STUDENT ATHLETE SCHEDULING AND DATA STORAGE SOFTWARE SYSTEM AND METHOD
Disclosed is a computer program product, system, and method for a multi-user student athlete scheduling system. The method includes the steps of preparing an initial schedule and making the schedule available to the student using a variety of communications devices. The schedule may then be modified by event schedulers who have a continuum of modification rights based on their access privileges. A proposed schedule modification may need to be authorized by one or more of the student athlete, an event scheduler proposing the change, and a student athlete handler.
This Application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application 60/732,822 filed Nov. 2, 2005, which is expressly incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUNDThe present disclosure relates to scheduling data storage and communication software. In particular, the present disclosure related to scheduling software used in education settings and sports settings.
Student athletes have many scheduling priorities to balance within an often tight timetable. Some of these schedule priorities include class time, practice time, medical appointments, rehabilitation sessions, film study, weightlifting, tutoring, and other events. It may be difficult for a player to manage all of this as well as their personal life. These scheduling priorities originate from several sources that may not communicate well, if at all, leaving the player responsible for juggling the student's own schedule. There is a need for a tool that can be used to assist student athletes and their handlers with managing the student athlete's busy schedule.
Briefly, and in accordance with the foregoing, disclosed is a computer program product, system, and method for a multi-user student athlete scheduling system. The method includes the steps of preparing an initial schedule and making the schedule available to the student using a variety of communications devices. The schedule may then be modified by event schedulers who have a continuum of modification rights based on their access privileges. A proposed schedule modification may need to be authorized by one or more of the student athlete, an event scheduler proposing the change, and a student athlete handler.
Additional features and embodiments will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSThe present disclosure will be described hereafter with reference to the attached drawings which are given as a non-limiting example only, in which:
The exemplification set out herein illustrates embodiments of the disclosure that is not to be construed as limiting the scope of the disclosure in any manner.
DETAILED DESCRIPTIONWhile the present disclosure may be susceptible to embodiment in different forms, there is shown in the drawings, and herein will be described in detail, embodiments with the understanding that the present description is to be considered an exemplification of the principles of the disclosure and is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosure to the details of construction and the arrangements of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings.
An illustrated embodiment of a system 8 for scheduling student athletes is shown in
Student athlete 10 may need to schedule, or have scheduled, one or more events. An event may be a one time event, such as, for example, a single appointment with a weight trainer, or be a reoccurring event, such as a daily practice. Events may be related to the sport of the athlete, but may be unrelated as well, for example, an event may be a scheduled class, a tutoring session, social time, or other event.
The student athlete's schedule may be stored in electronic form and accessed and/or modified using any portable or stationary electronic communications device including but not limited to a cell phone 12, a personal digital assistant 14, a portable computing device 16 such as a laptop or other portable computer, or a generally fixed computer 18 such as a desktop, workstation, or terminal. Each of these devices are known in the art and include standard interfaces for viewing information stored in electronic form such as a graphical user interface, text based interface, or other interface viewable on a screen, display, or other output device.
A scheduling module 20 may be used to store the student athlete's schedule and provide the communications, database, file storage, security, and other functionality described herein. Any server, application, or web interface or combination thereof may be used in connection with scheduling module 20 such as, for example, SQL server by Microsoft Corporation and/or Cold Fusion by Macromedia, Inc. Scheduling module 20 may be hosted on a local or remote server using known communications protocols and server architecture including, but not limited to general purpose computers having server software loaded thereon and including commonly known memory, storage, processor, input/output and communications devices.
Scheduling module 20 may communicate with one or more of the communications devices 12, 14, 16, and 18 of student athlete 10 and may use any known format for transmission and compatibility including, but no limited to HTML, XML, WI-FI, Blue Tooth, TCP/IP, IP, Ethernet, syncing technologies including PALM™ platform for personal digital assistants, mini-browser, local area network protocols, wide area network protocols, and other formats. Data may be accessed using a web browser, RSS feed, or other interface.
The schedules of student athlete 10 may be modified by authorized persons, referred to herein as event schedulers 21. Event scheduler 21 may be authorized based on permissions granted by student athlete 10 or someone handling student athlete 10 or be based on the event scheduler's role in the educational institution or the team. An event scheduler 21 may be, but is not limited to, a staff member 22, such as a member of the coaching staff, the scheduling staff, the educational institution staff, medical staff, or other staff. An event scheduler may also be a system administrator 24. It is envisioned that the scheduling task may be outsourced or assigned to a particular group of administrators, such as a scheduling department, which may include one or more system administrators 24. A teacher 26 and the like, such as professor, teaching assistant, and other involved in teaching a student athlete 10 may also be an event scheduler. Coaches or trainers 28 may also have scheduling privileges and access so that that practices, training sessions, and the like may be scheduled. An event scheduler may also be a therapist 30 or a doctor 32, who may schedule examinations, rehabilitation sessions, and other treatments. A tutor 34 may also be an event scheduler. A personal assistant 35, who may be assisting student athlete 10 in a variety of tasks, may also be an event scheduler.
Each event scheduler 21 may have different access and modification rights based on their role, or on permissions granted by the event scheduler's rank on a permissions hierarchy. A hierarchy may be established in a variety of different ways. For example, a general manager or head coach 28 may be at the top of the hierarchy and have first and ultimate control over the student athlete's schedule. Then a system administrator 24 may have the next highest level of authority, to enter, for example, a class schedule. Establishing a hierarchy and scheduling events may be accomplished both at the beginning of a season or a semester, or other academic interval, to establish an initial schedule, and over the course of the academic interval to schedule events such a tutoring sessions, rehab visit, exams, or other events.
The event schedulers 21 and student athlete 10 may interact according to the method shown in
An authorization loop takes place next if the scheduler has proposed a change (step 46), such as adding, deleting, modifying, or moving an event. Scheduling module 20 can determine whether a conflict exists (step 50). If a conflict exists, the relative modify rights of the conflicting events may be compared (step 52), after which the scheduling module 20 can either automatically, or upon student approval (step 54), make a change. The rules for which event trumps the other can be set a number of different ways. For example, superior hierarchy rights may automatically trump junior rights. Other rules may require notification to the event scheduler whose event is being replaced. Other rules may require approval from the student athlete 10. Yet other rules may require some combination of notifications and/or approval to more than one of the student athlete 10 and other event schedulers 21.
An automatic or approved event modification would then be reflected in an updated schedule (step 48). Notification of the new schedule may be sent to one or both of the student athlete (step 56) and the event scheduler who proposed the change (step 58).
As each scheduled event occurs (step 60), one or both of the student athletes or the event scheduler can take actions based on the event being completed. For example, if the student athlete attended a tutoring session, either the student athlete or the tutor can mark the session completed (step 62). Class attendance, required physicals, and study halls are examples of events that may need completion or attendance tracking. Additionally, one or more of the student athlete, event scheduler, and student handler participating in the event may annotate notes (step 64) to the event upon completion, so that the annotations are available to others interested in student athlete 10. Annotations may include work-out statistics, prognoses, grades, medical diagnoses, and other information that may be legally shared. In this manner, scheduling module 20 may be used not only to schedule events, but to track results of scheduled events as well.
An illustrative example of use of the present disclosure is as follows. A profile is created for Player X. Player X logs on the first day of his freshman year. Once logged into a site communicating with the scheduling module 20, Player X is brought to his personal page, which among other features includes a schedule interface. By clicking on his schedule interface, the athlete can view one month at a time or one week at a time. By clicking on an individual day he can see a graphical as well as text representation of his day. Player X's class schedule may be added to his schedule by members of the team's academic support staff. Also, one of the administrative coaches can add Player X's practice schedule to Player X's schedule. Player X's weights coaches can log on and review Player X's class and practice schedule and edit his schedule to include lifting times. After a meeting with the academic support staff regarding Player X's tutoring and study hall needs, the staff member can log on to the site and edit Player X's schedule to include study hall three days a week. During his second week of play, if Player X hurts his knee, Player X may need rehab for a period, such as four days a week. The team trainer can log on to the site, bring up Player X, and after reviewing Player X's schedule, edit the schedule to include rehab. Player X would receive an email alerting him to a schedule change. Player X can then log on, review, and print his schedule from Player X's computer, laptop, personal digital assistant, or other device.
Event schedulers and other users of the site may be able to click on a given scheduled item for the day and be able to see a detailed description of the daily item as well as specific information for the item (i.e. for a doctors appointment, directions, doctors name, proper attire, etc.). An item or event can be marked as complete to show other users Player X was in attendance or the task was completed. Details about how the task was completed can be entered as well.
Coaches and staff may have the option of making a schedule change that will only become a permanent schedule element upon confirmation of the change by Player X. For example, a trainer may want to schedule a physical for a Saturday during off-season. Not knowing the player's private schedule, he can make the change and check the approval box. The player receives an email with a link to the team connect site. Player X clicks the link, logs in, and is brought to a page showing him the potential schedule change and is asked to confirm or decline the change. His response is then available to the trainer.
In another embodiment, the ability to confirm a schedule change may be useful where there is a choice between two events. If the weights coach has reviewed the players schedule and wants to give Player X two possible times to lift during the day, the weights coach could send Player X two approval based schedule changes and the player could confirm his preferred time and decline the other.
Another aspect of the scheduling module 20 is to deliver multimedia content, such as a scheduled film session, containing content specific to a particular student athlete 10, directly to the student athlete 10 via a scheduling portal or other interface of module 20. Thus, the system may schedule on-line, interactive, virtual events in addition to the event described above where the student athlete 10 is physically present.
Interface 80 also includes a communication section 84 which may include options for sending scheduled events including address bars, recipient fields, cc recipient fields, bc recipient fields, options for sending events, device selections, and other options. In the illustrated embodiment, communication section 84 includes an appointment section 85 which shows the student athlete 10 his or her upcoming events or appointments, a to do list 86, and an in-box 87 for incoming messages, alerts, or other electronically delivered information. Interface 80 may also include a calendar section 88, shown in the illustrative embodiment as a month view for October 2005. Calendar section 88 may show other intervals besides months as well, including day intervals, week intervals, morning or afternoon intervals, quarter intervals, semester intervals, trimester intervals, or year intervals.
As shown in the illustrative embodiment, calendar section 88 may include one or more events shown as Event 1 89 and Event 2 90. Events 89, 90 may be clicked or otherwise selected using known user interface methods. Upon being clicked, additional information may be shown in information section 92, in a pop-up window, or in a replacement screen, and may include times, locations, participants, priority selections, multimedia content attachments, and other information. The particular information shown may be particularly tailored to fields related to the athlete activities of the individual being scheduled.
Although the present disclosure is described for a particular student athlete 10, the system may be scaled for multiple student athletes each with multiple event schedulers, and other users of the disclosure. The present disclosure may be further scaled to handle an entire athletic department for a university or other institution or association, with file permissions set appropriately, for example permitting football coaches to only see football player students. The present system may be extended to other uses as well, including training scheduling for horses and dogs, little league sports leagues, amateur training programs, professional athletic training programs, and other programs.
Page 100 also includes a student athlete names in the news section 118. The articles 120 may be entered manually by a system administrator or automatically be generated using RSS and other news feed searching techniques, generally known in the art. Articles may include text, graphics, photos, sounds, video, and other multimedia formats. Similarly, page 100 may include a university or institution or team in the news section 122, that contains articles about the university or educational institution using any of the news gathering techniques described above.
Page 100 also includes a today's appointment section 126 that has a “to calendar” link 128 for accessing the student athlete's calendar interface. Individual appointments 130 are displayed and accessible from this section 126. Page 100 may also include a university images section 132 that shows additional news and photos about the student athlete's educational institution, similarly from RSS feeds and other syndicated format news gathering feeds.
Coach interface 240 also includes a quick links section 261 that allows a coach to select a particular player in field 262 and then access that player's calendar, lifting data, and academics, via links 264. Coach interface 240 also includes a university images section 266 containing articles, images, and/or feeds 268 as described above for the student home page.
The add appointment interface 306 also includes a group selection panel 330 listing the various groupings and sub-grouping a coach may want to schedule. The categories and sub-categories shown include all defensive backs, all defensive lineman, all linebackers, all quarterbacks, all running backs, all special teams, all tight ends, and all wide receivers. Although these categories are shown, any group, class, or category of student athlete, staff, coaches, or trainers may be selected using the hierarchical interface of panel 330. The plus sign opens the category to show further sub-categories or individual player names. An entry or group of entries may be selected and added to the assigned appointment box 336 using an add button 332, and selectively be removed using a remove button 334. Once final selections are made, the coach or user can finalize the new appointment by selecting, such as by clicking, the save button 338 or cancel using the cancel button 340.
The present system and method can generally be used by student athlete players, coaches, and other users to manage schedules, communicate with each other, and manage training progress. The system and method can also be used by graduate assistants responsible for recruiting, scheduling students, and confirming classroom attendance. Data entry may be performed by administrators, coaching staff, or through communication with the university's general class scheduling system to receive, send, and exchange data.
The progress monitoring, including lifting data is shown as an illustration only. Other types of weight data may be recorded and viewed as well. Also, the system can perform statistical analyses, such are calculating averages for a particular athlete, a particular category of players, such as players in a given position, and report on comparisons to calculated averages and other historical data. In this manner, the system can be used by coaches to track and compare players.
A lifting activity for a selected student can also be compared on a percentage basis, such as by using the bench press chart 712. The legend 714 will show the appropriate designations for chart 712 replacing raw data with a percentage comparison, and graphical data may be shown in any format, such as the bar chart example shown 716. Additional charts may be displayed for other lifting activities such as squat chart 718.
The system can also be used to confirm class room attendance and class room scheduling for regulatory purposes, such as compliance with NCAA minimum class time or maximum practice hours per week requirements. Students or graduate assistants can record attendance and/or extract a student athlete's class selection and attendance reports in a format that can be easily and efficiently sent to such regulatory bodies. In an embodiment where the system is used to manage professional athletes or other collegiate athletics, tracking and reporting may also be performed for compliance and reporting purposes for equivalent regulatory bodies for those sports.
The system and method may also be used by trainers to monitor student athlete health. This may be done in combination with lifting data and other data such as weight loss, weight gain, water loss, and other characteristics to prevent and treat injury.
One or more software modules operative to, when loaded on a computing device, provide the functionality described above may also be loaded onto a computer readable media, such as a CD-ROM, floppy disc, DVD, other storage media, or other computer program product. The software modules may also be made available as a file download or operate as a plug-in to a browser, or be delivered as a web-based or ASP application. The software module may also be written or delivered via a Flash product from Macromedia, Inc. The term “computer module” or “software module” referenced in this disclosure is meant to be broadly interpreted and cover various types of software code including but not limited to routines, functions, objects, libraries, classes, members, packages, procedures, methods, or lines of code together performing similar functionality to these types of coding. The components of the present disclosure are described herein in terms of functional block components, flow charts and various processing steps. As such, it should be appreciated that such functional blocks may be realized by any number of hardware and/or software components configured to perform the specified functions. For example, the present disclosure may employ various integrated circuit components, e.g., memory elements, processing elements, logic elements, look-up tables, and the like, which may carry out a variety of functions under the control of one or more microprocessors or other control devices. Similarly, the software elements of the present disclosure may be implemented with any programming or scripting language such as Cold Fusion, C, SQL, C++, Java, Javascript, COBOL, assembler, CSS, Ajax, Fusebox, PERL, or the like, with the various algorithms being implemented with any combination of data structures, objects, processes, routines or other programming elements. Further, it should be noted that the present disclosure may employ any number of conventional techniques for data transmission, signaling, data processing, network control, and the like as well as those yet to be conceived.
While embodiments have been illustrated and described in the drawings and foregoing description, such illustrations and descriptions are considered to be exemplary and not restrictive in character, it being understood that only illustrative embodiments have been shown and described and that all changes and modifications that come within the spirit of the invention are desired to be protected. The applicants have provided description and figures which are intended as illustrations of embodiments of the disclosure, and are not intended to be construed as containing or implying limitation of the disclosure to those embodiments. There are a plurality of advantages of the present disclosure arising from various features set forth in the description. It will be noted that alternative embodiments of the disclosure may not include all of the features described yet still benefit from at least some of the advantages of such features. Those of ordinary skill in the art may readily devise their own implementations of the disclosure and associated methods, without undue experimentation.
Claims
1. A method of managing athlete scheduling, the method comprising:
- providing a calendar interface over a communications network, the calendar interface corresponding to a schedule of an athlete; and
- allowing one or more of an addition, deletion, and modification of one or more scheduled events by one or more athlete schedule user.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the athlete is a student athlete and the athlete schedule user is a student athlete schedule user.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the athlete schedule user is one or more of an athlete, a coach, an administrator, a trainer, a healthcare provider, a tutor, and a graduate assistant.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of providing a messaging interface in combination with the calendar interface, the messaging interface allowing the athlete schedule user to send a message to one or more athlete schedule user.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the message is one or more of an email, a text message, an SMS message, and an instant message.
6. The method of claim 2, further comprising a step of providing a student athlete interface, the student athlete interface including a link to the calendar interface and a link to a messaging interface.
7. The method of claim 6, further comprising a step of providing a player profile interface, the player profile interface including student athlete metrics and scheduling information.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the student athlete metrics are one or more of weight, height, age, and weight lifting statistics.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the weight lifting statistics are one or more of bench press, squat, and clean lift.
10. The method of claim 7, further comprising a step of allowing the athlete to add private events to the calendar, wherein the private events are viewable by the athlete, but not other athlete schedule users.
11. The method of claim 3, further comprising a step of providing a coach interface, the coach interface including a link to each athlete on a particular team, the link allowing the coach to view a schedule of an athlete.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein the coach interface further includes a searchable report interface allowing the coach to view any combination of athletes on the team by one or more of selecting a particular athlete, a sub set of athletes, a position, a grouping, or a class.
13. The method of claim 11, wherein the coach interface further allows a coach to replace a scheduled event with another event.
14. The method of claim 13, further comprising wherein the another event is a training event.
15. The method of claim 11, further comprising a step of providing a player availability interface for searching for available athletes during a specified period to produce a list of unavailable student athletes and a list of available athletes.
16. The method of claim 15, further comprising a step of adding an appointment to one or more athlete in the list of available athletes.
17. The method of claim 15, further comprising a step of sending a message to one or more athlete in the list of available athletes.
18. The method of claim 11, further comprising a step of providing a contact interface for viewing and modifying contacts of a player.
19. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of providing a lifting metrics interface for viewing lifting metrics of one or more athletes.
20. The method of claim 19, wherein the lifting metrics include one of an actual comparison and a percentage comparison to one of team average data and position average data.
21. The method of claim 3, further comprising steps of tracking each class in the schedule of the athlete, designating each class as a mandatory or non-mandatory class, and recording the attendance of the athlete in each mandatory class.
22. The method of claim 21, further comprising a step of generating a report of the athlete's attendance.
23. The method of claim 22, further comprising a step of providing the report to a regulatory agency.
24. The method of claim 23, wherein the regulatory agency is the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
25. A system for managing athlete scheduling, the system comprising a general purpose computer programmed with software code operative to provide a calendar interface over a communications network, the calendar interface corresponding to a schedule of an athlete, and to allow one or more of an addition, deletion, and modification of one or more scheduled events by one or more athlete schedule user.
26. A computer readable medium having program code stored thereon and being for managing athlete scheduling, the program code, when executed on a computer, causing the computer to:
- provide a calendar interface over a communications network, the calendar interface corresponding to a schedule of an athlete; and
- to allow one or more of an addition, deletion, and modification of one or more scheduled events by one or more athlete schedule user.
27. A method for multi-user athlete scheduling, the method comprising:
- preparing an initial schedule;
- making the initial schedule available to an athlete via a portable communications device; and
- allowing modification of the initial schedule by the athlete and at least one other user.
Type: Application
Filed: Nov 2, 2006
Publication Date: May 24, 2007
Applicant: LOGISTICAL ATHLETIC SOLUTIONS, LLC (Chicago, IL)
Inventors: Zachary Maurides (Glenview, IL), George Maurides (Glenview, IL)
Application Number: 11/555,921
International Classification: A63B 69/00 (20060101);