Tracking Student Interactions/Resources with a Kiosk

Introduction

Some centers wish to use Penji to track interactions (e.g., phone calls and/or emails) that take place outside of Penji between students and providers. Typically, the providers in this case are faculty or staff rather than peer tutors. A method that some schools have set up in Penji to track these student-provider interactions is through our Drop-in Kiosks.

How are drop-in kiosks traditionally used?

Traditionally, drop-in kiosks are used to check students in and out of drop-in locations. This is commonly used in tutoring-based Communities and can be used in non-tutoring Communities, too. See the article, Admins: Drop-In Flow, under the header, "Using a Penji Kiosk (Incl. card readers)" for a quick video demonstration. 

How do we use drop-in kiosks to track interactions?

In this particular use case, we will be repurposing the drop-in kiosk to collect types of interactions that a provider had with a student. 

An example of how an interaction-tracking drop-in kiosk might be used is:

1. A provider interacts with a student over text, or meets them unprompted in the hall
2. The provider opens up the kiosk URL provided by their admin and logs what type of interaction took place (text) as well as the student's email (or Student ID)
3. After the provider checks in, the recorded interaction is now viewable in the Check-Ins tab in the Admin Panel

Centers can also use drop-in kiosks to track just the usage of resources that students can use at a drop-in location, such as "Printer" or "Conference Room." This is separate from tracking course- or topic-specific services such as tutoring, advising, peer mentoring, and so on. 

Please note that tracking interactions or resource usage via a drop-in kiosk is ONLY available for drop-in locations set to the Physical Log mode. Queues will not work for interaction tracking! (Not sure about the difference between our drop-in modes? Check out Admins: Drop-In Location Quick Guide for a rundown of each mode.). 

Video Walkthrough: Using Drop-in Kiosks to Track Provider-Student Interactions and Resources

The below video walks through how a provider would use either a General or Provider-specific Kiosk. The Students: Drop-in Introduction article explains more about how the Resource-only Kiosk would look to students/providers checking in.

Types of Kiosk Set-Ups

There are several ways to set up interaction kiosks: 

1.  General Kiosk: One kiosk will be set up for all providers to use to track interactions. It would be named something that encompasses all types of interactions that take place (e.g., "Student Interactions," etc.). To track who had an interaction with which student, providers would be set as "resources" in the Drop-in Locations CSV.
   • In the drop-in flow, a provider would select their own name from the "resources" list, enter in the student's email or ID, and then submit to record the interaction. 
   • Providers can "check out" either immediately and have the admin record the duration retroactively, or "check out" after they've completed the interaction with the student (e.g., finished a phone call, finished sending an email, etc.). Alternatively, the provider does not need to "check out" if the duration data is not needed for interaction tracking. 
   • Keep in mind that if you use a General Kiosk to record multiple types of interactions, you will not be able to record what type of interaction each provider had in the same Kiosk.
2. Provider-specific Kiosks: Each provider receives their own kiosk. A provider's kiosk would be named after them (e.g., "Student Interactions - John"), and the types of interactions (phone calls and/or emails) would be listed as "resources" in the Drop-in Locations CSV. 
   • In the drop-in flow, a provider would select the type of interaction from the "resources" list, enter in the student's email or ID, and then submit to record the interaction.
   • Providers can "check out" either immediately and have the admin record the duration retroactively, or "check out" after they've completed the interaction with the student (e.g., finished a phone call, finished sending an email, etc.). Alternatively, the provider does not need to "check out" if the duration data is not needed for interaction tracking.
3. Resource-only Kiosks: This is used when a drop-in location does not offer drop-in services and only interactions with resources such as "Independent Study Room" or "Printer" need to be tracked. This kiosk operates the same as the traditional Physical Log kiosk in that students can check in/out on their own.
   
   • See this Help Center article for how the Resource-only Kiosk would look like to students: Students: Drop-in Introduction.

Important Notes:

Make sure your providers do not add any available hours to any of the kiosk options listed above. If hours were added, it will seem as if providers are available to help a student at that location in your community topics/courses. The goal is to have the kiosk URLs kept between providers only. 

Note, you might display the Resources-only Kiosk to students if you would like students to log their own interactions.  

Setting Up

1. First, download the Drop-in Locations CSV. You can find the steps to do so in this Help Center article: Admins: Drop-In Flow.
2. Next, name your desired kiosk. 
   • For General Kiosk: Name your kiosk something that all providers will know to use for interaction tracking, such as "Student Interactions" or "Interaction Tracking."
   • For Provider-specific Kiosks: Name a kiosk location for each provider in your center that'll be tracking their interactions (e.g., "John's Student Interactions" or "Student Interactions - John).
   • For Resource-only Kiosks: Name your kiosk something descriptive for internal use (e.g., "Student Center - Resources").
3. Set "Kind" to "Physical" and "Mode" to "Log." This is the only mode in which the interaction kiosks will work. 
4. Set "Check-in Mode" to Kiosk.
5. Input your desired resources. 
   • For General Kiosk: Your resources will be your provider's names (e.g., John, Amy Smith, etc.).
   • For Provider-specific Kiosks: Your resources will be the type of interactions providers have -- in this case, "Phone" and "Email" will be the two interactions you can record in Penji. 
   • For Resource-only Kiosks: Your resources will be whatever you offer at your location for students to use (e.g., Computer Lab, Independent Study Room, etc.).
6. Set "Card Reader" to "Disabled."
   • If you are creating Resource-only Kiosks, and want your students to record their own interactions and check in via Card Reader, set to "Enabled" 
7. See Figure 1 below for an example of what your kiosk location should look like before you upload (Provider-specific Kiosk highlighted in yellow, General Kiosk highlighted in green, Resources-only Kiosk highlighted in blue). 
   
   Figure 1: Examples of all three types of interaction kiosks. 
8. Save and upload your Drop-in Locations CSV. See Figure 2 below for an example of what this might look like in the Admin Panel once uploaded. 
   
   Figure 2: Example of interaction kiosk locations uploaded to Admin Panel. The Resources-only Kiosk is highlighted in blue, Provider-specific Kiosk is highlighted in yellow, and the General Kiosk is highlighted in green.
9. Distribute the Kiosk URLs to those who should use them to record the different interactions. Note that you might display the Resources-only Kiosk to students (via iPad, QR Code, desktop, etc.) if you would like students to log their own interactions.