ShiftOverflow is an extant scheduling software solution that aims to make scheduling office hour shifts easy. Through the development of this software, we aim to meet the needs of the professors and Learning Assistants (LAs) essential for the effective instruction of the hundreds of students enrolled in COMP110. This project is essential because it directly impacts the educational experience for both students and instructors.
The primary goal of ShiftOverflow is to support the instructors that are the backbone of student learning. By utilizing this project, professors and TAs are better able to organize their schedules, allocate their time, and manage their responsibilities with an efficient shift management system. This leads to higher productivity and allows educators to focus on teaching and supporting students. By enabling professors to create shifts, manage schedules, and assign tasks to TAs and LAs, Shift Overflow aids in the efficient allocation of resources, ensuring that the right personnel are available when needed. The system promotes accountability among both students and educators by keeping records of shift assignments, sign-ups, and cancellations. This transparency fosters a sense of responsibility and fairness among all parties involved.
Furthermore, effective shift management ensures that students have access to the necessary support from teaching assistants and learning assistants. It helps to create a smoother learning experience by providing timely assistance, facilitating study sections, and addressing student questions. As UNC’s introductory computer science course, COMP110 is foundational for hundreds of students of varying skill levels each semester. ShiftOverflow can help ensure that there will always be a number of LAs ready to support any given student, regardless of the student’s and the LAs’ schedules. The availability of teaching staff can help a student pass the class or even discover a love for programming that they would not have without the effective instruction enabled by ShiftOverflow.
While initially designed for the COMP110 class, the project’s adaptability allows it to be extended to various classes and educational settings, meeting the needs of a broader range of educational institutions. The work we are doing with Shift Overflow significantly impacts the educational experience for both educators and students. By streamlining shift management, our project helps improve the quality of education, enhances productivity among faculty and staff, optimizes resource allocation, and promotes transparency and accountability. This, in turn, aligns with the broader goal of making a difference in the field of education by providing a practical and valuable solution to a common need in academic settings.