Here are my answers/observation about the short class exercise
we had concerning finding the answers for the various questions.

1.) Providing assistance is easy if I have knowledge of what the searcher
expects as answers. At the beginning of the drill, I would expect the
searcher to know nothing about the internet and attempt to answer
questions and give suggestions on how to find something, like suggesting
the use of search engines, the key words to use and also the
boolean functions to use in the search engines. If I know exactly
where I can find this info, I would suggest tyhe site immediately.

2.) This answer follows the 1st question as well. The searcher would
appear to have some knowledge of where he could find the answer and
did not know what the site address/name is. This info is useful
in a way that I could give him the correct site address the check for
the answers. One example was the Solar Eclipse : the searcher had no
knowledge that NASA is a government body and attempted to link
to "www.nasa.com". I pointed out that NASA site should be "www.nasa.gov".

3.) Yes. If I have more time to work on the question, I would be
able to narrow down searches or even give exact info that the searcher
wanted.

4.) Yes. As mentioned in answer (1), knowing the person would let me
know in advance what kinds of help is needed by this person.

5.) Yes. All experiences learnt can be applied to others. After all,
experience will tell me how to deal with people.

6.) For the type of questions given, I would say not as much
and not as fast. User could get lost and forget what he is looking for
after dwelling into the nested HELPs.

7.) Searcher should be able to tell the assiatant what he is looking for
in a sentence and I would check and search for it until I find the right
answer. Human's are pretty good at understanding what a person
is looking for than machines.

Gan

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