With 170+ students in each year, each taking several course units, split into 3 or more groups for their laboratories, each with a different Laboratory Supervisor and up to 15 demonstrators; a reliable, semi-automatic, fault-tolerant system is needed to collect marking and attendance information, and to give useful feedback to all staff and students involved.
The ARCADE laboratory management system, developed by John Latham since 1993, provides all of the required facilities (and more?), maintaining a record of attendance, laboratory marks, extensions and irregularities. It automatically emails the student, their tutor and the appropriate Laboratory Manager if there are potential problems (absence, late work, non-archived work etc). A hard copy `Laboratory Book' is printed for each course unit, updated in the laboratory sessions and then reprinted. The Laboratory Book consists of a ring-binder for each course unit, and these are stored in a filing cabinet in the Student Resource Centre.
We know what follows may seem bureaucratic, but quite honestly if you stick to the system then the laboratory management works, otherwise it fails!
In the now distant past (when there were far fewer course units and fewer students), much more informal systems were operated. When there was no regime of deadlines, there was always a massive pile-up of work towards the end of each term, causing chaos for students and markers alike. The basic principle behind laboratory management now is to encourage students to undertake laboratory work incrementally -- students being typical people, this requires a certain amount of imposition of deadlines, with a tangible penalty (i.e. losing marks) if they do not adhere to it.
One thing that is important with operating the laboratories is that there is a reasonable amount of uniformity in the way they run, both across course units within a single year group and across the first and second year.
As described in the students' Laboratory Manual, the main purpose of the ARCADE Laboratory Management System is to collate the vast amount of mark and attendance information required. However, it also implements the deadline/extension system for exercises, where the idea is to encourage students to work evenly on the laboratories throughout each semester, rather than leave everything to the last minute, which puts an unbearable strain on everything. With multiple laboratory groups per course unit, taking attendance also ensures that students turn up to their allotted group rather than flock to the most favourite one (e.g. as late as possible in the session cycle, in the afternoon, but not Friday afternoon etc.).
By supervising and demonstrating in laboratories in a consistent way, a healthy laboratory environment is cultured. Since ARCADE started in 1993, the approach has proved to be remarkably effective in the smooth running of laboratories and the hard and even working of the students.
After a general introduction, we give a `brief' summary of ARCADE, followed by a more detailed explanation of the way ARCADE is used in the running of laboratories, together with handy tips on handling various situations that may arise.
If you are a new member of laboratory staff, it probably is worth reading the whole of this document. Older hands may use it as a reference source as and when needed.