Meeting with ISG ISCs in their weekly Monday meeting

Daniel, Dimitri, and Frank met with Karen Anderson, Barbara Daly, Caroline Kierstead, Olga Zorin, and Travis Bartlett. Fenglian Qiu, Gang Lu, and Ahmed Haj-Yasien were unavailable. (contact link for ISCs: isg-coordinators@cs.uwaterloo.ca)

• Barb walked us through parts of the app and everyone made comments.
• Why choose the default seating before creating an exam (it's already an option in the form)
  • Already being fixed
• A better name is needed for "rush" seating.
  • Already being fixed - replaced with "assigned / not assigned"
  • Make all drop downs a tick-box New ST#
• Most 1st and 2nd year Courses, and some others, have TST slots in the schedule with dates and times- could we automatically generate those within the app, like we do final exams?
  • Dates are available here.
  • Added complexity: sometimes they might want to change the date/time of the generated test; and there are different categories of test they'd have to set it to: midterm/quiz/none
• Two or three of the ISCs asked if the time-entry fields and displays could allow 12-hour option, not just 24-hour. New ST#
  • Can put PM's in bracket
  • Possible use a plugin ; see what the users think
• The question of "Tablet" and "use every seat" could use explanation, at the stage that they are required.
  • Or, making it possible to change the settings later?
  • Viewing the list of rooms, you might want to change between those settings. It's not completely clear which are tablet rooms.
  • This is how "0 capacity" gets used- to signal there are tablets (or not-tablets) that aren't available.
• "Integration: [ ] Use Crowdmark" option should be much more prominent on the page; it is a crucial option to make correct.
  • Going to be a separate page - but we need to make sure they go to the extra page
  • Can't have default crowdmark; there are now a number of entry-fields they need to fill in; also some users don't want because it takes up space (QR code)
• "Add Room" is a big improvement to the interface- but "0 capacity" shows up- why?
  • Can there be a way to distinguish labs from classrooms? Registrar's info does have that info.
  • Shows up 0 because option set to no tablet seats, and only tablet seats
  • Can have "must be computer" option
  • Will come back to this...
• Filling rooms: Barb notes a case where it used a big room for 15 students instead of a smaller one.
  • Could users designate "this section -> this room"? Or at least "this section -> this building"?
  • _Isaac notes "section" is better named as "subdivision"- his proposal for changing this involves a level of abstraction to cross-section people by (enrolment, secondary section, instructor, manual list, others). Or by version of exam. And to print the sectioning on the label.
• Master Versions: would be handy if the chart at the top was hyperlinked so you could edit them directly, rather than finding them below.
  • Karen suggests: As much as possible have categories in a table with the left column the category and the right column the chosen or appropriate information and, if applicable, the ability (link or button) to change
• Edit Permitted Aids: Barb has confusion about how this works.
  • On the Edit Permitted Aids page, why is there the long list of previous exams, if they all have the same Permitted Aids value ("Closed Book")? It would be sufficient to just show the most recent one.
  • Can list most recent N, and set N to 1 (or 5) New ST#
• Confusion about the meaning of "sittings."
• Plexing: If Crowdmark was chosen, should this default to double-sided?
  • Some people want it single-sided, we can show warning for exams using crowdmark New ST#
• Barb had questions about the reference sheet. In the past, once she thought it was finalized, and discovered on the hour of the exam that it hadn't been...
  • could we require like the "Plexing" option: either reference sheet or not?
  • Approve page can show no reference sheet, have a thumbnail - Part of ST#106422
• The "Approve PDF for production" definitely needs to be more prominent; many infrequent-users don't think to choose that last link on the page.
  • Make thumbnails they will have to review
• Karen asks if we have contacted Cyntha Struthers (Statistics), who has lots of Math users.
  • Cyntha has used Odyssey exam management in many different situations: different sections different exams, assigning different sections to different time slots - for example, to match tutorial or lecture sections for in-class tests with assigned seating.
• Olga reported she is able to produce a "Purple screen of death" if choose "Quick Print" but it is under Crowdmark.
  • Quick printing/processing is mainly for last minute exams. However, Crowdmark exams require (or did require) Isaac-intervention and so could not go to quick print -- but this was not obvious (other than the death screen -- which still didn't explain what the issue was)
• Uploader: Responding to our suggestion to have a "commit-bit":
  • In some situations, the prof should be able to upload, but not approve. This would get around the current clunky multi-person process of emailing it back and forth with the approver.
  • In other situations, the prof should be able to upload and approve.
  • the new uploader process would be very helpful in last-minute situations where someone is on holidays- and currently they have to go to Isaac for emergency changes.
  • Currently the course coordinator (Nancy from MUO would enter these in Odyssey for Math) or, for ISG courses, the ISC, has the Uploader privileges and they have to change it if another instructor is going to be the one Uploading. Most new users for a multi-section, multi-instructor course expect that any of the instructors can upload (and have discovered last minute that this is not the case).
• "Seats in a room" page, tough to remember "which is reserved and which is not reserved"
  • sample: http://scspc645.cs.uwaterloo.ca:8080/ijmorlan/term/1169/20350/exam/32938/sitting/28155/room/22759/
• "Proctor Package" could have a better name ...
• Users in Math don't need some of the Administrative Documents - should "Sequence Lookup" be removed on crowdmark exams? Barb thinks probably not; sometimes it's useful.
• CS100: Barb consistently wants the proctor package, and has to ask Isaac for it specifically each term
  • Related to ST#107173)? - CS100 is Distance Ed.
  • Isaac recommends overriding exam_exam_sitting table with an extra flag for this data
• Karen noted that ST#106124 is critical - to help the new crowdmark users starting to use the app this term. (which, because of a Registrar's Office edict is any final exam using Crowdmark that is to be paid for by the RO)

-- DanielAllen - 2016-09-26