ask otter tool
Ask Otter is a customized AI assistant designed to help Virginia Tech employees find the professional development training opportunities that best meet their needs.

The Virginia Tech Division of Human Resources (HR) has recently ramped up its career development efforts, creating a hub for professional development and training resources called My Career Stream. My Career Stream is focused on helping employees adopt a growth mindset and be intentional about their professional development.

To that end, the IT Learning Systems (ITLS) group collaborated with HR’s talent development team and Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS) to launch Ask Otter, a customized tool that provides employees with training recommendations from all of Virginia Tech’s training resources, including LinkedInLearning, PageUp, and TLOS’ Professional Development Network. The ITLS team was integral in helping to build the tool, which utilizes a cutting-edge aggregated search capability and user input to find available opportunities and resources from these resources all at one time.

Ask Otter eliminates the need for employees to search multiple websites to find training options that match their interests and goals — making it more appealing to explore and take advantage of training opportunities while also helping them discover workshops and courses they might not have known about without this search tool.

The tool, available at https://ask-otter.tlos.vt.edu/, was named in honor of Otter Sandman, a river otter who took up residence in Virginia Tech’s Duck Pond for several years.