Beloit College Museums - Education Scheduling - Case Study

Case Study: Beloit College Museums: Wright Museum of Art and Logan Museum of Anthropology in St. Beloit, Wisconsin, United States

Business Overview

Wright Museum of Art: In 1892, Helen Brace Emerson donated her personal collection of art to Beloit College and created its first program in art appreciation. She was also instrumental in working with Professor Fisher to bring 125 of the Greek government's plaster casts at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago to Beloit. These were presented to the college in 1894, and strengthened an art program built on tangible works for study and appreciation.

Today, the Wright Museum houses approximately 4,500 objects, mostly European and American prints and paintings, College portraits, 19th century historic architecture photos, Soviet political propaganda posters, and Asian decorative arts, icons, and woodblock prints.

Logan Museum of Anthropology: The Logan Museum was founded in 1893 with a gift from Beloit College trustee Frank G. Logan of more than 3,000 artifacts that had been exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition. The museum's collections have grown over the years through additional gifts and purchases and through field expeditions by Beloit College faculty and students. From its inception, the museum has focused on hands-on, educational use of collections.

Historic Memorial Hall built in 1869 to honor Beloit College and community members who died in the Civil War, is the museum's home. The adjoining Godfrey Anthropology Building built in 1975 through a gift by anthropology professor William S. Godfrey, houses classrooms, museum offices, museums gift shop, and collections storage areas. Renovations to the buildings in the 1990s and 2000s enhanced exhibition spaces, collections preservation and accessibility, and student participation in museum work.

Scheduling Overview

We currently have 22 student employees that are on and using the work schedule maker ShiftPlanning. The Museum employs college students who are on work study. Therefore, each students schedule is based on their availability between classes, extracurricular activities, and personal needs. For the most part the schedule is pretty much set by the first two weeks that classes start but because of special situations: exams, field trips, illnesses, break, etc. the schedule can change and sometimes at a moment’s notice.

Previous Scheduling Method

Students would fill out a form by hand showing when they were available to work. A master "availability sheet" comprising of all the students and hours needing staff would be created. A master schedule on Google Calendar starting with the time slots containing the least available students to slots that had the most available students would be filled in. Each student's hours for the week would be totaled to make sure that everyone was getting a fair number of hours, and to not exceed the amount each individual could work. When a student could not work they would need to email other employees to find a trade. Once a trade was found they would need to email me so I could confirm and change the calendar.

Since ShiftPlanning

We started using the employee schedule maker ShiftPlanning in August 2011 when fall semester began. So far we have had a few little glitches, but nothing major. Most of it had and still has to do with my learning curve.

I found ShiftPlanning to be:

Much cleaner and easier: less paper and time.
Very efficient: keeps everyone up on their schedule including myself the manager.
Spend less time trying to find replacements or filling open slots.

I would highly recommend ShiftPlanning to anyone who has a lot of staff with differing schedules and needs.

I love its versatility and ease of use. - Becky Moffett - Beloit College Museums

The work scheduler tutorial information on line is very helpful and so is the staff. Thanks Ryan for all your patience!

Further

We have not yet used the Vacation tool yet but I plan to implement it. We have used the Message Wall to post reminders.