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One of the primary tasks of professors is communication with their students. Communication typically involves lecturing, clarifying uncertainties, and receiving feedback. Lecturing happens at fixed times, but receiving feedback and clarifying uncertainties are continuous tasks. I am referring to clarifying uncertainties as continuous tasks because students can ask any doubt related to the course at any point before the final exam.

My question is related to clarifying uncertainties. This is an extremely important task. Although a professor resolves some of the student's uncertainties during lectures, students may have questions at any time, so professors need to be available.

In this context, I want to know the modern software followed by top university professors on uncertainty clarification.

Recently I came to know about Piazza, Slack, etc., in which a professor can solve questions of students at any time.

Are there other better websites or software, followed by top-edge professors, to clarify student uncertainty that ensure professors' availability online?

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    This sense of the phrase "clarifying doubts" seems to be specific to some dialects of English (e.g. Indian), and sounds odd to speakers of other dialects where the word "doubt" has different connotations. Speakers of other dialects may just call this "answering student questions".
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Oct 11, 2019 at 21:52
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    Your question assumes that there are some methods that are inherently "best" in some objective sense. But I think this is the kind of thing where each professor just finds, through experimentation, some approach that works well for their own teaching style and student population. And I suspect that tacit assumption makes the question sound weird to people, like asking "What is the best, world-class flavor of pizza?" So I think that may have something to do with your downvotes. I would suggest changing it to something like "What are some efficient ways to answer student questions?"
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Oct 11, 2019 at 21:57
  • Most of your question asks about using modern technology to make oneself available at the convenience of the student, but your last sentence (the actual question) asks (paraphrasing) "how should I answer questions?" Which are you asking about? (The latter is probably too broad to be answerable here...the former might be okay since we do take academic software recommendation requests).
    – cag51 ♦
    Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 7:46
  • @cag51 I am asking for common practices followed by top-tier universities for clarifying uncertainties, either software or website or any other in general.
    – hanugm
    Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 8:15
  • @cag51 Do I need to narrow it down to software only to make it on-topic?
    – hanugm
    Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 8:17

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I would argue that doubt clarification is not a continuous task. Working on a doubt by students is arguably the most important learning experience, regardless whether they finally succeed or not. All too often students just want to know the answer without first seriously trying to find the answer themselves. In my experience being available 24 hours a day 7 days a week just encourages that behavior. Limiting your availability to regular office hours is not popular, but definitely improves the learning experience.

This can be combined with a chat group where students can try to explain problems to each other. Nobody learns as much about a problem as a someone who tries to explain it. So both sides benefit. By keeping this in a chat group, the lecturer can keep an eye on the kinds of problems students are struggling with and spot any wrong explanations.

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