Open Lab Signup: TAs, LAs

Process for signing up for open lab hours

Open lab hours refers to the times that these rooms:

Are reserved for TAs/LAs/Instructors to hold in-person office hours for these courses:

Starting with W23, we are piloting a new process for signing up for these hours.

How TAs/LAs sign up for office hours

First, your instructor will need to set up the calendar using these instructions. The link below is for instructors not for TAs/LAs; it’s included here just for completeness. Your instructor should follow these instructions first, which include creating a new calendar, and giving you access to it. The instructor should then provide you with a link to the calendar where you should add your office hours.

Then, to sign up for office hours:

  1. Below there is a link to a calendar that shows when Phelps 3525, 3526 and 2510 are available. Please open this link in a browser window.

  2. Take note of the times that the room is available in the calendar linked to above.

    You are encouraged to hold your office hours during the time slots shown in the UCSB CS Open Lab Hours calendar above, either in Phelps 3525, 3526, or 2510.

    The reasons include:

    • Providing a space where multiple classes are holding office hours allows TAs/LAs/Students from multiple classes to intermingle and help one another
    • It helps ease crowding in the TA trailer; the open lab times tend to have more space.

    However, if it is helpful or necessary for them to hold office hours at other times, please discuss with your instructor the possibility of holding them either (a) online on zoom, or (b) using the “TA Trailer”, or some other location.

  3. Add an event to the calendar for each slot during which you are planning to hold office hours.

    In order to keep the entries consistent and concise, please use this format for the title:

    • CS8, Chris Gaucho, 3525
    • CS16, Terry Phelps, 2510
    • etc.

    It is not necessary to include “Office Hours” or “Phelps” or anything else; those just take up space and make it harder to read the calendar.

    You may think that the CS8 is redundant since the calendar is only for a particular class, but please include it; we will be aggregating multiple calendars into one in order to check the room utilization, so it is helpful for the entries to be in this format, and consistent.

  4. You will probably want to make the events “repeating” events using “Custom”, setting it to be weekly, and then ending on the last day of the quarter, which for W23 is 03/17/2023.

  5. If you need to make “one off” adjustments to your office hours, or cancel them because you are sick, you should first communicate with your instructor and fellow course staff members (i.e. the TAs and LAs that also teach your class) as well as the students in your class; your instructor will clarify how you should do that. But, once you’ve done that, you can adjust the calendar event either permanently or for a “one time event”.

Example Calendars