To: Jeanne Bennardo
From: Robotics Graduate Students
Subject: Robotics Institute Tour Guidelines Update
Date: 12 December 1994
Re: Memo of 15 October 1991
The original memo (mentioned above) outlining
the Robotics Institute tour procedure recommended a re-examination of the tour
policy after a trial period. RoboOrg undertook this re-examination and voted
on changes to the policy at a general meeting on December 9, 1994. This memo reflects
those changes as well as the current mode of operation and, therefore, supercedes the
memo of 15 October, 1991.
With the exception of retroactive credits for the Tour Queue
Maintainer (which became a de facto exempt position under the previous
guidelines), the revised guidelines for Tour Queue credits are effective for tours
completed after December 9, 1994.
RI Tour Policy
Robotics graduate students will give general-purpose tours of the Robotics Institute to outside visitors as a community service activity. If the tour has a specific purpose or research focus, or involves a demonstration, then the appropriate researchers, faculty, or project members should be contacted to give the tour.
Giving tours is not an essential student activity so it should not interfere with academic or research work. The following guidelines attempt to insure this.
- With the exception of first-year students, all robotics graduate students
will give general tours of the Robotics Institute. First-year students are the
only group exempt from giving tours.
- All robotics graduate students will keep a current version of their weekly schedule in their .plan file which can be viewed by: "finger [userid]@[address]".
- the RI Tour Coordinator, a staff person, will first
solicit volunteers for a
specific tour by mailing to robotics-students@ri.cmu.edu. If no one volunteers for a particular tour, the Tour Coordinator will consult the
RI Tour Queue.
- A queue of the eligible students will be managed by the
RI Tour Queue Maintainer,
a RoboGrad. The student who has the least number of tour credits per "enrolled semester" (in Lieberman Queue fashion) will be at the top of the queue; the student
with the most will be at the bottom. The RI Tour Coordinator always begins at
the top of the queue when contacting students to give tours and
works down, without regard to the student's areas of expertise.
- Area of expertise preference can be used to decide which student to contact first, in the event of equal position in the queue.
- Students should be requested 2 weekdays before a tour is to be given. Students can accept the request or refuse to give the tour if a reasonable
research or academic reason is provided.
- If a tour is requested on less than 2 weekdays notice, the student may accept the request or refuse without explanation.
- If a tour is requested on a weekend, the student may accept the request or refuse without explanation.
- If no student is available to give a tour, it is the responsibility of the RI tour coordinator to give the tour, find a faculty member or researcher, or refuse the visitor.
- An RI guidebook will be maintained to assist tour providers. It will contain:
current queue information, maps to each lab, keys to necessary doors, and
information on each tour point of interest. It will be the faculty's responsibility
to provide up-to-date information on each lab.
- One tour credit will accrue for each tour for which the RoboGrad was popped
off the queue.
- Two tour credits will accrue for each tour for which the RoboGrad volunteered,
provided the tour was solicited by the
Tour Coordinator.
- One tour credit will accrue for each tour of significance (meaning
comparable to a normal RI tour) that a RoboGrad provides at the request of
his or her advisor (or through an "official channel" other than the
Tour Coordinator).
- Two tour credits will be awarded to the
Tour Queue Maintainer
each semester.