A commercial, web-based tutoring service is helping high schools and colleges make live instructors available 24-hours a day, seven days a week to tutor students in mathematics. At the moment, this round-the-clock tutoring service is available only for math help, but the company says on-demand assistance is available in additional subjects for nine hours each day.

Gallaudet University, a school for deaf and hard of hearing students in Washington, D.C., will begin offering the 24-hour, web-based tutoring service this fall. University representatives say tutoring at Gallaudet requires a diverse approach, because some of the school's students are born and reared with sign language, while others are new to their hearing loss and are better at reading than at using sign language.

Online study help also serves the needs of students who wish to keep their need for assistance confidential. "We suspect there are some students who don't come into our center because they are embarrassed," said Terry Coye, Gallaudet's director of tutorial and instructional programs.

The service, provided by a Washington, D.C.-based firm called SMARTHINKING Inc., will help the Gallaudet reach students who are not well served by the traditional sign-language-based tutoring provided by the school's graduate students.

SMARTHINKING's tutoring sessions are like web chats, the company explained. Tutors and students communicate by typing on a virtual white board displayed on their computer screens. Each "white board" supports equations, annotations, and color-coded dialogue.

Math tutoring is available live, one-on-one, at all times, according to the company. Tutoring in other subjects--including chemistry, economics, physics, biology, accounting, and statistics--is available from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. each day, the company said.

When students log in, they can submit questions to live, real-time tutors, or they can schedule a tutoring session for another time.