Admins: Courses (or Topics) Setup

Introduction

“Courses” are joined by students within Penji, and usually correspond to a students' registered courses at your college. You, as admin, will certify certain users (providers) as able to teach certain courses. When a student seeks support, be it an appointment, drop-in, or section, they will first select one of their courses and are then shown available options for that course. 

Data Upload vs. IT Import

Admins are responsible for uploading the list of courses and/or topics that you'll support. That said, courses are a common area where we will work with your IT team to automatically import. This usually consists of (1) all courses offered at your college this term and (2) all students' registered courses. See here for more on IT imports.

Using Custom Courses with IT Imports

If you have Courses import on, Custom Courses are often useful, for example including "Thesis Writing" or "MCAT Prep" alongside true course codes from IT like "CHEM 1301". To upload Custom Courses, just follow the regular procedure below for uploading a Courses CSV and they are added to those we've imported (in contrast to other imports, which are either IT import OR your import). 

Relabeling "Courses"

The concept of Courses is really just a filter step to show students support options that are relevant for them (eg. appointments available for CHEM 1031). You can, however, retitle this entire category "Courses" to whatever you want, for example, "Topics". You'd then certify Providers to teach these topics instead of students' courses, and students would select a topic, filtering the results down to only providers who are certified for that topic. Email Penji for changes to this setting.

Step by Step

To retitle Courses to Topics, to setup IT imports, or to use Custom Courses, please contact Penji. General instructions:

1. Navigate to “Courses” on the side menu
2. Click the “Manage” header
3. Click “Download Template CSV”
4. Edit this CSV and add courses in exactly the same format as the sample row
   • Courses will be shown to students as a combination of “Subject Abbreviation” + Space + “Course Number". For example, looking at row 2 below, "CHEM" + Space + "101" = "CHEM 101". When certifying providers, you’ll need to list the courses they are certified in as “Subject Abbreviation” + “Course Number", note that there is no space. Continuing the example in row 2, we would certify a provider in "CHEM101".
     
     Example of the Course CSV Upload
     
     Example of how these courses are shown to Students
     
     Example of the Provider Eligibility, more information on certifying providers can be found in the article, Admins: Providers Setup (Tutors, Advisors, Coaches, etc.)
   • To add general topics, eg. Scholarship Opportunities, as a course option, input the name of the topic in the first two columns - eg. Calculus, Calculus - leave column 3 blank, and put the name you’d like displayed in-app (could be the topic name again) in column 4.
     
     Example of the CSV Upload for General Courses without a Course #
     
     Example of how these courses are shown to Students
5. Upload by clicking “Choose File”, selecting the edited CSV, and clicking “Import CSV”
6. To make changes, you can download your most recent version under “Recent Imports” on the Manage tab and edit the document before re-uploading.

Pinning a Course

Some courses might be more generic, or not as intuitive for students to search for. If you have any of these courses, it would be helpful to pin them within your courses.csv file. To "pin" a course, you will type in "Yes" within column E of the csv file. 

Course (Topic) Requests

When there are no providers available to help with the course/topic a student is looking to schedule an appointment in, students are shown the below screen:

This information is organized and saved within Penji and available as a downloadable report. While in the admin page, select courses, select manage and all the way at the bottom is an export labeled "Export Course Availability Requests". The report provides: student name, student email, course requested, requested at date, and requested at time. Check out the below video for a visual about how to get that report! 

Keep in mind, whichever email is listed under "contact information" within settings, will receive email reminders each time a user clicks, "Let your center know" in real-time.