The college has signed a contract with Smarthinking.com that gives every Metro State student 20 free hours of live online tutoring in a range of subjects.

"This online tutoring compliments and expands access to the face-to-face tutoring offered at the Tutoring and the Writing Centers," says Karen Raforth, interim vice president of Student Services. "We really encourage students to take advantage of this free service."

To access Smarthinking.com, students log on to metroconnect.mscd.edu, click on the student tab, and then click on the Smarthinking icon.

The service, which began this Monday, offers live math tutoring 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Tutors in accounting, economics, statistics, writing, physics, biology, chemistry and bilingual (Spanish) mathematics are available Sunday-Thursday, 1-11 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m.

Smarthinking.com also offers its Writing Center, which allows students to submit a paper and then gives them detailed, personalized feedback, generally within 24 hours. Students can also access other system tools that don't count against their free time, and they can submit questions and receive help with a 24-hour turnaround.

"I think it has tremendous potential for increased access to tutoring services, especially for people who spend most of their time off campus," explains Arliss Sunderwirth Webster, fiscal manager for Student Services.

English Department Chair Joan Griffin has participated in a Smarthinking.com demonstration and was impressed with the level of critiquing the program performs for essays. "I thought it was first-rate feedback. It wasn't just the mechanics—punctuation, grammar and so forth. It will be worthwhile for students to use," she says.

Sunderwirth Webster is in the process of setting up training sessions for faculty who would like to familiarize themselves with the program and the level of tutoring students can receive. She will be notifying professors of those times at a later date.