UWA Academic Skills Drop-in: Client queue flow and usage reporting software

Background

UWAs STUDYSmarter and Library teams run a daily drop-in service in the Reid Library, 10am-12 noon, where students can drop in to receive one-on-one advice on writing, research, referencing, and study skills. The service is staffed each day by two STUDYSmarter learning advisers (writing and study skills enquiries), one librarian (research and referencing) and one student leader (reception and queue management). The student leader acts as the first point of contact for the service, triaging enquiries, inputting student data, and managing the queue flow. During peak periods, demand for the service is high, and long queues can form, creating a bottleneck for the service as the student leader must manage both new and waiting clients. We would like a software program to streamline the data input/queue flow process to allow the service to operate more efficiently. Additionally, we would like the program to generate usage reports and infographics to allow us to anticipate trends in usage and ensure that the service is staffed appropriately to meet demand.

Software requirements

Data input and Queue flow

• Data input form to capture all relevant details to triage enquiry (Student name/ID/query/unit, etc) Could there be a way to connect to existing technology to automate this, ie from a student card
• At-a-glance queue display, updating in real time each clients wait-time and estimating wait for new arrivals.
• Optional. A way to alert clients when its their turn.

Usage dashboard/report generating

• Generates and sends daily usage report to service provider/stakeholders.
• Creates an at-a-glance usage infographic at the end of each week summarising usage/waiting times/peak usage times/comparisons to previous weeks and/or semesters.

Client

IP Exploitation Model

Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering The University of Western Australia Last modified: 21 July 2021 Modified By: Michael Wise