Lottery

New in 1.27! Many new features and a new interface for Lottery Management was introduced in 1.27. See below for how to use these new features.

Introduction

Elentra's Lottery module is designed to allow learner input into the process of populating a rotation schedule for the clinical portion of a curriculum. Administrators can create a lottery, based on available rotation slots, and give learners the chance to rank their preferences and even swap slots within rotations between peers after a tentative schedule has been created. Each lottery incorporates its learners' preferences into a processing algorithm that produces 5 variations of draft schedules and a learner satisfaction percentage based on the number of learners receiving their top ranked preference. Draft schedules can be compared before it is selected and either further ranking or swapping stages are applied or eventually applied to a rotation schedule to then be published.

Additional features of the lottery module include the ability to exclude specific learners from a lottery.

Learners scheduled in a draft Rotation Schedule will be retained during Lotteries. This can be helpful if you need to guarantee specific opportunities for some learners (e.g., military personnel, learners with upcoming parental leave, etc.)

You can watch a recording about the Lottery module at collaborate.elentra.org (login required).

The lottery module does not allow learners to list their ideal rotation schedule and then have Elentra attempt to build it. The lotteries tool still relies on rotation, preceptor and site availability based on the slots built by administrative staff.

Sample Process

The following is a high-level overview of using the lottery module.

A prerequisite to using the Elentra Lottery module is building rotation schedules in the Clinical Experience > Rotation Schedule module. These instructions assume you have Rotation Schedules and Rotations set up and that slots with the appropriate preceptors, locations, and occupancy limits have been built.

• Create a Lottery for a specific curriculum period, then select a rotation schedule to determine the audience and available rotations.

• Build a Stage; this can be. Scheduling or Swapping stage. A scheduling stage is required and allows learners to ranking their preferences. A swapping stage is optional and allows learners to request to swap a slot in the same rotation with a peer.

• Optionally exclude learners from a lottery or prepopulate the schedule for a specific learner (this reserves their spot for them).

• Create a series of Options for a Scheduling Stage, one for each different arrangement of possible rotations.

• Open the lottery stage and make it visible to learners (lottery availability should also be communicated to learners through an Elentra notification or email).

• While the Stage is open, each learner logs in and ranks the Options in order of which ones they prefer the most.

• Close the lottery stage at the appropriate time.

• Runs lottery variations. For each variation, a potential draft schedule is generated, incorporating the learners' ranked preferences and schedule availability.

• Review variations to determine which is the most viable, with the highest learner satisfaction. The chosen variation is merged into the Lottery's working schedule and becomes visible to learners.

• Optoinally run a swapping stage to allow learners to request changes. This is restricted to swapping for the same rotation. Learners can't trade neurology for pediatrics, but they can swap to match with a different preceptor or location.

• The Lottery's working draft schedule is reviewed and published, bringing it into the Rotation Schedule.

Database Setting Options

Database Setting	Use
ce_lottery_enabled	Use to enable or disable the lottery module
user_menu_ordering	If you disable the lottery, consider hiding it from the learner user icon menu via this setting.