Career Hub event administration - staff support
Career Hub is the new web based software used Employability and Graduate Development (EGD) to manage a range of Careers services across the University. Students will know the system as My Career Zone.
My Career Zone is a one-stop shop for accessing Careers advice, information and training – an online system that enables students to set their career/ information preferences and:
- Search for jobs and work experience
- Book onto employability events
- Make enquiries and view FAQs
- Book appointments for careers advice
- Register for, and chart their progress towards, the Exeter Award
The EGD Governance policy for my Career Zone provides a list of key staff with responsibilities for different areas of My Career Zone along with the mechanisms for support.
There is a working group, chaired by Leanne Fennell-Green, that meets termly to discuss development, make decisions on changes and plan implementation of any changes.
Opticon bar code scanners
Employability and Graduate development have invested in portable bar code scanners to aid in the recording of attendance at extracurricular activities that count to the Exeter Award and Exeter Leaders Award. If you are running employability events on a regular basis and do not have a bar code scanner, please contact Natalie Archer.
The following resources will help you install and set up your scanner. Download the instructions and application, plus the appropriate driver for your operating system.
If you have any queries please contact Jon Boyes, Exeter Award/Leaders Award Programme Manager. Note that the UOE Helpdesk team do not provide support for these scanners.
Career Hub event management training and information resources
The following resources are PowerPoint files used in staff training.
- Career Hub training - how to add an event
- Career Hub training - Finding events, viewing bookings and recording attendance
- Career Hub training - Event protocols guide
- Career Hub training - Accessing a student’s Exeter Award/Leaders Award profile
- Career Hub training - Exeter Award/ Leaders Award application form marking & Approving alternative learning submissions
Event management FAQs
How do I stop students cancelling their booking at the last minute?
To prevent students from cancelling just before an event, close the bookings at an earlier date (tick ‘Bookings close on a date other than the start date’) in the Add an event form. This affects both bookings AND cancellations.
It is important to use this function sparingly and with care. The majority of events should not need to have a booking date that closes in advance of the event as this limits opportunity to participate. Also, it will inevitably drive up email traffic, from those students who try and cancel near the event (who may have good reason to do so) but find they cannot.
If you do close bookings early, please draw attention to the timeframe in the event description, so that students know they will not be able to book or cancel a booking beyond your stated date.
I ran an event before putting it on the system – how do I add an event that took place in the past?
Strictly speaking you cannot add an event with a date in the past, however there is a simple workaround. Enter your event with a date in the future, make it inactive so it does not go live, and save it. Now open the event for editing and you can change the date to a past date (plus tick the box to make the event active) before saving your changes. Student attendance can then be managed in the usual way.
How does the event waiting list function work?
Those of you who advise students may have noticed that when an event is fully booked, students have the opportunity to add themselves to a waiting list for that event (staff can also do this on the student’s behalf by opening the event bookings screen, clicking on ‘View waiting list’ in the right hand menu then adding the student).
The previous system did not offer this function so it is worth noting how it works and the implications for us. If any student cancels their place on an event, all those on the waiting list are immediately notified that a place is available (note that this only works for a specific event/date, so if you add a new event to the system with the same title, no notifications would be sent out).
You can also email all the students on the waiting list for any event via the right hand menu.
How do I prevent students from (other campus) seeing and booking my event?
Staff event admins – especially at Exeter campuses – should lock events to the appropriate campus workgroup wherever possible (eg. ‘EXETER ALL students’ and ’CORNWALL ALL students’ for events open to all students, colleges will also have their own workgroups).
This is the only way we presently have of ensuring that students from one campus do not see, and inadvertently book, events taking place at another campus. Also, for students at Tremough it makes it harder for them to locate local events if there are a large number of Exeter events appearing in their searches.
Note that you can only lock an event to one workgroup.
How do I cancel an event? Are students informed automatically?
There is no auto email sent to students if you cancel an event (or indeed change any event details).
If you need to cancel an event, go to the event bookings screen and email all those students that have booked with an appropriate email, then set the event to Inactive. This will mean the event is no longer visible to anyone except admins, and if at a later date you need to reinstate the event it will be easy to locate the original, alter the details and make it active again. You will also have a list of the students originally booked so you can inform them of the new event.
The alternative to this is simply deleting the event off the system entirely (big red delete button at the bottom of the event review screen), but that does not give you the options described above. It also means there is no record on the system of an event you had organised, which may be important for MI purposes.
How do I get a breakdown of the students booked on my event (college, discipline and year of study)?
Open the event, click on ‘List event reports’ in the right hand menu at the bottom, click on ‘bookings’ then the ‘generate report’ button.
How do I ensure attendance is recorded properly and absentees are penalised?
When uploading a bar code attendance file (see training notes; Career Hub training - Finding events, viewing bookings and recording attendance ) to an event that students have booked onto, first mark all students as absent, then upload the attendance file. As the data is uploaded, any students who booked that did attend will then be amended and marked as attending.
The reason for this is that uploading attendance data by itself does not automatically change the record of those students who booked and did not attend (as it did in our previous events system).
How do I repeat an event to avoid typing it all in again?
To re-list an event that is very similar to an event you have run in the past, locate the old event, open it and select ‘Duplicate event’ from your right hand menu in Career Hub. This opens a copy of the original event for you to add the new date/time etc. and save.
Note that ‘copy’ is added to the title by default so you’ll need to remove this before saving the event to the system.
Also, opening a duplicate event will include any workgroups you locked to the original event, but not any labels you had attached.
How do I set up an event to contribute to the Exeter Award/Exeter Leaders Award?
It is the Event Type you select that will determine whether an event contributes to one of the Awards, and to which section. You do not need to add any kind of additional label or workgroup.
If you are unsure which event type to use, consult the Career Hub Event protocols guide which provides guidance and examples. If you are still unsure, contact Jon Boyes.
