Pennsylvania State University academic advisors are now required to meet students in the virtual world of Second Life.

The online campus advisors take to the community for at least two hours a week, using their avatars to interface with students and answer questions reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Shannon Ritter, social-networks adviser for the Penn State World Campus, indicated that the advisors are enjoying their new form of interaction, adding, “Second Life has been a completely new thing to almost all the advisers. And so at the beginning they aren’t really sure how to do anything. But we schedule training sessions and work with them on the basics.”