From Extension Collaborative Wiki
Introduction
- What is the Ask eXtension Widget?
- A small chunk of code that creates a question form and runs on an Extension related blog or county website that allows users to ask questions related to the Cooperative Extension System's content and expertise
- The administrators and/or content providers associated with that website agree to take responsibility of monitoring questions from the widget and get them answered in a timely manner
- The questions move from the Ask widget into the Ask an Expert portion of the eXtension FAQ site
- The sign up for marking areas of expertise and responsibility of widgets is on the Ask an Expert Preferences portion of the FAQ site
- Why is the Ask Widget useful?
- Gives counties and content area experts another avenue for connecting with their audience
- Gives audiences an easy, quick, convenient, and unobtrusive way of asking questions without having to call an office or provide lots of unnecessary information when asking questions. (All that is needed is a question and email address)
- CAN provide a way to get more faqs into the faq knowledge base by turning any of the frequently asked questions from the widget into faqs in the faq system
Step-by-Step Process
- Get an eXtension ID from the eXtension Identity website. Note: This also gives you the "Open ID" you'll need to create the widget
- Login to the FAQ website to set your preferences for the Ask an Expert portion in order to begin receiving questions from your widget and answer them once they arrive
- Click the box to automatically route you questions
- Click the box to have uncategorized questions (widget questions are a subset of uncategorized questions) routed to you
- Click on the geographic regions tab to select the geographic region(s) in which you will be fielding questions (if applicable (eg. questions from a county website))
- Go to the Ask site and follow the instructions to generate your widget. Use your Open ID to log in
- You will have the opportunity to name your widget for question tracking purposes
- The widget generator will give you a block of code to post on your website
- Post that chunk of code on your Extension blog, county site, etc. or have a website administrator post that chunk of code
- You will receive questions from the widget via the email address you provided from the eXtension Identity application
- You will have a link from the email to the particular question in the Ask an Expert application
- The question now appears in the Incoming list in the Ask an Expert section of the faq application
- You can deal with the question in a number of ways...
- You may answer the question directly
- You may answer the question with an existing faq
- You may assign to someone else via the colleague search tool on the question's detail page. You can choose from anyone in the system of eXtension professionals to answer the question
- If you answer the question, the person who asked the question will receive your response via email (the email address they supplied when asking the question via the widget)
- After the question has been answered, the question will now appear in the resolved questions list
- If you decide it is a frequently asked question, you may turn that question and response into a faq
Tips
- Subscribe to feeds for incoming questions and filtered incoming questions
- Mark any spam that you see in the incoming questions list and mark any non-spam questions that you see in the spam list
- You can filter your incoming question list views in the faq application by widget name so you can track which questions have been asked and resolved from the widget on your site
Conclusion
Resources
ask.extension.org
Ask eXtension Widget Introduction PDF
