I enjoy finding technological solutions to problems. I have notices that when managing teams of tutors and students I tend to send out the same email at the same time each term. I tend to look through previous sent emails rather than writing these out each term but this takes a little time and it can make it hard for someone else stepping into my role to know what to do when.

In collaboration with the IT staff in physics, David Jonas and Kristien Clayton this term I am piloting a system we have named "Course Scheduled Emails" which will send personalized emails to staff (lecturers, tutors and demonstrators) and students on a certain day in the term. A couple of days before this a preview version of the email is sent to the relevant staff member so that it can be checked and updated if needed. The new system is being piloted in term 1, with the hope of it being fully operational by term 3 so that I can take some leave.

Not only will this save time it will also give new course conveners a record of what needs to be done when to keep the courses running in the best way possible. This allows acquired knowledge to be easily passed from one convener to the next, for example if there are a number of questions about the wording of a certain email this can be updated immediately and the update will then be sent the following term. This reduces the risk of concentrating so many courses on one person as the system has a record of what needs to be done when.

In the past I have worked with David and Kristien to develop a system called "First Year Teaching" which records demonstrator attendance which is then used for payments, and also records student marks which are then imported to Moodle. Prior to the introduction of this system this was done on paper which was inefficient, prone to errors and not transparent, the students could not see their marks. This system has been a great success and allowed us to adjust staffing as no one is now required to enter marks and attendance from paper into a computer.