Student Admin - Student Site Selector (SSS)

Placing Agency Related Guide (PARG)

Summary:
Educational programs may use the site selector tool to enable students to search HSPnet for:

available placements or offers.
a list of available sites (even before requests are sent).
save 1 to 20 choices in ranked order.

Student's choices can be used to guide the assignment process:

The Placing Coordinator (PC) can refer to the students' choices during manual assignment of students,
or the PC can setup HSPnet to perform automated student matching based on students' choices and other variables.
Once the site selector is closed, a PC may review the student selections and unlock them to make changes if needed (perhaps the student does not meet the requirements for their selection).

Any changes made by the PC are tracked in the site selector history for that student.

Contents:

Site Selector Activation.
Course Default set up in Course Maintenance.
Set specific final settings in Cohort Maintenance, including opening dates/times and closing dates/times.
Review available placements available for selection before opening site selector (including how to withhold placements).
Monitor Student selections/assign.
Creating a Student PR Selection Report.
Advanced/Complex usage of the Site Selector.

Student Site Selector Activation:

Contact HSPnet Help Desk via e-mail help.
Ask to have the Site Selector feature enabled for an educational Program(s), such as BSN, Physiotherapy, etc. Once on the site selector feature is available to any course in that program.
The Placing Coordinator still needs to set up Course Defaults in Course Maintenance, and set up the site selector specific information to the course on the cohorts screen.

Setup Course Defaults in Course Maintenance:

Each course that allows students to make selections needs "default" settings for the Site Selector, including maximum number of choices (from 1 to 20) and options such as allowing students to view classmate statistics. The default settings in course maintenance must be modified on the Cohorts before each scheduled course to indicate opening and closing dates and times, as well as any other changes specific to that course in that cohort.

Click: Maintenance / Setup/Lookup /
Courses.

Setup Course Defaults in Course Maintenance, continued:

3. Click to open the Course Profile .

Setup Course Defaults in Course Maintenance, continued:

4. Select the course profile tab: Student PR Selector and click Edit edit grey.PNG to change the default settings.

Setup Course Defaults in Course Maintenance. Example::

Click to add or remove a check from a box to allow students to make selections.

Max. selections per Student: Up to 20 choices can be selected from the drop down list, or N/A. If N/A is selected, the site selector will be disabled.
Statuses: options are: any active placement (not declined or cancelled); or: Accepted or Confirmed only.
Duplicate PRs: When the box is not checked and therefore the students are Not allowed to select duplicate Placement Requests - that means they cannot select the same placement reference number more than once.
Duplicate Destinations: When the box is checked students may select a duplicate destination if there are 2 different spaces/placement requests with different reference numbers for that same destination.
Withheld PRs: When checked: students are allowed to select withheld requests (they can select placements that were "held back" by the Placing Coordinator in Step 4 below);
Any Destination at this site/service: When the box is checked, students can mark a selection as suitable for any destination at this site/service. This enables students to only rank a site/service once in their selections and make that selection applicable to all potential placements when there are multiple available placements at the same site and service.
Any site/destination with this service: This option appears when you check the option above for any destination. The list of services opens. To identify the specific services allowed, click to highlight the service(s) in the not allowed box, then click the arrow that points to the allowed box. Selected services will allow the student to enter the any site/destination with this service option, allowing them to rank a single preference for a particular service and reserving the rest of their choices to other sites/services. This is best used to allow students to enter a preference for a specialty service available at multiple sites without using multiple selections for it.
PRs allocated to their section only: When this box is checked you can allocate placement request selection by student section. For example only the students in section 2 can select certain placement requests.

Allow Students to View:

PR status: (accepted or confirmed) when checked allows students to view what status their placement request is in when they select it.
PR Destination: When checked, students may read information from the destination profile for that placement request.
Receiving Agency Name: when checked allows students to view the Agency name.
Service: When checked allows the student to view the service that placement request is assigned to at that destination.
Statistics on classmate selections: When checked allows students to view summarized (anonymous) classmate statistics for each saved choice, while the Site Selector is open to students. When this option is enabled, a student who saves a site as their 2^nd choice can see the number of classmates with the same site as their 2^nd choice, and the number saved in any rank (1^st, 2^nd, etc.)

save green.PNG Click the green check mark to save the settings.

For a complete guide to creating a new course, please click the link.

~~Set~~Set Specific "Final" Site Selector settings in Cohort Maintenance.

When a course is added to a Cohort, it inherits the default Site Selector settings for the course (e.g. a maximum of 5 saved choices). These settings must be finalized in Cohorts, each time a course is offered, including the Open/Close dates for the student selection process. In the example the course profile has a default site selector set up (in course maintenance), and this information is displayed in the Cohorts screen next to the course with the icon: site selector not set up.

Click the site selector icon for a course (in cohorts) to open, view/modify the default settings and enter the opening and closing information.

Set Specific "Final" Site Selector settings in Cohort Maintenance, continued.

2. Click the pencil/edit icon edit grey.PNG to set the selector up for this specific class to change any course default settings and to set the opening and closing time for the site selector.

The Site Selector should be open to students on weekdays only so they can seek assistance from Help Desk or faculty if needed.

Set Specific "Final" Site Selector settings in Cohort Maintenance, continued.

3. Modify the default settings if needed (e.g. increase to allow a maximum of 6 saved choices for this term only), and

4. Set the dates and times for the Selector to be Open and Closed.

5. Click the green check mark save green.PNG to save. The Site Selector icon changes to display current status for each course/term:

~~Colour~~Colour Coding in Cohort Maintenance:

The site selector icon in Cohort Maintenance is colour coded to indicate the stage the site selection process is at:

Selector is available for a course (set up in cohorts needed)

- Site Selector is not set up for this course.
- Selector is setup with Open/Closed dates and is "ready" but not yet open.
- Selector is open and selection is underway.
- Selector is closed (selection is completed).

Review Available Placements before opening the Site Selector.

Whether you use option 1 or option 2:

Students can be assigned to Accepted or Confirmed placements only, regardless of whether:
- you allow them to select any active status; and
- you use manual assignment or automated matching.

Option #1 – Students may select only Accepted or Confirmed placements

On the Individual or Group Assignment Worksheet or The spaces tab displays a list of available placements for student selection, and should be reviewed before opening the Selector.

Exclude placement from student selection on the spaces tab of the assignment worksheet.

It is possible to exclude or hold back any placement from student selection to reserve it if needed later, for example for a student with special circumstances.

In the listing of available offers, click the site selector icon.
A warning window will open: This will Exclude the placement from student selections and DELETE it from all student's saved choices. Are you sure you wish to proceed? (Click OK to proceed).

To exclude a student from the site selection process: the student needs to be removed from the individual or group worksheet when the site selector is open.

On the enrollment worksheet (Screen Mode: Manage Students and Preferences), click to place a check mark to select the student(s) that are not going to participate in the site selector session.
At the action drop down list select: remove students from worksheet (they cannot be assigned to a placement).
Click: Submit.
Add them back to the individual or group worksheet after the site selector closes.

Exclude placement from student selection on the spaces tab of the assignment worksheet, continued.

3. Click OK to mark it "Excluded from student selection."

4. Click to undo this action and make this placement request available to students for site selection in that course.

~~Exclude~~Exclude placement from student selection on the spaces tab of the assignment worksheet, continued - when students are assigned to a PR and you now need to exclude the assigned and confirmed placement from the site selection process:

If you assigned a student to a Placement Request, and now need to move that request out of the site selector which is already in progress:

On the Spaces tab of the Assignment Worksheet:

Click the link that says: Show All Spaces, located on the right of the screen above the dark blue bar with the column headings. Clicking that link will change the link to Show only available spaces.
When that link is clicked, the confirmed placements show up with grey bars through them.
As above: Click (and OK) to mark it "Excluded from student selection."
To hide the confirmed placements again, click the link: Show only Available Spaces.

Review Available Placements before opening the Site Selector, continued.~~continued.~~

Option #2 – Students may select Placements with any active status (excluding Declined or Cancelled)

Some programs may want to use the Site Selector to allow students to "vote" on potential sites, rather than allowing them to select "real" placements only. The PC can therefore create spaces in the Worksheet and copy to Outbox, and open the Site Selector for students to choose from requests with status of:

New (not sent to the receiving agency)
Sent or Redirected (pending)
Accepted or Confirmed (available)

To withhold active Placement Requests from student selection in the Worksheet: Manually assign and confirm students to the placement request to be excluded, and click: the icon on the spaces tab of the assignment worksheet as shown directly above.

The Placing Coordinator can use the students' selections or "votes" to guide which placements to send (if any are un-sent), or to identify which pending placements should be followed up based on student interests, and can delete any un-sent requests that are not needed.

Notify Eligible Students to use the Selector

If student access is already enabled (see Activating Student Access) then you can broadcast an email notification from Cohorts  Enrollment .

Review the class list in Enrollment to ensure the list is up-to-date and that all eligible students are copied to the (group or individual) worksheet. Students who are not eligible to use the Selector (due to withdrawal or other reasons) should NOT be copied to the Worksheet for the upcoming course, and should be removed from the cohort completely if they are no longer active.
Ensure that each eligible student has an active HSPnet account as indicated by a dark yellow user key : Use the Action drop down to "Activate/Reset Student Access" if the key icon is:

light yellow no account exists yet - must be activated: use the action drop down on the enrollment worksheet to "Activate/Reset Student Access" if the key icon is:
- account is disabled
- account is about to expire due to inactivity.
If a student has no key icon, they have no primary email address entered.

3. Select the checkbox for students to be notified and choose the action "Create Email Message" to initiate an email broadcast. You may wish to upload a copy of the Quick Reference Guide entitled Site Selector for Students or remind them that the guide is available on their Messages screen after login.

Monitor Student Selections and Prepare for Assignment

You can monitor student selections as below, or if you prefer, you can run a report (covered below this section).

The Assignment Worksheet or displays the Student Selector icon _x for each student with saved choices, and the "x" indicates the number of choices they have successfully saved. In the example below, one student has saved 2 choices and the other has saved 3 choices. Hover on the green comment icon to view the "special considerations" message entered by the student for this course.

Click _xto view an individual student's selections, or select several students via their checkbox and choose "Student PR Selection Report" from the Action drop down to generate a list of all student selections (to be viewed in Excel).
Once the Site Selector is closed, if you need to change a student's saved choices you must click to unlock their Site Selector. See the Quick Reference Guide entitled Student Guide: Student Site Selector for detailed instructions on how to search available placements and add or update a student's ranked choices.
If you add or change any choices for a student, your entries will be tracked in the History tab of the Student Profile (visible only to educational programs) as an audit trail of changes made by the educational program.

Site Selector can be run as many times as you like. Keep specific matches for each round, then finalize the assignments each time you run the match., otherwise you cannot reopen the site selector for new matches.

When you are satisfied with your review of students' selections, you can proceed with:

Manual assignment (Which can be done at any time in this process) or:
Automated matching. (Which can only be done when the Site Selector is not open, is completed, or not set up).

If you use automated matching, and allow students to select any active status, you may experience a lower number of successful matches, if the students' selected sites are not available (they may be declined).

If you use the Site Selector to collect student "votes" on potential placements, then you could repeat the selection process later so students can select from actual placements (Accepted or Confirmed).

Run A report on Student Selections::

To see how the students responded:

Select the Assignment Worksheet for the course.
Select the Students tab.
Click to place a check mark adjacent to the students you want to select for the report, or select all.
At the Action Drop down list, select: Student PR Selection Report.
Click: Submit.
The report will generate just below the Student and Spaces tabs.
When you click the link the file will download to your browser.
Open the file from your browser and you can select save as to keep a copy on your computer.

The Excel file will list the students, the reference numbers and the ranking each student gave each Placement Request Reference Number.

You can use Excel Pivot tables to improve the organization of this raw data to determine the highest ranked placement requests by the most students.

Advanced/Complex Usage::

For one course you may want to run a site selector multiple times on an ongoing basis.

Let's assume there are 60 students in that course and there are 15 placements confirmed this year. You now want to run the site selector for 20 students at a time and offer them 5 choices to select from, then the 2nd lot (20 students/5 choices) and then the 3rd lot (20 students/5 choices each). After each set of 20 students complete the site selector, you want to run auto-match, assign the students, finalize and release the names, and then start the 2nd lot.

The issue is when the first batch of students are finalized, they will be on the worksheet which means they can potentially view the next set of choices when the site selector is opened for the second set of 20 students.

There is the option to NOT finalize the first 20 students, so you can remove them from the worksheet before the second site selector opens, in order to keep the first set of students matched from seeing the choices available to the second of students.

Finalizing the students for the first pass on their match placements does not restrict or impact the set of choices for the second set of 20 students, but there is no way to restrict the first (already matched students) from viewing the next set of choices when the site selector is opened the second time for the next set of 20 students.

Instead of the above scenario you could create for HSPnet purposes, three separate courses: Fun 101 Match A, Fun 101 Match B, Fun 101 Match C. In the real world there is only one course: Fun 101. To make this work, each set of placements must be allocated in advance among the three courses you have set up. This allows you to run the site selector separately for each course, finalize the students and ensure each set of students only see the placements allocated to their batch of 20 students, even if the selector is run at different times for each course.