Two features that would be very helpful for us in academic administration would be a ‘guinea pig student’ and 'student view' category.
“Guinea Pig / Student Example” Category: When we provide an orientation to Populi to incoming students at the beginning of the year, it is helpful to show them how to log in, find their courses, and navigate within them. We’ve done this by creating a “fake” student and registering him for the classes that our freshmen take. This is an easy enough solution, but it causes all sorts of hiccups when it comes to later generating reports, since our “fake” student is for all intents and purposes a real student to Populi. Could a “test subject” or “example student” category be created such that the “fake" student would not show up in our reports? Such a student category would be very useful for admin in testing out financial charges and to faculty in trying new things in courses.
I know that this has been commented on elsewhere (https://support.populiweb.com/entries/257156-Student-views?page=1#post_32594527) but the concept is connected to the 'guinea pig' functionality. Occasionally, students ask for help navigating certain features in Populi. Most frequently this has to do with the financial functionality of Populi. It is difficult for us to provide over-the-phone help since, even with academic administration privileges, we cannot see exactly what the student sees. While the example videos and tutorials on the Help site are useful, it would be really helpful to literally be on the same page as the student.
