Introduction

This report builds off the first one that was created back in Fall 2024 to answer the following question(s):

What are the best days and times for the Aquinas College Writing Center (AQWC) to be open?

Also, how should the AQWC schedule be structured to be able to help the most writers? Essentially, how many consultants should be on shift during certain days and hours; When should the AQWC be open and closed each day; and many more questions.

In order to answer these questions, we will be going over and using the many data sets that have been created and retrieved from the WCOnline and Accudemia scheduling systems that the AQWC uses to allow writers to make appointments.

We highly recommend looking at the past report as a reference to compare this new report with. Seeing the change in the data over the past two years (from 2024 to 2026) can be beneficial to see unique trends that could help shape ideas of how to create the perfect schedule.

Just for some context, this is what our AQWC schedule looked like back at the end of the 2024 academic year:

Monday 10 AM - 6 PM

Tuesday 10 AM - 12 PM and 2 - 8 PM

Wednesday 10 AM - 6 PM

Thursday 10 AM - 6 PM

Friday 10 AM - 12 PM

Sunday 5 - 7 PM

And here is what it looks like at the end of the Spring 2026 semester with the first reports help:

Monday 12 - 4 PM and 6 - 8 PM

Tuesday 2 - 8 PM

Wednesday 11 AM - 4 PM

Thursday 12 - 4 PM

Friday 12 - 4 PM

Throughout, we will need the functionality of the tidyverse package, mainly to create the many visualizations we will use; they will mostly be bar graphs. The DT package is to help with creating nice looking data tables. Finally, the readxl package is there to import all of the excel data sets that are from the AQWC’s scheduling systems.

library(tidyverse)
library(DT)
library(readxl)

Data Tables

For the data tables, we will be using the same ones as seen in the first report, just now updated with new data collected after the first report was created. The only new data table is the master spreadsheet created to hold all of the data that has been collected on WCOnline in 2021 to 2025 to now, in 2026, with Accudemia and Google Forms.

Data Table of the Original Data Collected

There are 35 total variables in the data set, but only 10 are essential to look at for this report. The first one being Schedule Title (Shows which semester the data is for that row), Appointment Date (Shows which date the consultation data took place), Year (Shows which year the consultation data took place), Month (Shows which month of the year the consultation data took place), Day of Week (Shows which day of the week the consultation data took place), Time (Shows which block of time the consultation data took place [split between one hour blocks and half hour blocks of time due to the AQWC changing to half hour blocks in the past two years]), Start Time (Shows which time of the day the consultation data took place), End Time (Shows which time of the day the consultation data ended at), Length (Minutes) (Shows how long the specific consultation took), and Off-Schedule Report (Shows if the consultation took place during the AQWC’s operating hours or a consultant helped a writer outside their designated hours).

Data Table of the the 2021 to 2026 Years

There are 6 total variables in the data set, and all of them are important for this analysis. The first one is Start_Time (the 1 hour block of time that the consultation took place), Weekday (the day of the week that the consultation took place), Months (the month of the year that the consultation took place), and finally Count (all of the variables previously mentioned have their own count to see how many each of them occurred and to see which ones are the most popular).

Data Table of the Consultant’s Survey

There are 9 total variables in the data set, and all of them are important for this analysis. Firstly there is Are you opposed to or willing to try a potentially new schedule for the 2025 Spring Semester? (1 Fully Opposed to 5 Fully Willing) (this is to gauge the consultants to see how many of them actually are okay with changing our schedule for the Spring 2025 semester), If the Aquinas Writing Center was open past 11:00 PM, but only for REMOTE consultations, would you be willing to work a late-night shift? (this is to gauge the consultants to see which ones are okay with consulting remotely at late hours), Put yourself in the writers' shoes: what times and days do you think the WC should be open? (this is to see what the consultants think are good times for the Writing Center to be open to help the most writers), Would you be okay with potentially ditching the idea of having consulting hours over the weekend? (this is to see how the consultants feel about not having consulting hours over the weekend), Do you find the walk-in hours to be beneficial? (this is to see if the consultants think keeping the walk-in hours is a good idea), Please comment further on the walk-in hours. (this is to get the consultants opinion further on why they chose yes or no to the previous question about walk-in hours), Would you like to (potentially) have some sort of late night chill coffee/cafe vibe consultation experience? (this is to see what the consultants think about experimenting with a new type of atmosphere similar to a coffee shop), Any additional thoughts or comments about our WC schedule? (this is to ask the consultants if they have any final questions or comments they would like to add), Count (this count is just for the first variable to see how many consultants are wiling and opposed to a new schedule next semester).

Data Table of the Writer’s Survey

There are 8 total variables in the data set, and all of them are important for this analysis. Have you ever been to the Writing Center here at Aquinas College? (this is to see how many of the students who filled out this survey have already been to the AQWC), Are you a student enrolled in the Block Pilot Scheduling Program this semester? (this is to see how many of the students who filled out this survey are in the block pilot program here at Aquinas College. The block pilot program is only offered to freshman students. The freshman only take one class at a time every three and a half weeks rather than multiple classes at the same time each semester.), What do you think are the best days for the Aquinas College Writing Center to be open for in-person consultations? (this is to see what the writers think are the best days for the AQWC to be open. They were asked to choose their top three days of the week), What do you believe are the best times for the Aquinas Writing Center to be open for IN-PERSON consultations? (this is to see what the writers think are the best times for the AQWC to be open. They were asked to choose their top three blocks of time), If--hypothetically--the Aquinas College Writing Center could be open 24/7 the whole semester, what times and days would you most frequently use to come to the Writing Center? (this is to see what would be the best days and times the writers would like the writing center to be open if there were no restrictions), If the Aquinas Writing Center provided REMOTE/ONLINE consultations past 11:00 PM would you use them? (this is to see if the writers would like it if the writing center provided remote only consultations at late hours), Is there anything else you would like to add? (this is to see if the writers who took this survey have any additional suggestions, comments, or concerns about our schedule for next semester), What would bring you to the Writing Center? Or back to the Writing Center more often? (this is to see what the writers who took this survey would like or want to see more to bring them to the writing center more).

Visualizations

For the visualizations, We thought the best way to tackle the main problem of this report was to make various bar graphs from the data tables that we have displayed earlier in the report. This can allow us to compare the one-hour block appointments between each other to see what our most busiest times are, and also be able to do this for the days, months, semesters, etc. to see when we should be open the most and when we should be closed. The visualizations will also be separated into three sections; the first one being the data seen earlier overall, only the fall semester data, and, finally, only the spring semesters’ data. This was done because we have noticed from the data, and working at the Writing Center, that our hours are different between the two semesters for when writers come in.

Overall Graphs

(Overall) Consultation Length for 10 AM Shifts

The most popular hours for 10:00 AM shifts are the sixty and thirty minute marks. These two make sense because these are the main two lengths of times that the AQWC provides and advises writers to use. For them to be the two most popular ones makes sense then. The two lengths of times before these two are the twenty and forty minute marks. The twenty minute mark is slightly more than the forty minute mark. This is interesting because this means that there are many writers who come in that do not need a whole hour to get the help they need. Many are probably coming in for one or two main issues or a handful of smaller ones that they want to go over with the consultant, so they do not need as much time. With more consultations being thirty minutes or less means that the AQWC can provide more consultations to its student body per hour. This is good to allow for as many people to utilize the resource as needed. This is partly why the AQWC switched from only allowing students to schedule one hour consultations to having the option to schedule thirty minutes or an hour. Many writers do not need the full one hour like some maybe do.

With everything mentioned about the graph above, we believe that the AQWC should stay with how they are doing their 10:00 AM hours like all the other hours they have. It has been working well so far, so no need to change it.

Fall Graphs

(Fall) Consultation Length for 10 AM Shifts

All of the days of the week are spread out in terms of the length of consultations they have for 10:00 AM shifts. The two most obvious popular consultation length times being sixty and thirty minutes due to these lengths being encouraged in the AQWC. Writers are allowed to make appointments that are thirty minutes, and if need be, go an extra thirty minutes if no other writer is coming in. The consultation length that is the third most highest on the graph is the twenty minute mark, which is interesting to see. This happened the most with Wednesdays which is another thing. This length of time could be popular due to freshmen who are coming in and trying out the AQWC resource, but do not need to use the whole time.

Keeping the 10:00 AM time slots for each day of the week work as it has been so far is the best choice we recommend the AQWC to do. It can be seen that the 10:00 AM shift is functioning like how any other hour should be with thirty and sixty minute consultations happening during them. Allowing students to go a bit under the thirty minute mark is fine to encourage them to keep coming back.

Spring Graphs

(Spring) Consultation Length for 10 AM Shifts

The most popular consultation lengths for 10:00 AM shifts are sixty and thirty minutes. This makes the most sense because the AQWC has been providing and promoting hour long consultations the most for its whole life, and has recently switched to thirty minute consultations to allow for more writers to be able to come in and have a consultation, but these consultations can go up to sixty minutes if no one booked the other half of the hour. There are some outlier consultation lengths that have gone past the sixty minute mark, which is something that should not be happening due to consultants changing every hour. We do find it interesting though that the third most popular length of time for a consultation is forty minutes. This means that only really one consultation happens for every 10:00 AM shift, even though there is the chance for two to happen each being thirty minutes. This might mean that maybe only one consultation should be available during this hour as not many people come in at one time.

With this graph in mind, we think that having the 10:00 AM shift work how it has been, and like how all the hours have been functioning, is the best thing to do. Allowing writers to book thirty minute consultations, and the option to extend it to sixty minutes if needed, is the best way to go because of how spread out each of the days of the weeks are with consultation lengths. All of them are around the usual times for consultations.

Consultant Survey Graphs

How Willing the Consultants are to a New Schedule

This visualization tells me that the overwhelming majority of our consultants are willing and are keen on the idea of changing our writing center schedule!

What this means is that the writing center can start thinking about how to change the schedule to best help the most writers, and use this report as additional information of how to go about that.

Do Consultants Want Late Night Remote Consultations?

This graph shows that more of our consultants don’t like the idea of having remote late night consultations past 11:00 pm than do.

This means that for the new schedule we should probably not add this as an option for consultants to work on or for writers to schedule for. If we were to add this as an option we might only offer it every now and then because some consultants did say they were up for consulting at this time.

Do Consultants Want Weekend Consultations to be Removed?

What I can notice from this visualization is that a lot of our consultants are okay with removing weekend consultations. Which makes sense because most of us want to have our weekends free so we can relax and have fun, and only work on the weekdays.

What this could mean for our writing center schedule for next semester is that we could very well not have weekend consultations if that is something our consultants don’t want to do anymore.

Do Consultants want Walk-In Hours to Stay?

This graph shows that a vast majority of our consultants would like to keep the walk-in hours, and to have them how they are.

Looking at the written answers where consultants were asked to comment further about the walk-in hours, most said that we should advertise them better. Either on our scheduling system, WCOnline, by actually showing that there are hours there, instead of them being blacked out, and to show which consultants are on shift those hours, or other ways. Another recurring answer was to potentially change these evening walk-in hours to appointments only, or to have one consultant be a walk-in only and another to be an appointment only to have variability. Most consultants said that they feel the walk-in hours are beneficial if, for example, the whole day is booked then other writers still have a change to come in for a consultation. Another thing a consultant said was to maybe make them a first-come first-served sort of “list of priority.” Where writers can sign there name on a list so the consultants know how many walk-in appointments there are, and so students know when they can get an appointment.

Overall, just by looking at the graph and the additional comments about walk-in hours, I believe that we should keep them, but potentially change how they are done and to advertise them better so more students know about it.

Writer Survey Graphs

Do Writers Want Late Night Remote Consultations (Been to vs Has not been to the AQWC)

This visualization shows that more students who have been and haven’t been to the writing center would not utilize late night remote consultations past 11:00 pm if we offered them than the ones that would.

This shows us that we should probably not have this as an option in our new schedule because not many students would be using it. If we were to add this, we might only offer it sporadically when we think we would get the most people using it.

Do Writers Want Late Night Remote Consultations (Block vs. Non-Block)

This one is the same as the last one just with if the writer is a block student or not. It tells the same story like the last one where most block and non-block students would not use the remote late night service.

Same idea like the previous one I mentioned, we could offer it only some times throughout the semester when we think it might be used by the most students. Other than that it might be an idea that we scrap and not use because most students and consultants would rather not work on their paper at night.

The Best Days to be Open Based on Writers (Been to vs Has not been to the AQWC)

This visualization shows that for the students that have been to the writing center before, and those who have not at all, they want the middle of the week days, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, to be when we are most open. With Mondays and Fridays being second and third, respectively, and Sundays being last. One thing that I see a bit differently with the students who have not been to the writing center is that they have chose Mondays about the same amount as the middle of the week days.

This tells us that we should focus on having more hours in the middle of the week. We should also have not as many but still quite a bit on the beginning and last days of the week. Finally, we should have the last amount of hours on the weekends.

Just looking at this graph, and not taking anything else into account, here is what I think our days should look like:

I believe that we should offer the most hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. We should offer a little less on Mondays and Fridays, but a bit more on Mondays than Fridays, and offer only maybe a couple of hours on Sundays.

The Best Days to be Open Based on Writers (Block vs. Non-Block)

This graph is the exact same as the last one, but looking at block and non-block students. For the block students, they want the the last 4 days of the week to be when we are most open, with Mondays not that far behind, and Sundays the least amount. For non-block students it is basically the same as above with the middle of the weekdays being when we are most open, then Mondays, Fridays, and Sundays the least amount.

This means that the writing center should focus on having the most hours during the weekdays, more specifically Tuesdays to Thursdays, and a bit less on Mondays, and a even fewer on Fridays. We should have Sundays be only a few hours at most to accomodate students who would use it.

Just looking at this graph, and not taking anything else into account, here is what I think our days should look like:

Tuesdays to Thursdays is when we should have the most hours and consultants on shift to take advantage of the popularity of those days. We should then have Mondays be a little less and Fridays even more less than Mondays. Finally, we should have Sundays we our lowest amount of hours and consultants on shift since not many students chose that day.

The Best Hours to be Open Based on Writers (Been to vs Has not been to the AQWC)

This visualization shows that the most popular hours for students that have been to the writing center are 1:00 to 2:00 pm and 2:00 to 3:00 pm. With 3:00 to 4:00 pm behind them, and then a bunch of different times all around the same amount with 11:00 to 12:00 am being the least. For students who have not been to the writing center, the top three times are after 6:00 pm, 2:00 to 3:00 pm, and 1:00 to 2:00 pm. Then 12:00 to 1:00 pm is behind those times, and then we have a bunch of other times all around the same amount. Finally, 4:00 to 5:00 pm and 11:00 to 12:00 pm are the least.

This tells us that returning students want more hours in the afternoon and a bit in the morning and evening. First-time students also want more afternoon hours. On the other hand, they also want some more in the late evening, but not as much in the morning or late afternoon/early evening.

Just looking at this graph, and not taking anything else into account, here is what I think our times should look like:

I think that we should focus on having the most hours in the afternoon from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. We should also have possibly 3-4 consultants at these times to meet the demand for it. We should then have some hours from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. For how late after 6:00, that has to do with how long the library is open and how late out consultants are willing to work. We should probably have 2-3 consultants during this hour because it is somewhat popular. Finally, we should have some hours from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. Here we should only have 2-3 consultants because it is about the same in demand as the evening times.

The Best Hours to be Open Based on Writers (Block vs. Non-Block)

This graph is the exact same as the last one, but looking at block and non-block students. The most popular times for block students are 1:00 to 2:00 pm, 2:00 to 3:00 pm, and 3:00 to 4:00 pm with 4:00 to 5:00 pm being second but with way less votes. The rest have barely any one who chose them. For non-block students, their most popular times are also 1:00 to 2:00 pm, 2:00 to 3:00 pm, with after 6:00 pm being second. then all of the rest are about the same amount, with 11:00 am to 12:00 pm and 4:00 to 5:00 pm with the least amount of votes.

The block students answers make sense because they only have one class every day from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm, so the times that would work the best for them would be the 1:00 to 3:00 pm which are right after their class. What is interesting is that the non-block students also said how they preferred the afternoon hours as well for appointment times. The only other times that the non-block students liked were some in the morning and evening which probably only works for some students if they don’t have class then.

Just looking at this graph, and not taking anything else into account, here is what I think our times should look like:

I think that we should definitely have the most hours and consultants on staff, maybe 3-4, during the afternoon to take advantage of this popularity and to be able to help the most block-students. A lot of them have to come in for first year seminar class and other introductory courses, so being open for them at their preferred times will get them to come in more. Other than we should have some hours in the morning and evenings to accommodate for our non-block population on campus and staff those with 2-3 consultants to help as many as we can.

Non-Visualization Data Analysis

Consultant Survey

Consultants Ideas for When the Writing Center Should be Open

The biggest consensus from looking at what the consultants think are the best times and days for the Writing Center to be open is to not have anymore morning shifts. This means that we should open at noon (12:00 pm) instead. Another big idea that many consultants talked about was having more evening hours to help accommodate for those night owl students. So being open more in the evening till like 9:00 or 10:00 pm. Some consultants also wrote how they believe that the Writing Center should have more hours on Fridays, while a smaller amount said the opposite. A lot of them said that we should be the most active during the afternoon to get the most block students in, and that is typically when everyone is the most free to come in. Some said that we should look at when classes are in session and when team practices and games are and try to work around those schedules to be open the most for those kinds of students, like student-athletes. Some did say that we should potentially be open more on the weekends, like Sundays, because most papers are due Sunday night, and lots of students already come on the few Sunday hours we have. While a smaller minority said that we should not be open on the weekends at all.

Overall, based on only what our consultants think is the best schedule here is a hypothetical schedule:

We should be open from Mondays to Fridays, and potentially also Sundays.

For Mondays to Fridays we should be open from 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm. We should have 3-4 consultants on shift in the afternoon, and maybe around 2-3 in the evening. For Sundays, we could be open in the late afternoon to late evening, so like 3:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Have only 1-2 consultants on those hours.

Approval of Late Night Chill Coffee/Cafe Vibe Idea

Many of the consultants love the idea, but many of them think it would be hard to actually be able to do it. Some consultants gave the idea that we could do it at the Moose, the coffee shop we have on campus, others said we could do it in our new space by handing out the coffee we already have, others said we could do it elsewhere in the library maybe, while some said we could do it in coffee shops outside near the campus. Lots said they would like to do this for the evening hours to get more students to come in. Some think we should only do this on certain days because they worry about the popularity of it, and if many of the writers would be willing to buy coffee at all. Some think it would be hard to implement in our space because of how limiting it is.

All in all, this is an idea that is well liked by our team and is something we should consider because it could help us get more students to come in. This is something thought that needs to be carefully, rigorously, and thoughtfully planned out before we try and implement it in any way.

Additional Thoughts

Mostly the consultants said the same things they said in the other long answer questions like more hours on Fridays, more evening hours, and be more friendly to writers coming in by offering things like coffee. Some consultants said how they already like how the schedule is now. One was wondering how our hours fit with study table hours, and another said having a more memorable/consistent schedule would help students know better when we are open. One consultant talked about how we could be open some days in the morning and other days in the afternoon. This could be for popularity of days.

Mostly the same things were said in previous questions so a schedule like the one I mentioned in the first long answer question (Consultants Ideas for When the Writing Center Should be Open) would apply with these answers from the consultants. They mostly just gave some answers to how we can change the schedule, and the rest were how to be more accommodating to students in various ways like more simple schedule, being more friendly, and how we fit with other services (like the study tables).

Writer Survey

The Best Times and Days if the Writing Center was Open 24/7

What I found interesting looking through what days and times the writers who took this survey think are the best times for the Writing Center to be open is that the most popular time was 1-2 pm for Mondays to Fridays. The second most popular time was 3-4 pm on Tuesday, then it was a bunch similar amount of choices between 12-1 pm, 2-3 pm, and 11-12 pm for Thursdays, Wednesdays, Mondays and Tuesdays. This is interesting that most writers want the afternoon times to be when the Writing Center to be open. It makes sense because most people are free at this time, also it is when the college doesn’t have any classes. Some survey takers mentioned times in the evening, and a few mentioned times in the morning. Most said how they wanted the weekdays, and some mentioned Weekends, only Sundays, as their preferred days.

What I take from these answers is that the Writing Center should be open from Mondays to Fridays, and potentially on Sundays. We should open on noon and be the most staffed on the afternoon with maybe 3-4 consultants. We should then work till the evening potentially till the library closes, or till late in the evening like 8 or 9 pm. At this time we should have 2-3 consultants on shift.

What Would Bring Writers to and Back to the Writing Center

Most of the writers said that the biggest thing that would bring them back or bring them in for the first time is if they were required to for a class. Another idea that most said was for their to be better signage to know where the Writing Center is. They also said how if we had better hours and were more flexible it would bring them in more. Many also said how they wish the space we had was more welcoming and not so awkward to come in and ask for help. Many would like to see the space be a lounge where people can hangout and talk to do some studying, and a place where people come to more often. A couple also said that we should offer small snacks, stickers, and some other small things to people comimg in and passing by to incentive people to come. Finally, many said that they would like to know better what each consultant had to offer in terms of help like which ones were for certain papers like Scientific or history. Also one said they would like to see the Writing Center help with more types of writing like code, philosophy, etc.

All in all, all of these suggestions should be taken into account so that we can make the Writing Center a more welcoming and friendly environment for all students, faculty, and alumni to come to.

Additional Thoughts

Many people said how they love the Writing Center and how it is right now. Many took the time to praise some consultants and other people working here. One person did reiterate how they would like more Friday hours, especially in the afternoon, for block students to be able to come in more. Another one said how they would like the Writing Center to be more flexible for commuter students so they can save on gas.

Overall, the Writing Center has a great reputation among many people around the campus, which is good and we should keep this up!

Conclusion

Before we discuss what we propose as the consultation schedules (one for overall, fall, and spring) that the AQWC should adopt, there is one important thing that needs to be discussed. That is about how certain consultants are much more popular than others. and. therefore. get more consultations. This is something that is especially true for consultants that are student-athletes. This is something that the AQWC should take full advantage of if they are not prioritizing this fully at this current moment. It is crucial that they tap in to the student-athlete body that we have on campus as they make up the majority of students on campus. We have/had consultants were/are on the swim, lacrosse, track and field, softball, and many more. The AQ Writing Center Coordinator should, in her best interest, strategically place student-athlete consultants at times that would be most beneficial for that consultants’ teammates to be able to come in. This could mean meeting up with student-athlete consultants and getting their input on when they think it is best they have their two hour shifts to allow the most amount of their teammates to come in. These consultants should also try and promote the AQWC as a resource to their teammates to get them to come in at other times. We can tell that many consultants do help out their peers, but most times it is outside of their consultation times during off-schedule reports. While we applaud them for wanting to help out their peers, they should be doing this when they are on the clock, not outside of it. This logic can also be applied to consultants who are in other activities on campus like clubs, theater, resident assistants, music bands, any kind of activity on campus. Spreading the word about how great and amazing the AQWC is will only help build its reputation and cause students to come in more.

These schedules will be proposed with the notion that there are no restrictions to what can be done with them. There are no financial, staff, or any kind of restrictions. We will propose a schedule that would happen in the perfect scenario for both semesters as a starting point for the Writing Center Coordinator to use to come up with what they think would be the best schedule that can be created. This report is mainly supposed to be a helpful aid for the Writing Center Coordinator to have as much information and facts as possible.

The first thing that needs to be taken into consideration is when the Grace Hauenstein library is open on campus because the AQWC cannot use their space if the library is closed. Here are the hours when the library is open:

Sunday 1 – 11 PM

Monday 9 AM – 11 PM

Tuesday 9 AM – 11 PM

Wednesday 9 AM – 11 PM

Thursday 9 AM – 11 PM

Friday 9 AM – 4 PM

Saturday 9 AM – 1 PM

Taking everything into account that we have showed in this report so far– all of the data tables, visualizations, specific questions– here is what we believe would be the best AQWC schedule for next semester for both consultants and writers:

The biggest key is that the AQWC is consistent with their schedule, this means that they should not have drastically different times for each day. The reason why is because it could confuse the student body and detract them from coming into the Writing Center in the first place. The AQWC should try and make coming to them as easy as they possibly can to ensure that students do not have any excuse not to come in.

Another key thing is that the AQWC should not start in the first month (first two weeks of the fall semester and first three weeks of the spring semester) of either semester and should instead open in the next month because they barely get any traffic into the Writing Center in the very beginning of the semester because many students are just starting their classes and haven’t got any papers yet. As can be seen from the fall and springs’ popular weeks graphs, the first two weeks of the fall semester are behind the one hundred total consultations tick mark from the past five semesters, and the same can be seen for the first three weeks of the spring semester being behind the one hundred total consultations tick mark. The popular months graphs for both semesters also show how low the beginning months do in terms of total consultations than the other months. With both months (August and January) having just over one hundred and fifty total consultations.

We believe that the AQWC should keep the same days that we already have been doing so far. This means they should be open from Monday to Friday. Taking into account the consultant and writer feedback (mostly the consultant feedback as we should make sure they are happy and satisfied with working) the majority of them have signaled that they do and would not use the AQWC if they were open on the weekend (Sundays). Sunday was the day with the least amount of votes for the best day writers think the AQWC should be open, and many of the consultants said they would like them to be removed.

The final general decision we made to all the schedules is to get rid of some of the morning and evening shifts from the schedule as they are not utilized as much as other hours. We do think that there should be at least one or two morning shifts (one or two 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM, respectively) available on two specific days as there is still some demand for these hours for the fall semester. For the spring semester, we think that the morning shift should be available for all weekdays– except Tuesdays because of the team meeting– because the morning hours are much more used than the evening hours in the spring semester. We also had to take into account that the weekly Writing Center team meetings are from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM every Tuesday, so no consulting can occur at this hour and the following hour to give the consultants time to get prepared or anything else they need to do before the hour.

Now for the proposed consultation schedules for the AQWC (these will be mainly based on what the graphs from the three sections have shown are popular. The writer survey will be taken into account but not as much as what is actually being utilized and shown by actual real world data):

Quick understanding of how we came up with the hours seen below:

Used the popular hours graph and kept all the hours that had more than 100 total consultations. Also used the popular hours by semester graph to visualize the trends of hours to see which ones should be kept or not. Also the best hours for the AQWC to be open from the writer survey was taken into consideration.

Used the popular hours and weekday graphs to figure out which days to have three or more consultants on them by seeing what are the top two weekdays and top hour. Also the best hours for the AQWC to be open from the writer survey was taken into consideration.

Used the popular day of the week for 10:00 AM shifts to figure out which days of the week should have morning hours by which week day had the most used 10:00 AM shifts

Overall:

Mondays: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Tuesdays: 2:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Wednesdays: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Thursdays: 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Fridays: 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Specific hours to have three consultants or more:

Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Fall:

Mondays: 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM

Tuesdays: 2:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Wednesdays: 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM

Thursdays: 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Fridays: 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Specific hours to have three consultants or more on:

Mondays and Thursdays from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Spring:

Mondays: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Tuesdays: 2:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Wednesdays: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Thursdays: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Fridays: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Specific hours to have three consultants or more:

Mondays from 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

Wednesdays from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM