LRC-website | Thomas' Work Space

Calendaring: How teachers can reserve the LRC for classes and schedule tutors in the LRC

2011/05/05 plagwitz Leave a comment

This is obsolete from Fall 2011, please view instead https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/the-new-way-of-booking-lrc-rooms-and-equipment-from-fall-2011/.
You may already collect calendars in one place to stay on top of your course calendars in Moodle and of your non-teaching-related university or departmental activities.
Now you can do the same with the schedules of LRC rooms and “human resources” (tutors, LRC assistants, the director free/busy schedule is also available – equipment checkout remains to be solved!): We have added new calendars to the LRC public information and moved them into our newly upgraded MS-Exchange infrastructure.
Short answer: In Outlook (desktop, OWA may vary), go to Folder view / Public Folders / Languages / Coed 037 and Coed 434, with sub-calendars. Make any calendar you need a favorite (or in the dialogue (show below) “Add favorites” for Coed434, check “Add all subfolders”) . In Calendar view, show the calendar by adding a check to the checkbox in front of it. Add and edit your (recurring) appointments as on your personal calendar.
For class reservation, put class number and activity in the Subject field. Put in the notes field sensitive information which you do not want to put on the WWW, as well as, if you need our support, details of technology activities planned and student numbers that need computers and headsets.
For tutor scheduling, we have one schedule per language being tutored. Protect the tutor privacy by using the notes field for personal information. Use the Outlook recurrence options as a time-saver (just delete individual exceptions instead of the entire series).
More detail: You can access the calendar from 1. Folder view, 1a (not shown) Public Folders, 2. Languages and 3: Coed434, like you see here:
I recommend adding them to your calendar favorites for easier management, like so:
Per default, you can see and edit (problems? request access) the LRC calendars in the Outlook "Public Folders" under "LRC", as the permissions dialogue below shows:

Categories: e-infrastructure Tags: calendaring, LRC-website, tutoring

Calendaring: How students can view the LRC schedules

2011/02/24 plagwitz 1 comment

As of Fall 2011, this is obsolete. View instead the new and improved procedure.
Calendars you can subscribe to:

Ind.Instr.Spanish	webcal://calendars.office.microsoft.com/pubcalstorage/6d826ffz2216669/COED_434-Tutoring-Spanish_Calendar.ics
Tutors French	webcal://calendars.office.microsoft.com/pubcalstorage/6d826ffz2216669/COED_434-Tutoring-French_Calendar(1).ics
Tutors Russian	webcal://calendars.office.microsoft.com/pubcalstorage/6d826ffz2216669/COED-434-Tutoring-Russian-2_Calendar.ics
Tutors Portuguese	webcal://calendars.office.microsoft.com/pubcalstorage/m8qcbqfz1289583/COED-434-Tutoring-Portuguese_Calendar.ics
Tutors Japanese	webcal://calendars.office.microsoft.com/pubcalstorage/m8qcbqfz1289583/COED-434-Tutoring-Japanese_Calendar.ics
Lab Assistants	webcal://calendars.office.microsoft.com/pubcalstorage/6d826ffz2216669/COED_434-Lab_Assistants_Calendar.ics
Director Free/Busy	webcal://calendars.office.microsoft.com/pubcalstorage/m8qcbqfz1289583/Plagwitz_Thomas_Calendar.ics

How?
“You can subscribe to published calendars if you use a program that supports the WebCal protocol, such as Outlook, Windows Live Calendar, Google Calendar, or Apple iCal” (MS-Office online Help), as well as Yahoo Calendar.

Is Windows Live Calendar available to everyone with a Windows Live ID?

Yes, the Windows Live Calendar is available to all Windows Live ID accounts. To learn more about setting up and maintaining your calendar, open Windows Live Calendar Help. (Microsoft Live Services for Moodle User FAQ)

Windows Live ID = UNCC Live@edu ID

Using the “webcal://”-links (to be posted also on the LRC website), students will be able to view live LRC schedules from live@edu (and many other applications that support the iCalendar format, like listed on

http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-outlook/archive/2007/08/08/publishing-a-calendar-using-office-online.aspx or here):

Application	Publisher
Chandler (PIM)	Open Source Applications Foundation
Evolution	Novell & GNOME
Facebook.com	Facebook.com
Google Calendar	Google
iCal and iCal Server	Apple Computer
Kontact	The Kontact Team
Lotus Notes	IBM
Microsoft Entourage	Microsoft
Microsoft Exchange	Microsoft
Microsoft Outlook	Microsoft
Windows Calendar	Microsoft
Sun Java Calendar Server	Sun
Zimbra Collaboration Suite	Zimbra

How to set this up, taken from the Windows Live help:
Sign into Windows live (or later live@edu) with your Windows live (or later live@edu) ID.
On the toolbar, go to Calendar.
Click Subscribe.
Select Subscribe to a public calendar, and then, in the Calendar URL box, paste the “webcal://” link from the LRC website for the tutoring hours or other LRC schedule that you want to keep an eye on. You begin the link either with “webcal:” or “http:”. Note, however, that trying to subscribe to “webcalS” will result in this error:
In the Calendar name box, type a name for the calendar.
Next to Color, select a color for the calendar.
Click Subscribe to calendar, and then click Done. Result:
This calendar will be live, i.e. every subscriber will see any updates the LRC makes (like for late-breaking changes and cancellations of tutoring hours). Note however, that synchronization is not instantaneous. Give it up to 30 minutes, under normal circumstances.