If you’ve scheduled an appointment at the Center or are planning to drop by for assistance, you may wish to know a bit about what to expect.
Scheduling and Timing: Tutorials are scheduled in 30 or 60-minute blocks (depending on the tutorial type). Tutors also wrap up the appointment 5-10 minutes before the appointment’s conclusion to write up a brief report (see below) about your appointment. To make the most of your time, we ask that you try to arrive as close to your appointment start time as possible.
Walk-In Appointments: The Center offers walk-in appointments, however, we cannot ensure the availability of tutors or the services they offer. If you need assistance that is not available at the time of the walk-in, or your tutor cannot assist with your specific needs, they may encourage you to schedule an appointment with a different tutor at another time. Additionally, some tutorial types, like Advanced Media Production Studio training, may not be conducive to last minute, walk-in service. Consequently, it is up to the discretion of our staff and our tutors may reserve the right to ask you to reschedule for a later time in order to provide you with better, more ideal service.
Consultation Topics: During your appointment, your assigned tutor will assist you on whatever topic you indicated when you scheduled your session. Please be aware that we do assign tutors based upon topical expertise; if you come in for assistance on one topic and then ask for advice on another, your tutor will do whatever possible to help you. If you need assistance that is beyond the expertise of your tutor, they may recommend that you schedule another appointment with a different tutor at another time.
Scope of Consultations: Our tutors adhere to UMW’s Honor Code when providing services. We are here to offer advice, show you how particular systems or tools work, and help you find answers to difficult questions. Your tutor will never complete your work for you or take control of or responsibility for your final project. Our tutors are also unable to assess your work and suggest what grade they think you should/could receive.
Non-Course Related Consultations: The Center does provide consulting for students seeking assistance on projects that are not course-related. If you are interested in assistance on a non-curricular project, you are welcome to book an appointment.
Computers & Equipment: Our tutors are provided with a (Mac) laptop to use when they are working in the Center. They can use these computers to help you during your appointment, but you may wish to bring your own laptop if you have one. If you are seeking help with other equipment (cameras, digital recorders, etc.), you should bring that equipment with you to your appointment.
Group Consultations: The Center accommodates group tutorials, which is especially useful for students who are working on group projects. If your group is interested in scheduling a group appointment, we ask that you note this in the appointment booking and include the number of group members. Please note that not all tutorials can accommodate large numbers of students and you may be asked to schedule multiple appointments to accommodate your group size. Providing us with group information ahead of time helps us to best prepare for your visit.
Repeat Consultations: You are welcome to schedule follow-up appointments with the same or a different tutor if you need additional assistance or time. However, we do ask that you do not schedule back-to-back tutorials as we want to ensure that all UMW students can receive help on their digital projects.
Tutoring Reports: At the end of your appointment, your tutor will complete a report about what you covered during the session. This will be kept on file at the Center so that we can track our activity and services. You may choose to associate your appointment with a specific class, which will allow your professor to see that you visited the Center, and view the tutorial report about your visit.
Follow-up Survey: After your tutorial, we encourage you to fill out a follow-up survey about your visit. Any and all feedback is welcome as we continually strive to improve our services.