Faculty access to tutor booking

[Aikens, Kristina]

Hi everyone,

 

I hope you’re excited for (what I hope is for you) a long weekend!

 

At Tufts, we have an appointment booking system that was built in-house, so I don’t know the ins and outs of the booking systems most writing and tutoring centers use, such as Tutor Trac or WCOnline. Currently, only students have access to see available appointments in our booking system. There has been interest from faculty who want to see the available appointments. (For context, it mostly is coming from science faculty who want to be able to address students telling them that there are no available science tutoring appointments when they assume there actually are appointments available. So it’s coming from good intentions.) I have a lot of reservations about giving faculty access, even though it would be view-only. But I wanted to reach out to you and see what you all do, in order to take into consideration how other schools think about this.

 

For the record, I know some writing centers also provide faculty with confirmation of students attending sessions, and we don’t do that either, nor do I want to, but if you feel like commenting on that part too (either pro or con) I am willing to hear arguments. 😊

 

Thanks in advance for any feedback you have!

 

Kristina

 

-- 

Kristina Aikens, PhD

pronouns: she, her, hers

Program Director, Writing Support 

Tufts University StAAR Center

 

Book a writing appointment or workshop on Tutor Finder!

 

 

[Farber, Gregory]

Hi Kristina,

At Bentley we use WCOnline and because of some tech issues when we first started using it we don’t have a single sign-on, which means that students need to sign up for an account. The only barrier to that is that whoever signs up would has to use a Bentley email address. So faculty could sign up and see out system. Personally, I don’t have a problem if faculty view the schedule—they can’t see who has appointments, just when times are available. And even if they couldn’t sign up and access it directly, I view that information as public. Students could show them the schedule; if they called and asked, we’d tell them when there are appointments available. None of that strikes me as crossing any lines regarding confidentiality.

 

On the other hand, we don’t send professors notifications about student appointments, nor do we respond to professor requests about appointments. For me, that’s something that some students may want to keep private, and I want to respect that. The one exception is that if the student asks us to send a confirmation to the professor (because they require a visit or give extra credit), then we’ll notify the professor.

 

TL;DR: Pro on letting professors see the schedule, con on confirming student attendance

 

Best,

Greg

 

 

 

From: boston-area-writin...@googlegroups.com <boston-area-writin...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Aikens, Kristina <Kristin...@tufts.edu>
Date: Thursday, June 29, 2023 at 11:17 AM
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Subject: Faculty access to tutor booking

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[Wendy LaBron]

Hi Kristina,

 

Through WCOnline, faculty could sign up with their Emmanuel email address to see what services we provide (academic coaching, writing assistance, tutoring), but it is set so that they cannot view who makes appointments, etc. without basic or full administrator access. Academic Advising also uses the system with full access, so sometimes they will set up appointments with the tutors or academic coaches for students if necessary.

 

We do provide a handout that tutors sign to confirm that a student attended a session if the student requests it from the tutor. For privacy/FERPA reasons, we would not provide confirmation without the student’s permission. Sometimes professors offer incentives for students to use our services, so this is useful in these cases. I hope this helps!

 

Wendy LaBron
Assistant Dean, Academic Resource Center
Emmanuel College, LIB G-04
617-735-9778 | lab...@emmanuel.edu

 

From: boston-area-writin...@googlegroups.com <boston-area-writin...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Aikens, Kristina
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2023 11:18 AM
To: boston-area-writin...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Faculty access to tutor booking

 

Hi everyone,

--

[Schneider, Rachel]

I'll second Gregory on faculty being able to create an appointment in WCOnline to see the schedule as a user. I generally encourage faculty to emphasize that students must book ahead using assignment deadlines to ensure access to tutoring services, and I usually ask faculty to reach out to me directly at the start of each semester if they anticipate multiple students needing support so I can adjust staffing.

At MCPHS we consider student appointments to fall under FERPA, so faculty can only receive confirmation if the student provides a written request to share that information. I occasionally provide session reports to administrators in academic honesty cases if relevant to the investigation. 

Rachel

​ Rachel   Schneider ,  MA Instructor of English School of Arts and Sciences Pronouns: she/her/hers 179 Longwood Avenue ,  Boston   MA   02115 617.732.2067 rachel.s...@mcphs.edu www.mcphs.edu Confidentiality Note: This email, and any attachment to it, is intended to be confidential and might be legally privileged.  It is intended solely for the use of the addressee.  If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that reading, copying, disseminating or distributing this email is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this email in error, please immediately return it to the sender and delete it from your system.  Thank you.

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[Deery, Devon D]

Hi Kristina and everyone!

 

We use TutorTrac, and the way we have it set up, only students can login to see the schedule. We’ve also had some interest from faculty who’d like accounts to see what’s available, but we’ve dealt with those as one-offs and haven’t made any changes.

 

TutorTrac is completely customizable. We send a weekly automated report to faculty whose students have visited. However, students have the option to opt out when they login for their appointment. There is a mandatory question that asks, “Would you like to share this visit with your faculty member?” I think the most recent data was around 30% no and 70% yes. Stonehill is a small community and a lot of faculty require/incentivize visits, so we’ve found this to be easier on the administrative end, but it should be a conversation the front desk or tutor has with every student when the log them in for their session.

 

I hope this is helpful!

 

All best,

Devon

 

Devon Deery (she/her)

Assistant Professor of Writing

Interim Writing Program Administrator

Director

Tutoring Services | MacPhaidin Library – 315C

The Navigation Center for Student Success

 

320 Washington Street | Easton, MA 02357 

Phone: (508) 565-1751 | Book a Meeting

 

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