There's a big organisation burden for staff at the start of each academic year as they begin a multitude of student inductions. These training sessions are crucial for ensuring students get the most out of the resources available to them, while ensuring they handle equipment correctly and minimise breakages. We look at what's involved and explore how technology can help keep both staff and students organised and upbeat.

This year inductions are set to involve an unprecedented level of organisation, with student intake increasing from previous years now the intake cap has finally been lifted. University course acceptances have been reported as rising by 3% overall, although many of our customers have reported much steeper increases in their art, design and photography courses – see the last blog post for more details.

Organising inductions can involve coordinating literally thousands of pieces of equipment, not to mention countless rooms. We’ve worked with customers to refine the connect2 system and continue to do so, simplifying the booking process to make it as painless as possible to organise these events.

How to make efficiency gains

When it comes to managing attendance at the inductions, our connect2 events module has it all covered. Students can self-register on training workshops, with attendance easily monitored and recorded in the system. Connect2 provides a register and enduring record of who attended what, both in terms of overall volumes and each individual’s training history. Where training is a prerequisite to borrowing equipment – as it so often is – attendance data can be processed in the system to inform borrowing permissions. So each new cohort of students can easily progress to accessing the equipment they need once the necessary training or induction is completed.

What you see is what you get?

Training attendance data can also inform what equipment is actually visible to students in the system, and not just what’s bookable - depending on the approach taken by the institution...