Dead Week has quickly approached, and students at Iowa State have begun cramming for final exams.

There is some hope, though. A free online tutoring service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the rest of December.

This Internet tutoring technology, Studyloft.com, can be accessed by anyone.

It requires creating an account, logging in and then finding the desired subject that a student needs help in.

Bikram Roy, principal of Studyloft.com, said help is offered via chat rooms and all tutors have a master’s degree level of education in their specialty subject.

Roy said the Web site had been operating for six weeks, and they want to offer their eLearning technology free of charge until Dec. 31 so that students can experience the Web site and get the help they need for final exams. It regularly costs $18 an hour.

“You can go online just to ask one question and then log off,” Roy said.

According to a recent press release, Studyloft.com provides three different types of services – ChalkTalk, a one-on-one tutoring session, GroupChalkTalk, group tutoring of a maximum of five students and HomeworkHelp, step-by-step instructions to solve problems.

Subjects that are accessible through www.Studyloft.com are biology, chemistry, physics, math – up through the level of Calculus IV – statistics, economics and accounting.

Although this program has only been open for six weeks, it has received good results, Roy said.

“We’ve been getting some good publicity,” he said.

“We’ve got almost 800 users on the site.”

Roy said students are a little more open to ask questions on Studyloft.com than they would in class.

The Academic Success Center on campus is still another source of tutoring that offers hands on learning opposed to a virtual learning system.

Mary Camp, secretary in the Dean of Students Office, said she had not yet visited Studyloft.com but imagines it to be like an Internet class and could be very expensive.

“I think it would be worth looking into, but I think it would be hard to ask questions and given visual aides as far as a subject,” Camp said.

Camp said it is possible to still receive a tutor from the center during Dead Week.

Camp said five or six students came in just last week and linked up with a tutor.

Tyler McArthur, senior in civil engineering, uses a tutor to help him with his structural analysis class.

“I knew the class was hard and I decided I wasn’t going to mess around, so I signed up for a tutor right away,” said McArthur.