This work by the JISC-funded e-admin of teaching project at CARET, University of Cambridge is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Version 1.3 08/04/2010

1 What the TODB is for

The Teaching Office Database (TODB) allows departmental teaching administrators to view 'who is doing what' and 'what is done by whom':

· It is possible to see the teaching duties done by a particular member of staff.

· It is possible to see which members of staff are responsible for particular teaching duties or groups thereof (teaching units).

Beyond these simple premises, the TODB also facilitates the following:

· Individual members of staff can view their teaching duty allocations, and to confirm these as correct or to indicate otherwise directly to the Teaching Office.

· Point scores can be allocated to specific teaching tasks. These points totals can then be analysed in various ways to facilitate balancing of teaching loads and possibly dispute resolution.

· Data can be presented in specific ways to facilitate a more efficient teaching allocation process. It can also present data in a timetable form if timeslot information is provided for jobs.

· Entry and editing of data in a robust and simple manner, with authentication required for administrator users. At the University of Cambridge, authentication is performed by Apache using Raven (see the Installation Guide for more details on this).

The TODB is a simple web-accessible database. Data is stored by academic year. A TODB 'web site' is assumed to represent a single department of an educational institution, such as Cambridge.

As the system has a simple, straightforward and traditional design, implemented using established and widely-known technologies (PHP and MySQL), it is relatively easy to extend the system by developing new 'pages' that access the underlying data. Many basic functions are implemented in a modular way, such that new pages can be created using 'building blocks' for presentation, authentication, table display, and so on.

2 How the TODB structures data

The data within the TODB has a very simple structure. It is worth understanding this structure as doing so will make operating the TODB easier.

Data for jobs, people and teaching units are stored. This information is stored by academic year, and each year has separate tables of data.

· Teaching duties are broken down into 'jobs'. A job is a piece of teaching work that is done by a single person, is a single type of activity (e.g. lecturing, supervising, facilitating a seminar, etc), and is possibly done in a single term. Jobs can also include non-teaching duties such as administration or committee duties. Jobs are stored in a table with columns for the job name, who is doing the job, how many hours the job takes, how many stint points is earned by doing the job, and so on.

· Jobs are done by 'people'. Each job is allocated to a single person. People are represented by a table of information with a 'unique name' and some other information (surname, unique id , contact details, and so on).

· Jobs can be grouped into 'units'. These might represent year or semester courses, generally representing groupings of teaching duties higher than specific jobs (e.g. giving a series of lectures) but smaller than the course of study (e.g. MPhil, BA, etc). A typical unit might consist of one of more lecturing jobs, a module leader job and an examining/marking job.

Jobs, people and units are associated with subject group divisions.

3 How to view and edit people, jobs and units data

Log in to the main page of the TODB system by accessing it through a web browser. This might be http://127.0.0.1/TODB if the software installed on your local machine. It will otherwise be something like http://yourdept.yourinstitutionsdomainname.ac.uk/teachingadmin/TODB or similar. Your system administrator should be able to provide this information.

Users with edit privileges will need to have pop-ups enabled on their browser to access the input screen.

Figure 3‑1 Index Page

3.1 People data

The list of people maintained by the system is necessary for assigning people to do jobs and for viewing 'what is done by whom'.

It can also serve as a useful information system for storing staff details.

3.1.1 Unique name

It is important to remember that every 'person' in the system is identified by his or her 'unique name', sometimes called 'uname'. This is usually a surname, but could be the internal departmental code for a person's name or even their Cambridge CRSID. The important thing to remember is that this code is unique, and this is enforced by the TODB software.

3.1.2 Viewing people:

Click on the 'View people (year)' link, where year is the academic year the data for which you are interested in viewing. The View People facility allows the user to view groups of people and individuals, and to view the jobs done by individuals. It sums points across groups of people and also breaks down points scores by job type (i.e. teaching activity type).

You will be presented with a screen that looks something like:

Figure 3‑2 - Viewing People

3.1.2.1 Listing Staff (People)

Several buttons allow the user to view lists of people:

· The 'A-Z' buttons across the top of the screen allow the user to list all staff whose surnames begin with the letter button you press. So if the user presses the 'D' button, all staff whose surnames begin with 'D' will be listed.

· The next row of buttons allow the user to list all staff who are associated with a particular subject division within the department. The 'Other' button lists all staff not allocated to a particular group(s) and the 'All' button lists all staff. The 'Deleted' button lists all staff who were previously deleted (this helps to 'undelete' people – something like a 'Recycle Bin' or 'Trashcan' in Windows or Mac respectively).

· The 'Download as CSV button' generates a CSV file download that can be opened and manipulated in Excel. This is useful for generating graphs or synchronising TODB staff lists with other staff databases.

· The 'Update' button refreshes the page view.

· If present, the ‘Show Timetable’ button allows a timetable to be displayed (see Timetable section). You will then need to click the ‘Update’ button to redisplay the screen.

· If present, the ‘Show Jobs Breakdown’ shows a breakdown of jobs and hours by activity type. You will then need to click the ‘Update’ button to redisplay the screen.

Figure 3‑3 Show Jobs Breakdown

Each row displayed in the lower section of the screen represents a person stored on the TODB system. You must enter a unique identifier and CRSID. Otherwise this table can be used to store other personal data considered useful to have available or which you may wish to include in TODB reporting. You should ensure that private data, such as home address, is only accessible to an administrator level user (see TODB How To Document) where it is entered.

Unique Name ( Unique name or identifier for this person e.g. Clarke_A. This is used to associate a person with a job)

CRSID (Institutional unique identifying code for this person )

· Division/Subject Group (Departmental division or group to which this person belongs)

· Title (Prof, Dr, Mrs, Mr etc)

· Called ( May be used for First or Nickname)

· Initials ( Person’s initials)

· Surname

· Room

· Phone

· Home Phone

· Mobile (Mobile Number)

· In case of emergency ( Emergency contact details)

· Job Title ( e.g. Lecturer)

· Postal address

· College

· Status ( Affiliation status e.g. affiliated, federated)

· Duties-OK (Set by the system to show the date and time when a person confirmed their teaching duties)

· Last Updated ( Set by the system to show when this person was added or last had their details edited)

· Quota ( Shows the target number of points for this person – only used when points and quotas are being used)

· Points ( Calculated by the system as the total points across all jobs allocated to this person)

3.1.2.2 Viewing staff teaching duties

Each staff member is represented by a record (row) on-screen. Each row has a button in the leftmost column. Pressing one of these buttons will result in the list of jobs done by that person being displayed on-screen.

3.1.3 Editing people

While viewing a list of people (following the instructions in 3.1.2.1), if the user is an 'admin' user (see the Installation Guide for details on how to add admin users), an 'Edit' button will be displayed at the top of the screen.

Clicking on the 'Edit' button will display the same page in 'Edit' mode: each record becomes a clickable link.

Upon clicking one of these, a popup window appears with the record represented in editable text boxes.

Clicking on other person records on the main screen will add new rows of editable person data to the open popup window (it might be necessary to switch between the browser windows if the popup edit screen is not visible).

After the text in the editable boxes in the popup screen has been changed, the changes can be saved by clicking on the 'Apply' button.

Figure 3‑4 Editing People

3.1.4 Adding people

New people can be added by going into 'edit' mode (by clicking the edit button as in 3.1.3), and then clicking on the 'Add Person' button. A popup box appears with empty fields that need to be filled-in. Most fields are optional; 'unique name' (uname) and surname MUST be filled-in. Click 'Apply and Clear' to save the new record and close the window. The 'Apply and retain' button is pressed if the user wishes to create another, similar record, and would do so to avoid having to re-enter data that is identical for a group of records (e.g. subject group division). This feature is more useful in the Jobs editing page.

3.2 How to view and edit jobs

Viewing jobs is one of the most information-rich aspects of the TODB. Apart from simply providing access to view and edit jobs, the TODB provides sophisticated interactive filtering apparatus and a choice of 'special filters' which allow the user to quickly and easily narrow down the selection of displayed jobs to a desired subset.

3.2.1 Viewing jobs

3.2.1.1 Accessing the jobs page

From the index page (section 3), click on the 'View jobs (year)' link, where year is the academic year the data for which the user wishes to view. This will load a screen something like:

Figure 3‑5 Viewing Jobs

Each row displayed in the lower section of the screen represents a job stored on the TODB system. Jobs generally have the following fields (data associated with them):

· Course (the course of study to which this job belongs)

· Year (year of the course to which this teaching job belongs)

· Paper (teaching unit/module/paper to which this job belongs)

· Group (subject group division(s) to which this job belongs or is relevant)

· Name (a description of the job)

· Type (the job type e.g. Lecturing, Examining, Supervision etc)

· Hours (number of hours allocated to this job)

· Term (the academic term in which this is given – e.g. 'M' for Michaelmas, 'L' for Lent and 'E' for Easter

· Person (who is doing this job)

· Notes (any extra information or notes)

The venue and timeslots only need to be filled in if the time table feature is to be used

· Venue (location which will be used in timetable)

· Timeslots (when this job is given, as a comma-separated list of week number, day of week and time of day)

· Last Updated (when this job was added or last edited)

· Points (number of 'effort' or 'stint' points earned by the person doing this job)

Other columns can be added. Not all columns need to be filled in, but the more fields that are filled-in, the better the possible analyses of teaching duties. For example, if job type data is added to a set of jobs for a particular person, when that person's teaching duties are listed, the system will be able to display a table showing the activity composition of teaching effort for that person.

3.2.1.2 Filtering of jobs

The screen is divided vertically into a filtering apparatus area and an output area. The filtering apparatus is used to limit the records displayed to those in which the user is particularly interested. This allows the user to 'home in' on desired jobs.

Certain columns of data in the jobs screen can be filtered. These are the columns containing data that are categorisable – e.g. job type, where the activity could be allocated to categories like 'lecturing', 'seminars', 'administration', 'examining' and so on. By 'filtering' the jobs by a particular category (e.g. 'x') of a certain column (e.g. 'y'), only records where column 'y' has the value 'x' will be displayed onscreen. The next section explains how to do this.

Figure 3‑6 Filtering Jobs

· Each filterable columns can be called a 'filtering criterion'; each corresponds with a row of tickboxes in the top section of the screen. Most instances of TODB will include filtering criteria for categories of course of study, year, subject group division and job type (activity).

· To make things simpler, each category of a particular filtering criterion is usually assigned a short code – 'L' for 'lecturing', 'A' for 'administration', etc, for job type; 1, 2, 3, etc for 'year'; and so on. The codes for each category are listed in square brackets after the description on-screen.

3.2.1.3 How to filter jobs

· After ticking and unticking a selection of categories in different filtering criteria, click the 'Standard Filter' button. This will refresh the page and a subset of the records will be displayed, which match the criteria set via the tickboxes. This works for all criteria.

· Alternatively, the text fields on the right can be used for 'shorthand' selection of categories. This can reduce the need to tick and untick a list of categories – instead, enter a space-separated list of categories that you wish to tick and click the OK button immediately to the right of the text box.

Note: text field-based selections only work for one set of categories at a time.

3.2.1.4 Using Special Filters

Figure 3‑7 Using Special Filters

This acts as an alternative filter to the Standard Filter and allows you to make special requests such as ‘Jobs not allocated to anyone’ or ‘jobs done by people external to a given subject group’. Select the request you wish to make from the drop-down list and then click on ‘Special Filter’.

3.2.2 Adding new jobs

To add a new job, click on the 'Edit' button to go into edit mode. Then click on the 'Add new job' button. This will cause a popup window to appear, with empty text fields for each column of data displayed on the screen.

Figure 3‑8 Adding new jobs

Fill in each text field (as described in section 3.2.1.1), and fill in as many as possible. The more information provided, the richer an information system the TODB becomes.

Notes on the Person field:

· The person field should contain the 'unique name' of the person in the people table of the TODB database. In practice, this is normally the surname, but could be a surname with a suffix to distinguish between staff members with the same surname (e.g. 'Jones' and 'Jones_M').

· Typing a letter into the person field should produce a drop-down list of people in the 'people' table in the database. These are people who have been entered into the system following the steps described in section 3.1.4. It is possible to type in a new name (i.e. the name entered need not be on the list). It will however be necessary to add the person to the people table (using the people screen) later on in the process by using Adding people.

· See the Special Filters section for instructions on how to list jobs allocated to people not found in the TODB people database.

Notes on the Points field

· If possible, enter the number of points earned for this job in the points field.

· If points are to be calculated, there might be a calculator icon next to the points field. Clicking this will open a calculator window. See section 4 for information on using points calculators.

· Alternatively, points might be automatically calculated based on the number of students registered for a module (unit). Again, See section 4 for information on automatically calculating points.

3.3 How to view and edit teaching units

Teaching units represent logical groups of jobs. A single job can belong to several units.

3.3.1 Viewing units

3.3.1.1 Accessing the units page

From the index page (section 3), click on the 'View units (year)' link, where year is the academic year the data for which the user wishes to view. This will load a screen something like:

Figure 3‑9 Viewing Units

Each row displayed in the lower section of the screen represents a unit in the TODB system. Units generally have the following fields (data associated with them):

Paper/Unit (Identifies this unit)

· Course (the course of study to which this unit belongs)

· Order (used to set which order the units are displayed in)

· Subj Grps (subject group division(s) to which this job belongs or is relevant)

· Correct Groups/Other Groups – where used, this is calculated and displays any groups other than the entered Subject Groups into which the constituent jobs for the unit may fall. More details are given in the TODB Developers Guide.

· Full Name (a description of the unit)

· Mode (the assessment mode)

· Running (indicates whether this course is running) - normally this is displayed with a √ when the value is set and a × when it is unset.

· Global Interest (can be used to indicate whether this course is of global interest) - normally this is displayed with a √ when the value is set and a × when it is unset. This is currently used within Engineering only as a filter for a specialised report when course units are considered of interest across subject groups.

· Note (any additional information – e.g. if the job is shared with another lecturer or if the course if not running this year)

· Last updated (date when a change was last made to this entry)

Other columns can be added. Not all columns need to be filled in, but the more fields that are filled-in, the better the possible analyses of teaching duties.

3.3.2 Adding new units

Fill in each text field (as described in section 3.2.1.1), and fill in as many as possible. The more information provided, the richer an information system the TODB becomes.

Notes on the Running and Global interest fields:

· Normally these are displayed with a √ when the value is set and a × when it is unset.

3.3.3 Units Housekeeping

Figure 3‑10 Units Housekeeping

The following buttons are available from Administrator mode:

Re-generate indices

An index number can be stored with each unit. It is used to control the order in which it is displayed. When the index becomes heavily used in one numeric area, this button regenerates the index to follow the same sequence but with equal spacing between units to insert new ones into.

Auto-create necessary Units

This can be used to automatically create units which have been entered against a job but for which no Unit entry has yet been made. Note: This will automatically purge deleted units (see below) before it starts trying to add new ones.

Purge Deleted Units

A deleted unit is marked as such so that it no longer appears in View Units but remains on the system until such time as this purge is run.

3.4 General tips for viewing and editing

Hovering the mouse over a column header might reveal a 'tooltip' which gives a description of the column. It is hoped that the 'standard' columns will be well-described by these tooltips. Columns added by departmental computer officers might be better or worse described.

4 Using points calculators

Points can be calculated by the system in two ways. It would be very confusing for both systems to be implemented

· Points calculated 'on the spot' – used for things like 'points per answer marked', or something similar. This facility is intended to make life easier for the teaching administrator using the software, by eliminating the need to work out the number of points externally using a complicated formula. The formula is NOT saved with the job, only the answer – so the calculator will need to be rerun if the inputs to the calculation change. If this facility is enabled, a calculator icon will be displayed next to the 'Points' field in the 'Add Job' and Job editing screens.

· Points calculated based on the number of students registered for a module. Used in this way, the formula is saved with the job, so if the number of students registered for the module (unit) in question changes, or if the formula itself changes, all formula-based the points can be recalculated in one fell swoop (i.e. a single operation).

4.1 'On-the-spot' points calculations

Clicking on the calculator icon next to the points field in the Add Job/ Edit Job screen will load a new window containing the points calculator. The screen might look something like the following:

Figure 4‑1 Example of the 'on the spot' points calculator

4.1.1 Linear nature of points formulae

Points formulae are linear, in the form:

Points = [multiplier] * [independent variable] + [offset]

The topmost field is the independent variable. What this represents is configurable by the person who looks after your system (see Installation and Configuration guide for more details). In figure 4.1 above, the independent variable represents the number of students supervised. If the number of points allocated to a person for supervising a PhD project is 20, and the person is supervising three students, the formula will be: Points = [20] * [3] + [0]

So 60 points are earned for this job. The points offset can be used to give an extra weighting for doing the job itself regardless of the number of students.

4.1.2 Predefined points formulae

Predefined formulae (see sections 4.2.3 and 4.2.3) associate stored sets of multipliers and offsets with handy memorable and (hopefully) meaningful names. So an undergraduate supervision might only earn 5 points per student, while PhD is 20 points per student. Rather than the person editing having to remember these, all he/she needs to know is whether this job is an undergraduate or PhD supervision; the system remembers the numbers.

4.1.3 Using the points calculator

· If some predefined formulae have been set up, it will be possible to select one from the drop-down list.

· Alternatively, the user can enter a points offset and multiplier.

· Clicking on 'Calculate' will calculate and display the calculated number of points in the bottom field.

· Clicking on 'Done' inserts the calculated value into the points field of the jobs editing screen and closes the calculator window.

These calculations are 'one-off'; if any of the input values changes, it will be necessary to re-edit the job, open the calculator and calculate the new number of points.

4.2 Student registration-based points calculations

4.2.1 Overview

This alternative mechanism for calculating points establishes a link between a job and a number of students via a formula.

· The number of students is associated with a 'teaching unit'.

· The job is associated with the same teaching unit (paper).

· A reference to a formula is saved with the job.

Points are allocated to the job by 'looking up' the number of students registered for the job's paper and then applying the stored formula to this number of students. The points calculator is not used with this mechanism.

4.2.2 Automatic points recalculation

Rather than always maintaining a 'live' connection between student numbers per unit and points for associated jobs, the number of points is calculated in one operation and stored. The reference to the formula is stored, however, making recalculation possible and simple.

· If the number of students registered for a module (unit/paper) changes, the number of points in all jobs with this unit/paper code can be updated in a single, simple operation.

· The same applies if any of the values of the formula are changed.

To recalculate points (the user must be an 'admin' user):

· Click on the 'View Points Formulae' link on the homepage. (Depending on how your system has been configured, this link may not be visible on the home page but you might be able to access it from the ‘Operations by year’ link). Click on the 'Recalculate points' button

4.2.3 Viewing points formulae

Click on the 'View Points Formulae' link on the homepage. This will display a screen listing all points formulae. Note: This screen is not automatically displayed in the Generic Version of this system which assumes the ‘on the spot’ points calculations are being used.

Figure 4‑2 Viewing Points Formulae

4.2.4 Adding and Editing points formulae

Unfortunately, the editing of points formulae is somewhat inconsistent to that of other aspects of the system. It is much simpler, however. The meaning of the multiplier and offset columns is explained in detail in 4.1

· Click on the 'Edit' button (in the lower half of the screen). This will cause the formulae to become editable.

4.2.4.1 Editing points formulae

· Make changes to the textfields in existing formulae (each row represents one points formula)

· Click on the 'Save Changes' button to save your edits

4.2.4.2 Deleting a formula

· If you wish to delete a formula, click on the tick box in the 'Delete?' column

· Then click on the 'Save Changes' button

4.2.4.3 Adding new records

· Click 'Save changes' to ensure that any prior edits are not lost.

· Click the 'Add New' button. This allows up to three new formulae to be added each time. It is assumed here that you are entering formulae that have been derived outside this system to calculate points.

· Enter a name, mathematical description, points multiplier and offset into any row of these new blank records.

· Click on the 'Save Changes' button.

4.2.5 Adding and Editing Student numbers per course

Click on the 'View Student Counts link on the homepage. (Depending on how your system has been configured, this link may not be visible on the home page but you might be able to access it from the ‘Operations by year’ link). This will display a screen listing all points formulae.

This screen is not automatically available in the Generic Version of this system which assumes the ‘on the spot’ points calculations are being used.

Figure 4‑3 Viewing Student Numbers per Course

The editing of student numbers per course works in a similar manner to editing Points Formulae

Click on the 'Edit' button (in the lower half of the screen). This will cause the Counts to become editable.

4.2.5.1 Editing counts

· Make changes to the textfields in existing counts (each row represents one unit)

· Click on the 'Save Changes' button to save your edits

4.2.5.2 Deleting a formula

· If you wish to delete counts for a unit, click on the tick box in the 'Delete?' column

· Then click on the 'Save Changes' button

4.2.5.3 Adding new records

· Click 'Save changes' to ensure that any prior edits are not lost.

· Click the 'Add New' button. This allows up to three new counts per unit to be added each time.

· Enter a unit name and count into any row of these new blank records.

· Click on the 'Save Changes' button.

4.2.5.4 Adding Units and Counts data from an external file

Alternatively you can add or amend unit counts using data from an external file

Follow the instructions on the screen making sure all items are separated by two spaces or a tab. Use Notepad as an intermediate step for copying and pasting from Word/Excel to make sure not unwanted formatting is introduced.
Click on the ‘Save List’ button.

5 Using the Timetable View feature

The timetable view feature has two ingredients:

· Appropriately-formatted timeslot data in the jobs table (see Adding new jobs)

· Appropriate (corresponding) configuration of the timetable sub-system

5.1 Timetable configuration

The user is generally only concerned with the entry of data, and it is assumed that the control the user exerts over the configuration is via communication with a computer officer of some kind. It is necessary to be aware of how the timetable is configured in order to ensure that the timetable view works properly, and if the configuration limits the user it is up to him or her to request appropriate configuration changes.

The piece of configuration information this is of paramount information is the list of lecture start times. This is defined in the $start_times array, and the default selection is:

'9', '10', '11', '11.3', '12', '2', '3', '4'

Which correspond with lectures starting from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 11.3 denotes 11:30.

The Jobs screen must be configured to display the 'timeslot' column. If this is not visible when viewing jobs (section 3.2.1), please contact your computer officer and request this.

5.2 Timetable data entry

If a job is one that should appear on the timetable, it needs to have timeslot information entered for it. When editing the job, the timeslot column must be filled-in, and must contain timeslot information in a certain format for the timetable to be able to understand it. The format of the timeslot column is as follows:

[Week number]: [day of week][time of day]

For example, if the job is giving a set of 3 lectures on Quantum Mechanics, to be given on the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd weeks of the Michelmas term, and the lectures are given on Thursdays at 3 pm, the job would be defined as follows:

Job name: Quantum Mechanics lecture

Term: M

Timeslots: Wk1: Th.3, Wk2: Th.3, Wk3: Th.3

The timetable output system will be able to understand the 'Timeslots' column and will display 'Quantum Mechanics lecture' at the correct times on the correct days in the timetable. It will also display the name of the person giving the lecture. If a venue name is entered into the 'venue' column of the job, this will also be displayed.

Note: The above example could just as effectively be expressed as three separate jobs with a single timeslot for each.

The abbreviations for days of the week follow the Reporter style:

M – Monday, Tu – Tuesday, W – Wednesday, Th – Thursday, F – Friday

The user is encouraged to follow these format conventions. The system is, however, reasonably robust with regard to these and will attempt to 'understand' timeslot information expressed slightly differently (e.g. 'Week 1' is understood to mean 'Wk1', and 'Tues' 'Tu').

The system, as delivered, does not include Saturday lectures. It is quite is easily to add these should they be required – please see the Developer’s Guide.

5.3 Viewing a timetable

Where available (depending on how your system has been configured), clicking on the 'View Timetable (year)' link from the home page will display a timetable for that year. Only jobs with timeslot information added in the correct format will be displayed.

Figure 5‑1 Viewing a Timetable

Timetables displaying jobs for only a particular person (a 'personal timetable') may be accessible via the 'View People' link (see section 3.1.2.1).

6 Viewing Stint Point Summary

From the index page (section 3), click on the 'View Stint Point Summary (year)' link, where year is the academic year the data for which the user wishes to view. This will load a screen something like:

Figure 6‑1 Viewing a Faculty Summary

This report is purely an example of the data that can be shown in a Faculty Summary report. Here the total teaching hours and sessions are shown for each user together with counts of non-teaching contact time jobs such as administration. This report will normally need to be individually customised to suit each department’s needs particularly to match the job types in use.

7 Modifying years

Years of data – each set of records for people, jobs, units, points formulae and student registrations representing an academic year on the TODB – can be added and removed via the TODB interface. It is also possible to set flux years and set the system 'current' year. A year can be set ‘in flux’ by a teaching administrator to prevent general users from viewing this data until it has been finalised.

Figure 7‑1 The Year Management Facility

7.1 Adding a new year to the TODB

Adding a new year is feature that will typically be used to prepare the system for the next (upcoming) academic year. It can also be used to add historical years, which might assist in analysing the composition of teaching over time.

When a new year is created, the data structure is copied from an existing year. When the new year is created, certain columns of information will be copied from the 'source' year (i.e. the year you specify to copy from) to the new years.

This has the effect of copying the names of the jobs, the number of points earned, that sort of thing, but perhaps the names of the people doing the jobs will not be copied, to avoid prejudice.

The choice of columns to be copied is set in the configuration (see the Installation Guide and/or consult the computer officer responsible for the software).

Click on the 'Admin: modify years' link (only displayed if the user is an admin user), on the Home page:

Figure 7‑2 Home page with Modify Year Link

In the 'Select Year and Operation' section, use the drop-down list to select the year to copy from.

Figure 7‑3 Selecting Year to copy from

Then (1, in the image below) enter a description for the new year (the one you are creating/setting up). It is advised that the description be in the form 'Oct 20xx – 20xy', e.g. 'Oct 2010 – 2011'.

Beneath that (2), select the corresponding actual academic year (options will be displayed for 5 years before the lowest year currently used on the system, and 5 years after the highest year).

Figure 7‑4 Entering new year details

Then click on 'Create New Year':

Figure 7‑5 Creating new year

You should then be presented with a screen displaying success:

Figure 7‑6 Confirmation of new year

Click on 'Done' to return to the Year Admin screen. You should see the new year listed in the drop –down menu. Click on the 'Home' button.

Now send an email to your system administrator asking them to create new shortcut links for each year. In the meantime, use the generic operation box on the main page:

Figure 7‑7 Home page Operations by Year

Select the desired operation (e.g. View Jobs) and the year that you want to view (e.g. 2010-11) and click OK. This will open that page. Hopefully the system administrator will not take too long to update the shortcuts on the main page...

7.2 Deleting a year from TODB

This feature may be used (with caution) to delete old years that are no longer required in TODB or to ‘undo’ a new year that has been created accidentally.

Select the year that you wish to delete and click ‘Delete selected year’.

Figure 7‑8 Deleting a year

You need to check each of the files listed (this is done by default). You can of course untick an individual file, should you wish to keep this. If you are deleting a new year that was created accidently, make sure all files are checked otherwise you will get a problem next time you try to recreate this year. Then select ‘Definitely delete these years’.

Figure 7‑9 Check the tables to be deleted

You will then see something like this:

Figure 7‑10 Confirmation of Year deletion

Now select the ‘Done’ button.

8 Exiting TODB

If you have been authenticated by a system such as Raven, you will need to remember to close all web browsers when you have finished using TODB to make sure you have closed down the authenticated session.