Tutor wants to organise one-off tutorial

Commentary

A tutor has a site with 15 students as members, he wants to organise 3 separate tutorials within a 3 hour window on a single day.

The tutor creates an instance of the sign-up tool (giving it a suitable title) covering the 3 hour period and then, by specifying the number of slots (3), automatically divides the available time into 3 one hour sessions. He then stipulates that a maximum of 6 students may attend any one session and also that he will allow a 3-person waiting list to be appended to each session. He leaves the default option to 'hide names' ticked so that a student can't see other student's names on the sign-up sheet; this is for privacy reasons, other scenarios may call for the names to be visible.

He then adds a set of notes which are attached to each of the sessions, (the same notes are used for each session). These notes remind students that they must bring a pen, paper and their favourite groundnut to the tutorial. Once he is sure all details are correct he clicks the 'Create' button.

The next screen asks the tutor whether he wants to send an email; there are similar destination options to those that the Mailtool offers. If sent the email includes the tutor's notes about the groundnuts, and a URL of the sign up sheets for the students to click on - this is to ensure that they don't accidently sign up on the wrong set of sheets should more than one exist at the same time. The 'reply-to address' of the the email can be set to the tutor's email address or any other desirable value.

The students click on the URL and, after being prompted to log into Sakai, see a sign-up sheet before them. They will NOT see any names already assigned to the sessions but they will see the number of spaces left per session. (People with 'maintain' access or 'tutor' access CAN see the names.) If a session is full there may or may not be a waiting list (depending on whether the tutor had chosen this option). The student clicks on an "add me" link inside the desired session, sees the number of available slots reduce by one and gets given an 'e-ticket' confirmation code. This code is also sent in an email to the student's account with a confirmation of the time that they booked for, the notes about the groundnuts and a hyperlink back to the sign up sheet.

The student visits his 'MyWorkspace' and looks at the calendar, sure enough he now has an entry for (say) Wednesday 18th October 2007 from 2pm-3pm.

The tutor also receives a confirmation email stating date and time for which the Student X has booked (along with student's name and a link back to the sign-up sheet).

Two days later the student realises that they have a very important appointment with a certain young lady from 2-3pm on 18th October. He fishes out the email, clicks on the link, (logs in etc.,) and sees the signup sheet with the total number of people booked so far, and an indication that he is indeed booked in the 2-3pm slot.

Wanting to reschedule, he finds a session with a free space and tries to add is name, but there is no "add me" link. 'Ah yes' he thinks, I can only book for one session. (Perhaps there should be an on screen reminder of this?) The student navigates to the 2-3pm slot and clicks on the "remove me" link; he then returns to his desired session but discovers that the slot he wanted (4-5pm) has now gone. 'Oh blimey' he thinks, and books the 3-4pm slot instead making a mental note that he must get away from his important appointment rather sharpish so as not to miss the tutorial. Both the tutor and the student have been sent an email saying that a session has been removed. They also both receive an email (plus 'booking reference') confirming that the 3-4pm slot has been booked.

The day before the tutorial the student thinks: 'I wonder whether anybody else has moved their session, perhaps I can change again and get that 4-5pm slot?'. Using the link in the email he revisits the site and sees that indeed the 4-5pm session only has 4 out of a possible 6 spaces booked, but lo and behold, there is not a "remove me" link next to his incumbent entry: this is because the tutor has stipulated that the sign-up sheet should be locked 48 hours before the first session.

On the Wednesday morning the tutor goes to his MyWorkspace and sees three entries in his calendar for the afternoon, clicking on one of the entries displays the title (of the sign-up tool instance) and the times plus the attendees. 'Ah yes' he thinks and goes off to the tool instance in the worksite, he clicks on the "sign-up summary" link which brings up a nicely formatted summary of the 3 sessions plus attendees for each session.

At the end of the academic year (or term), the tutor is able to produce a nicely formatted report of ALL his tutorials which took place between two specified dates.

The report has a preview page where each 3 hour session has a tickbox next to it, a tick implies 'include this session in the report'; all boxes are ticked by default, the tutor can untick if desired.

Variation #1

The course site has 120 members and consequently has 8 separate tutors. Each tutor creates their own personal sign-up sheet to arrange their own tutorial. The tutors do not know who their tutees will be, but the tutees DO know who their tutor is. (This really happens at Oxford!) (It would be nice to have the option to either have 'generic' sign-up tool link in the LHS panel which links to an 'index page' somewhat akin to the Poll tool 'index page', or, to be able to add separate links to the individual sheets in the LHS panel. (Using RSF would support URLs such as this.))

Variation #1a (on the above)

Each of the tutors know who their 15 tutees are and supplies their names as part of the signup sheet set-up process: a student may only sign up for a tutorial if their name is on the 'whitelist'.

Variation #2

The student doesn't book the 3-4pm slot for fears that having to gallop off for a 3pm meeting may ruin his chances with the aforementioned lady, so he adds himself to the waiting list for the 4-5pm slot; he is number 2 in the queue. Four days before the tutorial he finally receives notice via email that, due to drop outs, he has made the 4-5pm slot.

Variation #3

(Tricky design issue - may need thinking about more.)

The student has not made it to the top of the waiting list before the sign-up sheet is locked, he is randomly assigned a place on one of the non full sessions.

(Maybe the student has to supply a fall-back session when he adds himself to the waiting list just in case.)

Variation #4

When a student has booked a session they click on the button marked 'ical' which generates an 'ical' file representing the tutorial.

The tutor can also click on an 'ical' file which generates a file for all the scheduled tutorials.

Variation #5

The tutor wants to set up a series of tutorials: he knows that he will see tutees every Wednesday afternoon for 10 weeks but also knows that each tutee will not necessarily be able to attend the same session each week. He creates one session which repeats for 10 weeks (alternatively he could have also supplied a 'finish date cf Microsoft Outlook Calendar scheduling,) and specifies that once created, these should be treated as individual sessions: the students must sign up 10 separate times. Each sign up sheet only appears on the Sakai site one week before the tutorial, up to that point only the tutor(s) can see the sheet.

Variation #5a

The students can attend the same session each week so only have to sign up once, their chosen time is replicated over all 10 sessions.

Variation #6

After setting up the sign-up sheet, the tutor assigns names to each session then locks the sheet. No student input whatsoever.

Variation #6a

After setting up the sign-up sheet, the tutor pre-assigns names to each session: this is ideall how he would like to see his students.The students can swap their sessions later.

Variation #7

In a slightly different sceanario, it has been decided that students can bring up to 3 guests with them. (This would be more appropriate for a course Xmas meal or something like that.) The tutor is able to stipulate the maximum number of guests upon setup; the student stipulates the number of guests that they will bring when they sign-up.

Variation #8

The tutor gets one or two of the departmental administrators to do all the tool interaction for him as he is busy. He can still access the tool and make modifications if necessary.

Variation #9

The tutor can reuse a previous signup sheet: they can create a new sheet by copying an existing one. All details apart from booking information (and dates) is used. This would allow a 'template' to be set up which can be reused by any staff member with the appropriate permissions.

Variation #10

Simon Hunt: "In practice, I often run tutorial pairs as part-private, part-shared ("back-to-backs") so that one pupil comes 15 mins before the other: they then share 45 mins; and I keep number two for 15 mins on their own at the end. So the system should ideally allow the possiblity to require students to come for a stated amont of shared time, plus some private time."