This is a log of recent changes so progress to update things can be easily monitored.
A trouble/comment ticket system is now installed to allow user feedback. You must be logged in to use it.
| Subject: | Mission:Teach as a Recruiting Tool | | | Notation: | Sue from a partner school writes,
Our school profile is up to date, and we are just starting our recruitment season now, so I have poster vacancies for August in the last week.
We really appreciate Mission:Teach as a recruiting tool, and many of our current teachers have been recruited through Mission:Teach. However we would really like to see more UK teachers using Mission:Teach as we follow the UK curriculum.
We anticipate one or two additional vacancies as some teachers are still praying about extending beyond their current contracts. I will be looking daily at teachers who have posted their details, and contacting those whose profiles fit our needs.
Bless you for your valued work, | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2012-01-26 |
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| Subject: | Job Management Utilities for Schools | | | Notation: | The original schema was built for schools to add and edit job assignments. To enter a new assignment, an old record can be edits. That was inconvenient or not intuitive to some. Consequently, a tool was requested to be able to delete some job records.
This tool is now built. It includes a "Grade" rating for a job assignment record. A job record has about 40 fields to complete. A record with at least 32 entries gets an "A" and less than 8 fields completed is rated as an "F". | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2011-03-25 |
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| Subject: | Mission:Teach Faster | | | Notation: | There were a number of overhead utilities that were not core to the function of Mission:TEACH. These were removed or streamlined to enhance the speed of this website. It has never been faster. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2011-02-28 |
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| Subject: | Logic Enhancements | | | Notation: | Two enhancements were made:
1) In both the public and password-protected areas, Job Titles that were set by the School to not display were showing up in the list. The original design was set so that the job detail would not be seen if the job title was clicked if the school choose to not display the record. These trivial job listings are now not shown in either area.
2) If a job application was pending for a school account that was disabled, the application listing and detail was still showing in a teacher account. The teacher job application listing is now hides job applications for inactive school accounts. Job Application records will be restored if the school account is reactivated. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2011-01-30 |
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| Subject: | Job Search Utility Improvement | | | Notation: | The Job Search utility was showing jobs that were expired and jobs were shown for inactive school accounts. The display of jobs in the search area is now improved. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2011-01-15 |
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| Subject: | Teachers without Profiles Removed | | | Notation: | There were over 6000 teacher accounts in Mission:Teach that had registered in 2009 and earlier, but never completed the minimum information for a profile. These records were effectively not useful and were slowing down the system. Consequently, these were removed from the system. Their names and email addresses were saved in another table. (Some email addresses are clearly bogus.)
A utility was prepared to send a notice to these that their account has been removed. If they would like to register again, they are welcome do so. This notice will effectively be an advertisement about Mission:Teach and inviting them to spread the word. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2011-01-14 |
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| Subject: | Teacher Advanced Search Utility Adjusted | | | Notation: | The Teacher Advanced Search utility allows an agency or school to do a search for teachers by any choice field available to teachers.
This utility is now adjusted to eliminate from the display list any candidate where the account has been blocked. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-10-12 |
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| Subject: | Blocked Users Not Shown in Applications List | | | Notation: | If a teacher or school user has been blocked, any existing applications are now eliminated.
Typically a teacher account is blocked for violating terms of service by not providing truthful information.
Typically a school account is blocked for non-pyament. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-10-10 |
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| Subject: | New Search Features Modified | | | Notation: | The new search features for Schools and Agencies are now modified to eliminate from view any Teacher records that are blocked. If a Teacher record is found that is fishy or that is discovered to be falsified, let Mission:Teach know so that the account can be blocked. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-10-05 |
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| Subject: | Text on Static Pages Modified | | | Notation: | The text on the static pages has been modified to upgrade the presentation and make the colors more consistent with the design theme. If you discover pages with text that could be more clear or more complete, let Mission:Teach know. Thanks. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-10-04 |
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| Subject: | Application List Helps | | | Notation: | The Applications List panel for Agencies, Schools and Teachers is now very different in each case. Consequently, the Explanation HELPS are now made specific for each user type. The user must be logged into the account to view the Applications List and, thereby, view the pop-up HELPS panel. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-09-07 |
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| Subject: | Application Management Utilities for Schools | | | Notation: | A utility was added to allow schools to manage applications. Any one candidate can apply for multiple positions. It is now possible for the school to re-set the candidate status. Setting a candidate to a FINAL status, whether, NOT A FIT, ACCEPTED or POSITION FILLED, removes the application from the active Application List area. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-09-06 |
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| Subject: | Registration Modified to Include Country of Citizenship | | | Notation: | To encourage the completion of one of the required fields, Country of Citizenship, is now added to the registration form. A person now enters their name, email, username and password along with the country where they live or have their citizenship. It is judged that most will provide their country as a fee for entry, where as they may not discover they have to do so in the profile area. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-09-05 |
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| Subject: | Requiring Certain Teacher Fields | | | Notation: | Teacher applicants that do not complete the required fields cannot be viewed. To be able to view more teachers the number of required fields was reduced about a year ago. A few more are now added back. This action is to reduce recruiting frustration as a minimum amount of data is needed to know whether to contact a person or not.
The list of required fields now includes country of citizenship, teacher preferences, teaching experience, and English language skill. As a result of this action, some candidate records previously seen may now be hidden.
This modified action will tend to separate out the tire-kickers from those more serious. There are over 1000 entries where people have signed in the simple front-end screen, but never went ahead to verify their email address, the next step. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-09-02 |
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| Subject: | Agency View Only Area Improvement | | | Notation: | An improvement was made to the area where an agency administrator enters a view-only user. When a new view-only user is added, the new user and the agency Key Contact person receive an email stating that an account has been created, reporting the username and password along with the URL where to log in.
The view-only agency user gets enough information to contact and recruit a candidate as a representative of an agency without being able to adjust agency profile information. This is a useful utility for agencies with regional or international representatives active in recruiting teachers. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-07-14 |
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| Subject: | Enhanced Candidate Management Tools | | | Notation: | The tools at Find Candidates by Name are enhanced for both Agencies and Schools. There are more options to
1) Search teachers with minimum fields entered indicating a serious candidate.
2) Search for teachers that have submitted one or more applications. If the # of applications is clicked a pop up box allows easy management of the status and making notes. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-06-06 |
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| Subject: | Account Expiration Reminder for Agencies | | | Notation: | The account expiration date for an agency is now displayed the first account page upon login. In the case of schools the exists, but the account is automatically set to blocked of payment is not recorded within 30 days after expiration.
For agencies reminder is displayed but the automatic account blocking feature is not implemented, yet.
| | Note By: | ACSI | 2010-06-05 |
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| Subject: | Agency Utilities Added | | | Notation: | New tools are added to enhance the agency search experience. There are also new tools to more easily manage applications by affiliated school.
It is now possible to do sophisticated searches for teacher candidates, search by name fragment. These tools are similar to those added for schools in the first quarter of 2010.
Another enhancement is to hide teacher records that are assigned a final disposition are now not seen in the applications list. They can be reassigned to an active category, if necessary. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-06-04 |
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| Subject: | Category POSITION FILLED Added | | | Notation: | A final disposition category POSITION FILLED was added as suggested below. This is another way for a school to remove a qualified candidate from the active list as suggested below.
Gene, a recruiter, wrote:
On the Applications List, for the Actions, would it be possible in the future to add "Position Filled"? The only choices currently for removing someone from the list is "Not a Fit" or "Accepted" and these responses are sent to the applicants. It may be that they are a fit but the position is filled by another applicant. To me, "Not a Fit" says they are not qualified and should not try again in the future if a similar position opened up.
| | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-05-28 |
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| Subject: | School Recruiting Success | | | Notation: | The same school (see the note just below) writes:
Well, actually I responded to you very quickly for I am busy today. But, yes, we do use the tools available to us through the Mission Teach website. That is what I meant by mining ... mining using the tools available to use for us from Mission:Teach.
I do not know how many people we hire from Mission:Teach each year. But it is a fair amount.
We really enjoy your service.
Thanks for serving ... we greatly appreciate your partnership.
| | Note By: | Misson:Teach | 2010-04-30 |
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| Subject: | School Tools | | | Notation: | We wrote to a school:
We received an urgent email message looking for teachers. Are you exploring the matches in missionteach.com ?
There are quite a few candidates there that have applied to your school. But it does not seem that any one is responding or working it. At least not as was intended on that website. Many candidates look very promising. Is some assistance needed? Our records show the key contact person is [not shown]. Is that correct?
The school replied:
Yes, thank you for your suggestion. We mine the mission teach database daily.
Mission:Teach replied further:
Wow. OK. I guess you take the information and contact candidates outside the Mission:Teach system. That is fine. Whatever works. Please notice that there are new tools in place to make the site work more effectively for you -- including some powerful and useful search utilities. For example, it is possible to search for Art Teachers and save the search selection criteria. There are quite a few options to select among. That makes it easier to reconstruct the qualified list from candidates that may have entered a profile in the past. We would urge you to mine more than the more recent entries. Let us know if we can be of assistance.
How has been your experience in getting candidates from Mission:Teach ? | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-04-29 |
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| Subject: | Stats View | | | Notation: | After two years of operations, it is now meaningful to add a statistics page to view the use of Mission:Teach since its start Spring of 2008.
To see the results, from the navigation at the left of the HOME page, click on Register > Teacher Statistics | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-03-10 |
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| Subject: | Logos Added | | | Notation: | A page of Logos are now added for use by schools and mission agencies. Part of the terms of partnership is to have a link back to missionteach.com The logo page is intended to facilitate that requirement. The link to the page of logos can be found as a secondary link under the About Us section. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-03-01 |
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| Subject: | Teacher Search Utility For Schools Now Completed | | | Notation: | An extensive utility designed for schools to find teachers is now in place. This tool allows a quick view of candidates meeting the search criteria. It also allows the school to send a quick email that is an expression of interest to a candidate. Comments by school users on this and other new utilities are welcome. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-02-28 |
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| Subject: | Applicant Processing Stages | | | Notation: | Two new processing stages were added to further assist in processing job request applications. These include IN PROCESS and ACCEPTED. The term REJECTED is replaced with a better term, NOT A FIT.
If a candidate status is changed to a final disposition, that is NOT A FIT, ACCEPTED, or POSITION FILLED that name is removed from the list on the View Profile page. Note that when a job request for one position is processed for any candidate, the process status for other job requests are not affected for that or any other candidate. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-02-22 |
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| Subject: | Utility Added for Schools to Manage Applications | | | Notation: | A link is added on the school menu that takes the school web administrator to a utility that manages job applications. It shows all applications on one page and has the utility to change the match designation and add notes relative to the applicant.
This utility allows the list to be filtered by a STATUS designation and allows the list to be sorted in several ways. Further, the clicking on the candidate name or job title displays a popup box with the detail of the teacher profile or job assignment, respectively. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-02-22 |
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| Subject: | Schools without Affiliation | | | Notation: | The processing system is designed to assist schools and candidates by having an inquiry be processed by a mission agency that is affiliated with a school. However, there are quite a few schools without an agency affiliation. The system for the evaluation of candidates directly by the school is now enhanced for e-z processing.
Further, an administrative tool is now built to communicate directly to schools without an agency affiliation. This will enhance the ability of the customer service function for Mission:TEACH, that is ACSI, to interact more effectively with this class of school at missionteach.com | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-02-18 |
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| Subject: | Easy Viiew Feature for Schools and Agencies | | | Notation: | A new feature is added to allow a quick view of a Teacher Profile for easy evaluation. A pop-up box showning profile details is displayed by clicking on the report icon. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-02-14 |
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| Subject: | Teacher Candidates Fully Processed No Longer in Match Area | | | Notation: | Schools had noted that it was not possible to remove a teacher candidate from the match area. Those that are either NOT A FIT or ACCEPTED are now removed. The least in each category will be discoverable on a separate list. This cleans up the display. Those candidate records that are NOT A FIT of ACCEPTED can be managed in a separate area labeled: VIEW OTHERS.
The school <--> teacher match record remains in place so it is not possible for a candidate to reapply to the same position after final disposition of the candidate has been determined for a position. | | Note By: | Finishers Project | 2010-02-13 |
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| Subject: | Email Function Upgraded | | | Notation: | This site works by a candidate selecting a mission agency to work with that is affiliated with a school. The agency processes the application. There are discreet stages PENDING, REVIEWING, INTERVIEW to either NOT A FIT or ACCEPTED. Should HOLDING be added?
In any event, if the teacher candidate status is changed by an agency, the teacher received an email. Now the school and agency also receive that same email to be sure the message was sent. Of course, if the teacher candidate does not provide a current email address, s/he will not see that status change message. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-02-12 |
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| Subject: | Date of Last Candidate Visit | | | Notation: | Added a feature to show in the list of candidates the date of last visit to the password-protected area of the website for a Candidate. This was a feature requested by schools and agencies. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-02-12 |
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| Subject: | Search for Teachers Utility Enhanced | | | Notation: | In the utility where school and agencies search for teachers with new needs, the list of job categories is now an active link to display candidates that indicate competency in an area of teaching, administration or other service associated with operating a stand-alone school. More enhancements in the search for teachers and teachers for jobs is in the making. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-02-11 |
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| Subject: | An Administrative and Performance Issue | | | Notation: | Certain records for agency and school affiliations and also candidate matches with job applications were not being removed if the school, agency and candidate records were removed. These trivial associations are now automatically removed when called. This will allow on-going auto maintenance which will improve the speed of service. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-02-11 |
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| Subject: | Last Visit Date | | | Notation: | The date a school, agency and candidate has visited MissionTeach.com is now reported as part of the display as a courtesy to each user category. This feature is especially useful to the administrators to assist schools and agencies that may be struggling with the tools that are in place. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-02-10 |
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| Subject: | More Admin Utilities Added | | | Notation: | Administrative utilities were added to view School <- -> Agency affiliations. Also to more readily monitor the activity of both of these entities. All to serve Candidates, Schools and Agencies better. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-02-10 |
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| Subject: | Repairs to Affiliation Connections | | | Notation: | Enhancements were made by the original web developers to the area where Agency <- -> School affiliations were reported. However, that had been broken for a season. That feature is now restored by the volunteer webmaster. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-02-09 |
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| Subject: | Home Page Changes | | | Notation: | Home page simplified and updated to render graphics consistent with the overall design theme. | | Note By: | Nelson Malwitz | 2010-02-08 |
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