Schedule Management Tools
How can appointments be made and managed online?
Two schedule management programs in particular are becoming popular with online capabilities. These are TutorTrac and AccuTrack .
TutorTrac is web-based and very flexible allowing tutors, students and administrators to access their records via the web from school or home. In general this gives them the ability to get reports and demographics and other pertinent student information, check schedules, make requests, manage scheduling and manage center resource materials at their own convenience. Access can be restricted at any level. TutorTrac's advertised special features are: a one-time purchase, the co-development by learning center administrators specifically for learning centers, a campus wide license, the only truly web-based product available, the interface ability with campus’ Student Information System (SIS) (Banner, Datatel/Colleague, SIS Plus and more), compatibility with both Windows and Macintosh, over 75 standard reports, and excellent customer service, which is not based on minutes or incidents.
Three aspects of TutorTrac that recommend it to online tutoring are that it is web-based, meaning students can make appointments from any online computer. Thus, students can make appointments online for online tutoring sessions; e-mails can be sent to announce appointments, reminders of appointments and missed appointments; and colleges/university data can be uploaded so centers do not have to enter each student individually.
http://www.TutorTrac.com
Accutrack is a comprehensive learning center software that includes appointments management, traffic analysis, demographics, reporting with over 60 reports, media checkouts, customized surveys, and staff tracking. It is well suited for Tutoring Centers, Writing Centers and Learning Centers. Accutrack advertises these additional benefits: customizable multi-level administrator access, flexible system that can be tailored to meet the school’s specific requirements, multi-user option for more that one sign-in station and its design reflects input of managers of academic centers across the nation.
One of its advantages is that it has a 10 multiple choice question and open comment box tutor rating survey. One disadvantage is that to be truly web-based, a web module has to be purchased in addition to the original cost of the program.
A third choice would be to have an in-house program written. This choice would be less expensive initially, but could take quite a lot of time in writing the code and solving quirks along the way considering that most IT staff are overworked. The advantage is that the director can be very specific in what the program does and how it interacts with the students. The disadvantage is twofold: commercial programs already exist (reinvention of the wheel) and if the author of the program leaves campus, it could become hard to maintain or update the program if no one else knows the particular programming language used or has the time or interest.
