Calendar

The purpose of Mentor is to maintain data on project modules so that it is available for other processes when needed. The main ones are workload planning and WAM accounting.

Time period	Activity	Frequency	Who
Jul	Preparation for new academic year	Once	Office
Jul - Aug	Student estimates for TR1	Weekly	Office
Jul - Aug	Academic workload allocation	Monthly	Heads of Subject
Aug - Jul	WAM snapshot generation	Weekly	Office
Aug -Jul	Cross-check with WAM system	Monthly	Office
Nov - Dec	Student estimates for TR2	At least once	Office
Apr - May	Student estimates for TR3	At least once	Office

Preparation for new academic year

All of Mentor's main functions rely on the existence of data about the modules running in any given academic year. It is therefore important to ensure that this data is correct and complete in advance.

Workload planning

The critical times for workload planning are in the lead-up to the start of each trimester. Trimester 1 is particularly important because that is when the first round of workload allocations are done for the whole academic year. In advance of trimester 2 and trimester 3, those initial allocations are updated.

Mentor provides estimates of student numbers for each cohort that Heads of Subject use to allocate work to people in their subject group. From July to August, the data on which student estimates are based can change quickly. During that time, it is important to recalculate student numbers weekly. Before trimester 2 and trimester 3, a minimum of one new estimate is required within a month of the new trimester starting.

WAM accounting

WAM accounting is done in retrospect, so the critical times for that process fall at the end of each trimester. Because things may change during a trimester, though, it is important to transfer any updates to the WAM system on a weekly basis.

Mentor makes it easy to identify changes to staff WAM data. The process of creating a new WAM snapshot takes a few seconds, and if there are no updates identified, there is nothing else to do. It is only when changes are identified that the WAM system needs to be updated.

In a future enhancement, WAM data will be transferred automatically to the WAM system.