The Concept

Incorporated in the Research Triangle Region of North Carolina in 2015, OfficeHoursDirectTM (OHD) is a simple, straightforward scheduling platform that saves students and professors significant time by using proprietary "two clicks to booking" computer coding. Using this super-efficient platform for one-on-one bookings can save a typical professor with a typical teaching load between ten (10) and twenty (20) hours per semester in time on scheduling, rescheduling, and documenting meetings with students, including advisees and research assistants.

By granting students secure, 24-7, direct, and password-less access to professors’ available office-hour slots – and by confirming those bookings instantly via written notices to both professor and student – OHD frees up precious time for student-faculty interaction, teaching, research, and other priorities of today’s busy professor. For students, booking office hours can be completed and confirmed in as little as fifteen seconds, with no waiting and no uncertainty as to a professor’s availability or “most convenient” timing.

How OHD Works

OHD calendar holders – usually professors – are known as "Account Owners" (AOs). Persons permitted by AOs to sign up for time slots on AOs’ calendars are known as "Appointment Makers" (AMs). The AO’s personal code granting access to potential AMs is known as the "Booking Identification Code" (BIC). Thus, every AO has a BIC that she or he may furnish to a potential AM. For example, a professor AO can publish his BIC on his syllabus, in e-mail messages to particular audiences, etc.

In their accountholder environment, to which they are given password-protected access upon signing up for OHD, AOs enjoy a number of customization features, including some visible to students and others visible to themselves. Only AOs can see the details about each appointment booked; AMs can see that slots are open, with no educational privacy details of other AMs visible to them. The AO may upload an image of herself over a brief, general description of what all AMs can do to prepare for their office hours after booking.

An especially valuable feature is that AOs (especially professors) can batch and report their activity with students using time parameters of their choosing. The instantaneous creation of such analytics empowers AOs to self-report – for their annual self-evaluations, for example – how much time they spent with how many AMs (e.g., students) and on what kinds of matters (e.g., tutorial, recommendation letters, advising, counseling).

If an extremely busy professional saves an average of just two hours per week by using OHD, her quality of life can be considerably enhanced. That’s enough time freed up, perhaps, for going to a child’s little-league game, having three 40-minute fitness workouts, or completing 5-10 pages of article drafting.

Review

• OfficeHoursDirect is an online scheduling platform that takes the work and time out of coordinating one-on-one meeting times between professors and students or between other professors (pastors, personal trainers, psychotherapists, and other professionals who require one-on-one meetings).
• OHD supplies subscribers with a dedicated calendar for office meetings based their unique availability, as recorded by subscribers on their self-personalized calendars.
• Persons booking appointment do not sign up for an account; all they need is the professor-calendar owner’s Booking Identification Code. This approach streamlines the booking process by offering students/appointment makers direct access to pre-cleared appointment blocks updated in real time, after which professor and student receive confirmation notices. “Two clicks to booking” is the rule.