The following is the transcript for the “Preparing for Asynchronous Appointments” video that consultants watched in Module 1 of Asynchronous Online Training. To protect consultant and student privacy, the video cannot be shared publicly at this time.

Video Transcript

[Luke] Hello, again! You are training for asynchronous appointments, and this video will discuss how students and consultants prepare for asynchronous appointments.

We will begin with how students prepare. After scheduling an asynchronous appointment, students have two additional steps to take. They must email us their writing, and they must email what we call a writer’s note. On our website, we list 3 questions for students to answer and provide you with the information you need to focus your feedback. A good writer’s note will provide you with the assignment guidelines, the goals/purpose of their writing, and the areas they would like you to focus on. Students should send all of their materials to [writing center email address].

Now we will talk about how consultants prepare for asynchronous appointments. You should still login to our appointment scheduling system with your personal account, and check who you are working with on that day.

In addition, for every online appointment, you will also login to our online consulting email account. We call this account “HWC Online.” You are welcome to use this account to share and work on Google Docs in face-to-face appointments as well.

As a reminder, you will login to this account with the following login information [removed for privacy].

Once you are logged in, your next task is to find your student’s writing and writer’s note. There are 3 places you should look. The first is your consultant folder, in the left margin. If your student sends their materials early, I will move them to your folder for you.

If you don’t see your student’s materials in your folder, the second place you should look is the inbox. I clear the inbox every morning, so only recent emails will be located here. If your student’s materials are in the inbox, drag them to your consultant folder on the left and proceed with the consultation.

If your student’s materials are not in the inbox, the third and final place you should look is through the “search” bar at the top of the email. You can search by their name or email address, and it will find any emails from this student that might be misplaced.

If you have followed all of these steps and cannot locate your student’s writing or writer’s note, then your student probably forgot to send their materials. It happens. In this case, you should send them a brief email reminding them of their appointment. This email should ask them to send their writing and writer’s note within the next 10-15 minutes or their appointment will be marked as a “no-show.”

During these 10-15 minutes, watch the inbox for their response. If they respond, move their materials to your consultant folder and proceed with the consultation. If they do not respond within 10-15 minutes, you can mark them as a “no-show” in our appointment scheduling system. To do so,

  1. Return to the scheduling system
  2. Click on their appointment
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the appointment and check “Missed.” Be sure to click the checkbox to the right of the word “Missed.”
  4. Click “save changes”

This will remove the appointment from the schedule, but will keep it marked as a “no-show” for our records. If you have to “no-show” a student, still check the inbox for any late emails from them about their appointment. If they email later in the hour, you can offer to re-schedule their appointment with another online consultant.

If you forget any of the steps discussed in this video, you can find them in a reminder email in the writing center email account. Go to the *HELP folder, marked by a red symbol, and click the “Help for Asynchronous Appts” email.

You can also find other resources for online consulting in the HELP folder. There is a resource for working with graduate student work. And if you’re working with a graduate student from the program Project Dragonfly, there is a sub-folder with their recent assignment guidelines.

Don’t forget that the writing center website also has helpful resources. Under the “Writing Resources” tab, you can find online versions of our own handouts, guides to writing in certain disciplines, and links to outside resources.

You should now continue on to Exercise 1.