What is Spartan Answers?
Spartan Answers is a virtual assistant or bot that can help you with a broad range of questions regarding Case Western Reserve University. It can be found at my.case.edu/spartananswers. It has been trained on all of the data available at case.edu. Because it sometimes uses generative AI to formulate its answers, it doesn't always get things quite right. However, Spartan Answers cites its sources, so always be sure to double-check the information it provides. The university is constantly working to improve Spartan Answers, so please provide feedback when it makes a mistake by clicking the "This answer was not useful" button.
Spartan Answers’ responses are only meant to be helpful and never constitute an official university decision or official university policy.
What kinds of questions can Spartan Answers answer?
Spartan Answers can answer a broad range of questions about Case Western Reserve University. If the information is likely to be somewhere on the CWRU website, Spartan Answers will do its best to find it and give you a good summary.
What kinds of questions is Spartan Answers not able to answer?
Spartan Answers can only answer questions about Case Western Reserve University. So, it cannot do math, rewrite a paper, or answer general knowledge questions not related to the university. However, the university does have three general purpose generative AI chatbots available to CWRU members: Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and CWRU AI. Spartan Answers also cannot access private systems at CWRU, so it cannot answer questions about things like course schedules, grades, etc.
What are some tips for getting the most out of Spartan Answers?
- Be specific: Provide context in your questions.
- Poor question: Where can I eat?
- Good question: I am a student. What dining options are available where I can use my meal plan?
- Use natural language: Fully phrased questions with punctuation helps Spartan Answers understand your question better, as opposed to words or short phrases typically used in a regular internet search. Even including punctuation, such as question marks, helps it understand the inquiry better.
- Poor question: counseling services
- Good question: I am a student. How do I make an appointment with counseling services?
- Stay on topic: Spartan Answers remembers the whole conversation and uses it as context for its answers. This helps Spartan Answers with follow-up questions on the same topic and to improve its answers as it learns more about what you are looking for. However, it can get confused if you change topics dramatically. When you change topics, refresh the browser page so Spartan Answers does not recall and get confused by the previous conversation.
To learn more about how to chat effectively with generative AI, check out this video on LinkedIn Learning.