Patent Application
20090319321
Embodiments of the invention relate to scheduling of instructional courses having associated compliance rules, such as driver training courses.
Instructional courses may require completion of a variety of events—including classroom and lab sessions. For example, drivers training classes may require completion of classroom, laboratory, observation, and online or simulation sessions.
Many instructional courses require these disparate events to be completed in a particular order. Only after completing the events in a specific order is the student eligible for a final certification—a degree or a license, for example. For example, to obtain drivers certification, a complex set of requirements may be imposed requiring, for example, a lab session to be completed within a specific window after certain classroom sessions have been completed.
Existing training courses typically leave compliance with these complex rules up to the individual student. The student themselves is responsible for ensuring the events are completed in an appropriate order to obtain certification. Other courses attempt to track compliance with the governing rules separately, for example in an Excel spreadsheet, charting a student's progress. These systems suffer from inaccurate reporting of the student's information, and the requirement that the student themselves become intimately familiar with the compliance rules for their instructional course in their jurisdiction. Inaccurate understanding of the rules, or inaccurate reporting into an Excel spreadsheet, causes extra time to be spent determining compliance information, or may cause students to fail to comply even after completing many requirements.
Accordingly, there is a need for a better method of ensuring students complete instructional courses in compliance with the requirements of a regulatory authority for the course.
Embodiments of the present invention provide methods and systems for scheduling an instructional course for a student where the instructional course requires completion of a plurality of events in accordance with at least one rule associated with a regulatory authority. Certain details are set forth below to provide a sufficient understanding of embodiments of the invention. However, it will be clear to one skilled in the art that embodiments of the invention may be practiced without various of these particular details. In some instances, well-known computer system architectures, circuits, control signals and software operations have not been shown in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the described embodiments of the invention.
Each event record may include an indication of capacity limit as to number of students per event. Event records may further include requirements for the availability of an instructor and availability of other resources such as location, equipment or the like. The event records are stored in the event database 110. The records may be created by a database administrator, other personnel, or by a computer program. Any type of database may be used to implement the event database 110 and any type of communication medium, wired or wireless, may be used to interact with the event database 110.
An account is created 120 for each student. The account is stored as a record in student database 130. As with the event database, student account records may be created by a database administrator, other personnel, students, or by a computer program. Each student may be identified by a unique identification number or the like and biographical information may be stored in each account in the student database 130.
Referring again to
Rules may also differ according to some other category—subject matter or license sought, for example. Rules governing available courses may be stored in a rule database 135. Rules may include prerequisites—such as Class A must be completed before Lab B, timing requirements—Class A must be completed within X days of Lab B, quantity requirements—5 classes and 2 labs must be completed, and the like. Any rule concerning the events may be stored in the rule database 135.
Although shown separately in
Once a student enrolls 125 in a course, for example by selecting a particular course electronically or otherwise, partially or completely paying for a course, or other indication, a student will schedule into one or more events necessary or desirable for completion of the course. Accordingly, the actions 100, 120 and 125 in
The method of
For example, in one embodiment for scheduling a driver training course, the student enrolls in a driver training course and is given a schedule of fifteen classroom events on enrollment. The student must then schedule laboratory events (drives). The computer-implemented method determines 140 that a first drive must be completed after the third class but before the seventh class according to a rule in the rule database 135. Accordingly, only drive events stored in the event database 110 occurring between the student's scheduled third and seventh classes are displayed 145. Other rules for the drives may also be found in the rule database 135 such as a maximum of two drives scheduled on the same day or drives must be scheduled 48 hours apart. The rule database 135 may combine rules from a licensing entity and from an instructional institution. For example, the licensing agency may require a student participate in no more than two drives per day and the instructional institution may require a student's drives to occur 48 hours apart. Both rules may be in the rule database 135 and accessed to determine compliant events 140. Other rules may govern the availability of courses, such as requirements on instructor or resource availability.
Instructions are sent for display 145 of compliant events to a student. The display may be a local or remote display. Any form of communication medium, wired or wireless may be used. In some embodiments, only information regarding the compliant events is displayed to the student. In some embodiments, simply displaying the event indicates to the student the event is compliant. In other embodiments, more than only the compliant events are transmitted for display and an indication is provided that certain of the events are compliant. An example of events displayed to a student is shown in
Referring back to
Further events may be displayed and scheduled 155. For example, after scheduling into an event at step 150, the rule, event and student databases 110, 135, 130 may again be accessed to determine a new set of compliant events taking into account the scheduling of the event in step 150. That is, events may now be compliant that are required to be completed after completion of the event scheduled in 150 if they occur after the scheduled event in 150.
The process of accessing the rule and event databases, displaying compliant events, and scheduling the student into a compliant event continues until all required events for the enrolled course are scheduled 160. In other embodiments, a student may not be required to schedule all required events at once.
As the student attends events, a record of attendance is created in the student database 130 and associated with the student's account. In other embodiments, attendance records may be stored separately from the student database 130.
If a student does not attend an event or requests to reschedule an event 170, the scheduling process in steps 140-160 may be used to reschedule the events for the course. Once all required events are completed 175, compliance information may be sent 180 to or retrieved by, or both, an entity governing the course, such as an entity charged with ensuring compliance with rules stored in the rules database 110. The compliance information is obtained in part from the student database 130 containing the attendance records of the student. Because the scheduling program has ensured the student is scheduled into compliant events, reporting compliance information to the regulatory authority is simplified.
Furthermore, the regulatory authority or representatives or computer programs under the control of the regulatory authority, may be provided access to one or more of the student, event and rule databases. For example, a regulatory authority may access student records to confirm compliance information or verify the information is being accurately recorded. Furthermore, a regulatory authority may in some embodiments be given access to the rule database to update or replace rules associated with the regulatory authority. Access control to all or portions of one or more of the databases may be implemented in accordance with any available security methodology as known in the art.
The above description has considered a process for a student enrolling into, scheduling and completing a course. The rule, event and student databases 110, 135 and 130 may support scheduling and compliance reporting for more than one course. Accordingly, each time a student enrolls into a course, the student may be associated with a regulatory authority providing rules for the course. The computer-implemented method 127 accesses rules in the rule database 135 particular to the regulatory authority and determines compliant events accordingly. If a second student enrolls in a course associated with a second regulatory authority, the computer-implemented method 127 may access rules pertinent to the second regulatory authority in the rule database 135, potentially resulting in display of a different set of compliant events based on the second accessed rule.
The server system 305 is coupled for communication with a client computing system 330. Any communication mechanism may be used, and the server system 305 may be in communication with a plurality of client computing systems in some embodiments. For example, the server system 305 may communicate with one or more client computing systems over the Internet to perform scheduling functionality described above. The client computing system 330 is coupled to input and output devices 335, 340 which may include keyboards, displays, mice, further storage or the like. The client computing system 330 may further include a processor and memory. The client computing system 330 generally receives data from the server system 305 and displays relevant scheduling information for a student, as described above. For example, an output device 340 may include a monitor configured to display scheduling choices, such as the browser shown in
From the foregoing it will be appreciated that, although specific embodiments of the invention have been described herein for purposes of illustration, various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention. Embodiments of the invention may be implemented in hardware, software, or combinations thereof.
