Frequently Asked Questions About Using Question Point

You can change the length of your QuestionPoint timeout period. The default length is 30 minutes. You can choose 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 2 hours at Home > Home > Settings.

The Knowledge Base provides a 120-minute timeout period for adding, editing, and updating records. Also, when your Chat Monitor is active, no timeout period applies until you close the Chat Monitor window.

You can see the time remaining in the browser status bar at the bottom of the browser window. The timeout clock resets itself when you click most buttons or links.

When only a few minutes remain until your QuestionPoint session times out, QuestionPoint displays a timeout warning message in a separate browser window. Simply click the Reset Clock button in that window to reset the timeout clock.

To reset the timeout at any time, click in the top right corner of any QuestionPoint screen.

For subscribers. Click Terms and Conditions on the QuestionPoint Home module menu to view the terms and conditions to which your library agreed when it ordered its QuestionPoint subscription.

The terms and conditions for subscribers are also available on the QuestionPoint website.

For patrons. Patrons can click Terms of Service on any screen in the QuestionPoint Patron interface to view the terms and conditions for patrons.

The terms and conditions for patrons are also available on the QuestionPoint website.

If you are an institution administrator, you begin this process during your QuestionPoint training. After your training session, you can complete and refine the profile based on your institution's unique characteristics.

If your institution is part of a group, remember that you need to submit the profile to your group and to the global reference network.

Use the QuestionPoint Form Manager to

Set up a chat form http://www.questionpoint.org/crs/html/help/en/admin/ad_forms_chat_setupinst.html

Set up a qwidget http://www.questionpoint.org/crs/html/help/en/admin/ad_forms_qwidget_setup.html

Set up an email reference form http://www.questionpoint.org/crs/html/help/en/admin/ad_forms_email_setup.html

After a patron submits a question, QuestionPoint displays an acknowledgement page. Your institution administrator can add a link to your patron question form on this page by specifying the location of the question form at Administration > Institution > Settings > Question Form.

The administrator can customize the acknowledgement page at Administration > Institution > Settings > Custom Messages.

No, the information collected on patron question forms(aside from the patron's name, e-mail address, and question) does not carry over. There is currently no way to create a standard global form with all the possible data elements that institutions might include on their question forms. To fully populate the global form, we would need to require all institutions to use a single standard form.

However, you might find it useful to ask the patron to provide some of the other information required on the global form, such as education level or turnaround time, so you have it available when you complete the global routing form.

The first time a patron submits a question via a library's online question form:

1. QuestionPoint displays an acknowledgement page, which:
• Thanks the patron
• Repeats the patron's question
• Provides a question ID
• Indicates that the patron will receive an e-mail acknowledgement
• Provides a link for asking another question (optional)
• Provides a custom message from the library (optional)
2. The patron receives an e-mail message with:
• A subject line of "Library Question - New Account - [question ID]"
• The patron's question
• Information about accessing the patron's QuestionPoint account so he or she can check the status of the question
• A system-generated account password
• The URL to the QuestionPoint Patron Logon (http://questionpoint.org/crs/html/home/patron_authorize.htm)
3. When the patron logs on to the QuestionPoint Patron interface, the system prompts the patron to change the system-generated password. The patron subsequently receives another e-mail message that confirms the new password.
4. After changing the password, the patron can check the status of his or her question(s) and modify personal settings (currently only the patron's name).

Your institution administrator can customize the acknowledgement page and the e-mail message at Administration > Institution > Settings > Custom Messages.

E-mail messages that libraries send to patrons from QuestionPoint contain:

• "From" address (outgoing e-mail address) of the library that sent the message
• "To" address (patron's e-mail address)
• Subject line containing the question ID
• Patron's question
• Librarian's response (the answer or request for clarification from the librarian)
• Link to the patron's QuestionPoint account
• Link to the patron survey form of the library that first received the patron's question (optional)
• Custom message from the library that sent the message (optional)

The administrator can customize the e-mail messages at Administration > Institution > Settings > Custom Messages.

If the other library e-mails the answer to your patron:

• Your library's patron survey form appears in the message, but
• The other library's custom message appears.

Your institution administrator can customize the question acknowlegement page and e-mail messages to patrons at Administration > Institution > Settings > Custom Messages.

By default, QuestionPoint uses AskALibrarian@oclc.org, as the outgoing e-mail address on all e-mail messages. Your institution administrator can specify another e-mail address at Administration > Institution > Settings > Outgoing E-mail Address. This lets patrons correspond with you directly about their questions.

If you want to accept e-mail replies in QuestionPoint so they are added to the question history of the question in the Ask a Librarian module, your institution administrator can turn on Reply-to Messages at Administration > Institution > Settings > Outgoing E-mail Address. This lets library staff process and respond to patron e-mail replies in QuestionPoint.

If you prefer that patrons reply to you via the QuestionPoint Patron interface, you may want to add a statement such as "Do not reply to this e-mail" to your customized e-mail messages.

By default, QuestionPoint uses the Unicode Character Set with the Encoding Level of UTF-8 to store all data. If your web forms are preset to use something other than UTF-8 or if your patron's e-mail client is preset to a different encoding option, some characters and diacritics will incorrectly display inside QuestionPoint.

For a more detailed answer, please consult the following article in pdf format:
QuestionPoint's Character Set and Encoding Level
(ou en français) Niveau d'encodage et jeux de caractères utilisés par QuestionPoint

The sample patron question forms use JavaScript to:

• Submit the information on the form to QuestionPoint when the user clicks the ''Ask" button (or whatever you name this button)
• Verify that the patron completes all required fields on the form.
• Verify the format of the e-mail address provided by the patron.

• Log on to QuestionPoint.
• If you do not see the Home screen, click the Home link in the black bar at the top of the screen.
• Your institution ID appears under your institution's name.

Your institution administrator can create a patron survey form at Administration > Institution > Surveys > Survey Form.

• Active Questions  – This list shows all questions submitted by your patrons, questions referred to your institution, and replies to requests for clarification by patrons.
• New Questions  – This list shows questions and replies to requests for clarification that no one from your institution has acted on yet. It contains a subset of the items on the Active list.
• Referred Questions  – This list shows questions that your institution referred to a referral partner in your group, to the global network or to a subject-matter expert by e-mail.
• Closed Questions – This list shows questions that a staff member has closed because they require no further action. Closed questions remain on the Closed list for 90 days. Then QuestionPoint moves the question to the Service History and removes it from the Closed questions list.

QuestionPoint notifies your institution when a question has been referred to you. The alert indicates whether the question was referred to you by a partner institution or the global reference network. For questions from the global reference network, you also receive additional alert e-mails when 75% and 100% of the question's requested turnaround time has elapsed.

The library that sends the completed answer or final response to the patron should close the question after it sends the answer or response.

When the library closes the question, QuestionPoint moves the question to the Closed questions list and removes it from the Active, New, or Referred questions lists. Then, after 90 days, QuestionPoint moves the question to the Service History and removes it from the Closed questions list.

What does this mean for:

A question that your library answers for one of its own patrons. Your library should close the question after it sends the completed answer or final response to the patron.

A question that your library answers for a patron of another library in its cooperative groups. Your library should close the question after it sends the completed answer or final response to the patron.

A question that your library refers to another library in its cooperative groups. The other library should close the question after it sends the completed answer or final response to the patron.

Do not close a question after referring it to another library. If you close it, the other library cannot find it in its Active, New, or Referred questions lists because QuestionPoint moves it to the Closed questions list. QuestionPoint also moves it to the Closed questions list in the patron's account in the Patron interface.

After you refer a question, you can track its progress in the Referred questions list until it is closed.

A question that your library answers for the global network. If the library submitting the question specified that the answer be sent to the patron or to the patron and requestor (and the patron's e-mail address has been provided), your library should close the question after it sends the completed answer.

However, if the library submitting the question specified that the answer be sent to the requestor only (the system default) or the patron's e-mail address has not been provided, the other library should close the question after it sends the completed answer to the patron.

Click Routing View in the Full Question record and look at the Send answer to field in the Global Network Routing Information to see to whom the answer will be sent.

A question that your library submits to the global network for another library to answer. If your library specified that the answer be sent to the patron or to the patron and requestor (and provided the patron's e-mail address), the other library should close the question after it sends the completed answer.

However, if your library specified that the answer be sent to the requestor only (the system default) or did not provide the patron's e-mail address, your library should close the question after it sends the completed answer to the patron.

Do not close a question after submitting it to the global network. If you close it, the other library cannot find it in its Active, New, or Referred questions lists because QuestionPoint moves it to the Closed questions list. QuestionPoint also moves it to the Closed questions list in the patron's account in the Patron interface.

After you submit a question, you can track its progress in the Referred questions list until it is closed.

QuestionPoint supports stored scripts. There are two types of scripts: institution (institution's scripts) and personal (my scripts)

Your institution has a maximum of 25 institution scripts; these are available to all staff in your institution with QuestionPoint accounts.

Everyone with a QuestionPoint account can also create up to 25 personal scripts.

Follow these quidelines when you add a URL in an answer, chat session, script or custom messages:

1) Provide the complete URL, including the appropriate beginning:  "http://" or "https://" or "mailto:"

• The beginning clarifies the URL.
• In a standard chat session, the URL is automatically linked if it begins with "http://"
• The beginning helps some e-mail programs link the URL correctly. (The linking of URLs in e-mail messages is controlled by the e-mail program of the person receiving the message, not by QuestionPoint.)

2) If you enter a punctuation mark following the URL, include a space between the URL and the mark.

• In a standard chat session, the link for the URL in the following sentence does not work because the period at the end of the sentence is treated as part of the link:
     Pictures of the Spruce Goose are available at http://www.sprucegoose.org/Photos.htm.
• The link works if the period is removed or a space follows the URL:
     Go to http://www.sprucegoose.org/Photos.htm to view pictures of the Spruce Goose.

3) If you want the URL to be linked when it is added to the question history in the Full Question record, enclose the URL in angle brackets and include a space between the URL and each bracket.

• The brackets are not needed if you do not care whether the URL is linked in the question history.
• The URL in the following sentence is linked when it is added to the question history because the brackets are included:
     Pictures of the Spruce Goose are available at < http://www.sprucegoose.org/Photos.htm >.
• Important: Be sure to include a space between the URL and each bracket. If you do not, the URL link will not work correctly or appear everywhere that it should.

You can leave a note for librarians in the question history of a question. For example, you could leave a note about resources you have consulted. These notes are not included in messages or question histories that patrons or referral experts see.

In the message area of the Full Question record, type your note in the Message box, click the Librarian Note button, and then click the Submit button.

For more information, see Leave a note for a librarian.

You can refer a question by e-mail to a subject-matter expert who does not have a QuestionPoint account, such as someone who works for a community agency or a teacher or faculty member.

Select Refer by E-mail in the drop-down list next to the Refer Question button on the Full Question record and then click the Refer Question button. QuestionPoint displays the Refer by E-mail screen. It lets you prepare and send an e-mail message to request help with the question.

For more information see, Refer a question by e-mail to a subject-matter expert.

If the question contains a long URL, the window width increases rather than break the URL into two lines.

To use the chat feature, you must:

• Build a Chat Form using the Form Manager
• Start the Chat Monitor:
  • From within QuestionPoint, go to the Ask module.
  • Click the Chat tab.
  • The Chat Monitor opens in a new browser window and indicates when patrons request chat sessions.

1. A patron initiates a chat session by completing the fields on the chat form and clicking the Chat button.
2. A librarian watching the Chat Monitor sees that the patron has requested a chat session. (It's also possible for the librarian's workstation to sound an alert when a chat request comes in.)
3. The librarian clicks the patron's name on the Chat Monitor. A chat window appears for the librarian.
4. The librarian and patron "chat" about what type of information the patron needs, when the patron needs the information, and whether the librarian can provide it. The librarian can answer the question during the chat session, take the patron to a Web site by providing a hotlink, or get back to the patron later by e-mail or phone.
5. Either the patron or the librarian can end the session. Then they both close their chat windows.
6. The patron receives a transcript of the session by e-mail. The librarian can view the transcript in the Ask a Librarian module.
   

Patrons see the chat window but it contains a message indicating that chat is currently not available at your institution when they try to initiate a chat session.

You may want to include the hours when you have staff available for chat on your library's chat form.

Yes, your library controls whether your patrons can chat anonymously by the way it implements the chat form. If your library makes the patron name and e-mail fields optional, patrons chat anonymously by leaving those fields blank when they initiate a chat session.

During the chat session, the patron is identified as "Library Patron." At the end of the chat session, QuestionPoint prompts the patron to enter an e-mail address in order to receive a transcript. If the patron provides an address at the prompt, the address is used only to send the transcript; it is not saved in QuestionPoint.

Although a librarian can view the transcript in the Ask a Librarian module, the librarian cannot send followup messages to the patron because the address is not included.

When Chat Monitor is active and a new chat request comes in, your Web browser sends an alert message to your workstation. To receive the alert as an audible tone, you need the following:

• A sound card
• Speakers tuned to an appropriate volume level
• An alert sound properly configured for your workstation. You perform this configuration at the operating system level in the Sounds area of your control panel, system preferences, or settings area. The sound may be referred to as an alert, default, or exclamation event.

QuestionPoint chat requires that both the patron and librarian enable JavaScript in their Web browsers. QuestionPoint uses JavaScript to:

• Update the Chat Monitor
• Send text information from the patron to the librarian and vice versa
• View hotlinked Web sites.

You don't have to download anything to use JavaScript, but you need to ensure that your browser is configured to use it. Because the procedure for enabling JavaScript varies by browser type and version, check your browser's online help for the procedure that applies to you. However, most browsers enable JavaScript by default.

No, standard chat is 100% HTML-based and does not use a plug-in. Some chat services, such as AOL and Yahoo, do use a plug-in to display chat messages. However, many QuestionPoint subscribers prefer not to use plug-ins to provide chat service to their patrons.

Yes. Since it was first released, QuestionPoint standard chat has been improved many times to respond to subscriber suggestions.

Also, the QuestionPoint team monitors HTML and browser developments to look for:

• Improved methods of handling chat messages without using a plug-in.
• Techniques to make standard chat easier and more intuitive without raising hardware and software requirements for subscribers and patrons.

So patrons and librarians do not need to go to the bottom of a frame to see the newest messages.

Also, displaying the newest messages at the top currently delivers the most consistent results across various browsers and browser versions. QuestionPoint standard chat refreshes frames to pick up new chat messages. Different browsers support navigation within frames differently. More browsers function correctly when the newest messages are displayed at the top of the frame.

The <Enter> key works when there is one form in a window. However, the standard chat window contains multiple forms and frames so the <Enter> key works only when the Send button is selected.

The <Tab> key does work but you must click the input box first. Then you can tab to the Send button and press <Enter>.

• Your global profile may not be activated. Your institution must have an activated profile to receive questions submitted to the global reference network.

  Enter data for all required fields before submitting your profile. Click the Requirements button on the Institution Services or Collection Strengths screens for a list of required fields. In addition:

  • (For U.S. institutions) Spell out the name of your state
  • Edit any data in all uppercase letters so it has initial capitals
  • Include your country name in your address.

  To submit your profile, click the Submit button on the Institution Services or Collection Strengths screens.

• If your global profile has been activated:
  • Your hours of availability (see the Available Times screen) may limit your potential to receive questions as they arrive for routing.
  • Your Subject Strengths may be coded too low to consider your institution a subject expert
  • Your institution may have its quota of the number of questions processed per week set to zero (see Questions processed per week on the Institution Contact Information screen)

See How is a question submitted to the global reference network routed to an institution? for more information.

You have several options:

• Answer the question yourself
• Refer it to another librarian at your institution
• Ask the patron for clarification
• Assign the question to another library in your group, if applicable
• Reject the question so that QuestionPoint can route it elsewhere in the global reference network

If you continue to receive questions that your institution is not equipped to answer, review your profile to ensure that it captures your institution's strengths appropriately.

You can submit any question to the global reference network for which you need assistance. When you submit a question, supply as much information as you can to clarify the question and describe any steps taken to try to answer it.

Here are some reasons for submitting a question to the global reference network:

• The question is outside the scope of your library or group.
• The question cannot be answered by your collection, information resources, or expertise.
• You do not have materials in the format required to answer the question.
• You found no answer, an incomplete answer, or conflicting answers.
• You cannot answer the question by the time that the answer is needed.

Routing is a two-step process.

The first step finds institutions eligible to receive the question, based on their profiles. These institutions must:

• Have an activated profile for the global reference network
• Support the Education Level assigned to the question by the requesting institution (Institution Information)
• Be able to provide the answer in the language selected by the requesting institution (Languages Served)
• Be available some time during the timeframe for responding to the question (availability specified in Available Times)
• Possess collection strength of 2 or higher for the question's:
• Subject Area or Subject Broad Class (Subject Strengths) or Geographic Subject Area (Geographic Strengths) if all are included in the question.
• Subject Area or Subject Broad Class (Subject Strengths) if Geographic Subject Area is not included in the question.
• Geographic Subject Area (Geographic Strengths) if Subject Area and Subject Broad Class are not included in the question.
• Not have exceeded their quota of questions they are willing to answer for the week (Institution Contact Information)
• Not be a member of a QuestionPoint group excluded by the requesting institution

If the first step finds no institutions, the system displays an explanation to the requesting librarian. The librarian may change the routing information and resubmit the question or send the question to the global network's on-call librarian.

The second step finds the "best fit" for the question among the eligible institutions using the following weighted criteria. It calculates a numeric score for each institution and selects the institution with the highest score.

Subject and Geographic Subject Area  – 40%

Subject (from Subject Strengths)

Geographic Subject Area (from Geographic Strengths)

Format (from Format Strengths) – 10%

Location (from country and zip code in Institution Information) – 10%

Availability (from Available Times and Unavailable Dates) – 20%

Computed by determining:

• amount of time an institution is available prior to the question's deadline
• maximum amount of time any eligible institution is available prior to the question's deadline
• proportion of institution's availability relative to maximum availability of all institutions

so that

For example, if:

Institution XYZ availability = 36 hours
Maximum availability = 48 hours

Institution XYZ score = (36 / 48) * 20  = 15

Load (from time last question routed to institution via global network) – 20%

How can we track the progress of a question submitted to the global reference network? Is there a way to view all the questions our institution has referred to the global network and our group (if applicable)?

The referring institution specifies whether the response to the question should go to them, directly to the patron, or to both the institution and the patron. You can see where the response will go by viewing the question's global network routing information.

For advice about closing a question, see Who should close a question? When should they close it?.

QuestionPoint automatically closes a question 24 hours after the requested turnaround time has elapsed (and notifies the requesting institution and the on-call librarian with alert e-mails accordingly). We recommend that you respond to the patron or the requesting institution prior to this time. (You receive alert e-mails to notify you when the turnaround deadline is near.) To prevent the question from being closed automatically, respond to the patron and/or the requesting institution, even if it is just to say that you are still working on the question.

The global reference network on-call librarian helps with questions that:

• Reach their time deadline
• Were rejected three times
• Were routed to the on-call librarian by a requestor after no answering libraries were found through the normal routing process

To help with these questions, the on-call librarian may:

• Confer with a requestor or answering library
• Change routing parameters and route a question manually
• Provide an answer or a source for an answer

On-call librarians are specially-trained librarians from the Library of Congress and other libraries in the global network.

You can add records to a KB:

• By closing a question that was routed through and answered by the Global Reference Network
• By submitting questions and answers from a question list in the Ask a Librarian module
• By submitting a question and answer from a Full Question record in the Ask a Librarian module
• By manually adding a question and answer from the Knowledge Base module

Global Knowledge Base editors perform a URL check and record the date they checked the URL when they first activate a record, such as:

http://www.loc.gov/cdrs [December 2001]

If the editor finds that the URL is invalid and cannot correct it, he or she notes that the link is broken as of the date that it was checked:

http://chronicle.merit.edu/.ads/.links.html [broken February 2002]

In addition, an editor may assign a review date to a record, which flags it for review after the specified date. Editors can also add information to the record in its Addendum field. This allows an editor to update or add further information to a record, either when initially editing the record or upon later review.

Record the actions you performed at the time the problem occurred. Send this information, along with screen shots or cut-and-pasted text from the screen, to OCLC User & Network Support (UNS) at support@oclc.org. You can also find other methods of communicating with UNS at http://www.oclc.org/support.

Provide your OCLC symbol (if you know it), institution ID, authorization, and password in all communications with OCLC UNS. This allows UNS staff to recreate the problem. If a problem is discovered that affects all QuestionPoint subscribers, a notification message will be sent to our listserv (QuestionPoint-L).

• A description of the problem.
• Question ID number.
• Whether it was a globally-routed ("Best Match Route") question or a question routed to a referral partner.
  

Statistical reports provide numerical data about activity in QuestionPoint. These reports help you track the progress of your library's reference service.

In the Home module, librarians and administrators can view data on the combined activity of all QuestionPoint members in the QuestionPoint Usage Report. Also, librarians can view reports of their libraries', and their own, QuestionPoint activity if their institution administrators let them.

In the Administration module, administrators can view reports of their groups', libraries', and librarians' QuestionPoint activity.

A variety of reports are available to institution and group administrators.

Reports cover various levels of activity: a single librarian, a single library or institution, a group, all of QuestionPoint.

Reports provide historical information and current status information.

Reports cover many activities. For information about the fields in reports and the activities they cover, see QuestionPoint glossary for statistical reports.

The history reports provide:

• Monthly data for the previous calendar year.
• Monthly data for the completed months of the current calendar year.
• Daily data for the previous month.
• Daily data for the completed days of the current month.
• Hourly data by month and by day, for some activities.

A report is not available if:

• No activities covered by the requested report were performed at the report level requested (librarian, library, group) during the time period requested.
• Data for the time period requested is not yet available. Data for a month in the current calendar year is not reported until the month is completed. Data for a day in the current month is not reported until the following day.

If a report is not currently available, the system displays a message when you request the report. If that happens, you can request a different report, report level, or time period.

A field is excluded from a report if the activity covered by the field was not performed at the report level requested during the time period requested.

A section (group of fields) is excluded from a report if no activity covered by any fields in the section was performed.

Yes, you can export data for use in a spreadsheet or other application. For instructions, see Export data from statistical reports or participant lists in online help.

For lists of fields and field definitions, see QuestionPoint glossary for statistical reports.