integrated approach can be developed to better serve students and reduce advisor stress to respond to an overflow of common inquires. Working collectively can also improve the quality of responses to students, by using more polished responses that have been considered and well crafted as opposed to quickly considered replies. Training will be a critical. Introducing the capabilities of e-mail packages, voice mail, and FAQ web sites may be a novelty to some advisors. By combining technical training with responses to common student inquires, training will be more effective and practical. Finally, administrators and advisors need to weigh whether purchasing the least expensive versions of software and models of communication technologies, those with the fewest capabilities, limit advisors' ability to effectively manage their student contacts. These small, but practical steps can help those advisors who want to improve their immediate work effectiveness and sanity.

Examples of FAQ's:

1. Why should I see an academic advisor?

2. I already know what I want to major in and what courses I need to take; what could an advisor do for me?

3. What do I need to do to make the most of my advising session?

4. What can I expect from my advisor?

5. May I contact my advisor via e-mail if I have questions?

6. Why do I need to take courses in the liberal arts and sciences?

7. Do I have to have a major to graduate?

8. How do I change my major? What is the procedure?

9. What major is recommended for students who wish to pursue medical school or law school in the future?

10. I am enrolled in the College of Engineering. Who do I contact to help me select my classes?

11. How do I find information on what CLEP scores are accepted for subject exams?

12. I registered for my classes today. What about books? When should I expect my schedule to be mailed?

13. How will I know if I am in academic difficulty? What can I do?

14. How do I compute my academic average - GPA?

15. What are my options in fulfilling the English Proficiency requirement?

16. I am dissatisfied with my Math Qualifying Exam score. How do I go about re-taking the exam and improving my placement?

17. What courses does the Math Qualifying Exam place me into?

18. I have completed calculus. Have I met the Math proficiency requirement?

Authors: George Steele, The Ohio Learning Network, and Anita L. Carter, Wayne State University

Web sites with information related to this topic:

• 32 Most Important E-mail Etiquette Tips
• Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner Guidelines for workplace e-mail. Note the section "Technical Realities of E-mail Use".

Cite this resource using APA style as:

Steele, G. and Carter, A. (2002, December). Managing electronic communication technologies for more effective advising. The Academic Advising News, 25(4). Retrieved from the NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources Web site: http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/electronic.htm