- General
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Ideas
Ability to list "Staff" as the instructor
In some cases we know that we have to teach a certain course, but we don't know who the instructor will be. We may reach out to Grad Students, temporary instructors or adjunct faculty. We want to make sure we don't forget to assign an instructor to a course. In Banner, even if we don't have an instructor yet, or maybe the instructor isn't entered in PPS yet, we can still enter the course with "Staff" as the instructor name. We'd like to have that as an option in the 'By Course' view. Actually, it would be nice if we can have an instructor called 'Staff' (it can even be tied to my email or someone's email that we enter) that way we can look at the 'Instructor' view and see what classes we still need to find instructors for.
Customer support service by UserEcho
While Banner does use "The Staff" it's ostensibly the same as leaving the assignment blank in IPA. Is there a reason to add 'The Staff' to IPA in addition to allowing a blank instructor assignment?
I know that having the ability to use "staff" as an instructor was something Tracy Lade also felt a need for, so maybe she can let you know why it's helpful for her. For us in CS, it's helpful in keeping track of the courses that have not been assigned. If I list 'Staff' as the instructor, then I can go to the "Instructor View" and look for the instructor "Staff" and quickly see all the courses that I still need to find an instructor for. In looking at the "Course View" and looking for the courses that are blank, I feel like I may miss some classes. The view is very busy. In this view I have to look for classes that have an enrollment number in the blue box and then make sure there's an instructor highlighted in green. I can't use the "hide unassigned' option in this case, since there's no instructor assigned, so it will disappear if I use the "hide unassigned" button to lessen the clutter.
What if we added a section to the bottom of the "By Instructor" view which would automatically collate all courses with no approved preferences. It sounds like the same data you're describing except it would be automatic.
Another option is to change only the course view: a course which has no approved preferences but does have a number set in the seats could simply have a light grey background box around that course+term table cell. That would make it relatively easy to scroll around and quickly see what assignments need to be made.
Do either of those ideas sound good to you?
Yes, either (or both) of these options would definitely work. Thanks for being creative. And of course, I'm speaking for myself. I know Tracy Lade wanted a similar feature so I'm not sure how this would work for her. Something to keep in mind, sometimes when we get to the scheduling piece, we still have courses that aren't assigned to instructors yet, so as long as we can still assign a day/time to the course without it being "assigned" to someone, then I don't see why these options won't work.
Great, we'll put it on our list. Should show up in a week or two.