E10 - Choice: Introduction

Modified on Thu, 14 Aug at 12:59 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble
Advantages of Choice:
Choice Possibilities

Preamble

Choice is an online module designed to capture student subject selections. It is administratively efficient, timely, ensures selections are validated according to curriculum rules, and captures both primary and reserve preferences in priority order.

The first stage of timetabling is often elective line construction, which is to determine which classes will run together in elective lines. In order to determine classes, we must first canvass the students to discover what subject preferences they have, which will influence the decisions on which classes to run and which should be grouped together in each line.

Advantages of Choice:

Flexible. Students can nominate preferences at any time (e.g. from home with parental guidance), rather than occupying school time, school resources, or staff time.
Efficient. No effort to design, distribute, collect or collate paper based subject preference forms.
Efficient. No effort to type handwritten forms into spreadsheets, or (later) print and distribute granted subjects to students to let them know what elective choices they were actually given.
Cost effective. No printing costs. No cost in staff time to distribute or collate forms.
Responsibility. Students are given direct responsibility for their own submissions, as opposed to systems that require handling and transcription of this information.
Accurate. Choice has zero transcription errors, no difficulty interpreting messy handwriting, and no difficulty identifying paper forms submitted without names attached.
Correct. Choice prevents students submitting requests which do not meet curriculum rules set by the school. Data harvested by the system is clean and correct.
Priority based. Unlike other systems, Choice captures the student priority for each subject request, allowing far better allocation of limited resources, and less parent complaints.
Reserve capture. The system is designed to capture student reserves, ensuring little or no re-selection capture, and better lines, as student reserves are both known and utilised if possible.
Accessible. Any authorised user in the school can check student subject requests at any time, even during the submission period.
Secure. Submissions are secured by password protection, and logging of user credentials like IP.
Timestamps. Accurate time logging of preference submissions. Unlike paper forms, Choice records the exact time and date of each student’s submission.
End-to-end management. Choice not only captures and analyses preferences, but it can re-publish subject lists to advise students what they got, OR operate for students to nominate which of their existing subjects they want to drop in the next year (for schools who run a two year senior program like the NSW HSC).
Zero Installation. Choice is hosted directly by tes, unlike other systems that merely add on to existing school software or networks. No files to transfer, and no web latency to slow you down. Best of both worlds!

Choice is easy to setup, is conveniently stand-alone, is accessible globally, and works. Simple!

Choice Possibilities

Choice is primarily designed to capture subject preferences, but is also used extensively for other purposes including:

Publish online the “Granted subjects” to students, as previously requested
Publish current class lists online, allowing students to check their courses or nominate subjects they want to ‘drop’ in Year 12.
Collect activity selections (E.g. Year 11 camp activities – Alpine, Marine Studies, Excursions etc)
Collect sport selections (Rugby, Rowing, Tennis etc)
Collect Votes candidates and collate results in priority order.