@Enqriue, absolutely, I have too. They aren’t representative of all students. We as teachers should be attracting the serious students, those that aren’t come and go anyway.

I wasn’t referring to how the discussion started out Judith, like all conversations, the topic changes slightly.

I’m not diverting anything, I was responding to Monica’s and Holly’s recent posts and they have been posting about no-shows.

It really doesn’t matter whether one student never attends classes. It just means we already suspect he won’t attend. :)

The reason why Koichi constantly reminds of what can be done is because, as I’ve said, other teachers get over 70% attendance rates consistently and we want to help those that don’t achieve that success.

70% is not so good, if you think that my one-to-one face to face attendance rate is 90% (usually I am the one sometimes cancelling the lesson due to personal reason, not my students), but never never has a student not turned up without letting me know!

this is the problem: we do not know before entering a class or a session if we are going to waste our time or not. I am not asking you to change the attendance rate, I am asking for the teacher to know in advance if the class will be attended or not, not hard to do if everyone has to pay before entering and if there is a list (like superpass) of people who have paid. That is very simple!

Hey Judith – we’ve actually recently been talking about making it so students have to pay for a class when they register here in the office. The main issue that comes up (which I don’t really mind, but I thought we should bring it up with you folks) is that teachers won’t get paid as quickly for the sessions they taught.

Essentially, if we switched to pay upon registering, some classes won’t get paid out for 10-14 days, essentially doubling the time it takes for teachers to get paid. This would be to prevent fraud on the teacher’s part in a way that’s scalable for eduFire.

@Koichi. I don’t understand this “prevent fraud on the teacher’s part in a way that’s scalable for eduFire.” Please explain.

Essentially, if we don’t hold onto the student’s payment for long enough, we can’t be sure that the session ever happened.

Since we pay out on the same day every week, if someone holds a class on Wednesday morning right before payout, but instead of actually holding the class they logged in and logged out then ran off with the money, that teacher would be paid out because there wouldn’t be enough time to get the complaints from the students to know that this teacher shouldn’t get paid, and the students should get their money back. This means there would have to be a “holding” period for classes to make sure nobody’s committing fraud. It happens fairly rarely now, but as the site grows it will happen more and more, which means we’d have to find a scalable way to make sure it’s an easy problem to fix (and the right people get paid).

I got a couple of requests for tutoring recently from people who have newly created profiles, and have little or no info posted on their profile. I accepted the first booking request, and then I emailed to ask the person to tell a little bit about themselves and their needs. Because I got no reply, as I sit here now in the classroom alone 16 minutes into the session, I am not really suprised.
The second time someone requested me, I sent them a message asking a few getting to know you questions before accepting the session. I almost feel like, if they can’t answer my message to them, then I can’t reasonably book a session with them.
I am wondering if I should add that to my profile: “I like to have a short conversation by sending messages before we make our appointment”, or something like that…but I don’t want to make it complicated that people decide it’s not worth the hassle.

Yep, that’s the balance we’re working on. We’re working on something that we think will work, keep things simple, and give tutors more control over who can join your class. But it takes a lot to make these changes because the old code requires a ton of changes in the foundation, which messes up other things, and so on. That, and our engineers have a lot to do!

hi adina, it is a good idea to post that on your profile. if they do not have the time to answer your email, or they ignore the email, then they are playing and are not serious , ignore them. it happened to me many times too.

I don’t think teachers would mind…. right now, with pre-payment, teachers get paid after the class is taught anyways…. and, from experience, I had a couple of students who had paid the first class of a series upon registration (a couple of weeks ahead): I got paid after the class…. it would only be money in the bank and, at least, it would confirm students’ attendance (and if they don’t show up, too bad for them!) beforehand….

Why don’t you just pay on a 30 days basis as in the real world?That way you avoid any frauds?

This problem happened to me many times. Many new students here send me sessions requests and never show up. And also register in my paid classes and never show up, although I wrote on my profile that anyone wants a session with me should contacts me before to know what’s his level and what he or she needs to learn. Also when I send a message to ask them before the session starts with 24 hours, they don’t reply. So if Edufire makes them pay when they register otherwise they won’t be able to register or book a session except if they pay first.

Koichi, I am really amazed by this technology at all, at this point, those engineers are truly amazing!!!

Imam, yes, I think I will put it on my profile, but maybe extra small, so it doesn’t look like a big deal.

Monica, 30 days to get paid in the real world?? I would have to adjust in that case, but here we usually get paid every other week. Actually when I was a kid working at Burger King it was every week….but that’s rare now.

I just had that experience today. Now, I was just expecting a 1×1 English conversation, I hadn’t made serious lesson plans, but it was still a “blah” moment. I’m hoping the student will message me about it.

@Lyne – yep, you always get paid after your class is over, the problem is when a class is scheduled so close to the payout time on Wednesday – there’s no waiting period now between when those classes are held and when they get paid out, which means there are problems (even now) from time to time.

@Monica – That’s definitely an option. It’s what we do for SuperPass right now, and we have a holding period of 5 days (that’s why you get paid on the 5th of the month) to make sure everything has been taken care of that needs to be taken care of before we put out any payments. I personally wouldn’t mind monthly, but there was a big uproar when we switched to weekly, and I’m worried that monthly would be worse. Then again, it would kind of be nice to have all payments bundled into one.

What do other people think of either delayed payments (could be maximum 10-14 days before some classes get a payout…. other classes will be shorter depending on when those classes were taught)? The other option as Monica brought up is Monthly payments, everything all together (superpass, 1:M, 1:1) on the 5th of the month.

@Laura – actually, I have a story like that too – Back in the day (way way back when, like 8 months ago) I started doing 1-on-1 lessons (that’s all that existed on eduFire back then). I had 4 lessons scheduled on my first day, and all four of them didn’t show up. I had a few more no-shows that week, but after those people were weeded out, it was smooth sailing. I just never rescheduled with those people :)

Like I said in an earlier post, though, hopefully we have a solution, it’s just taking time to build.

As for being paid once a month, it is what happens in the real world if you’re self-employed or have a business (in Canada anyways) and contract with clients…. only employees on payrolls get paid every two weeks, the others send out invoices at the end of the month and are usually paid some 30-45 days later. Usually it’s the 2 first months that require to be a bit creative (because people have to work 2 full months before they see money for their 1st month of work)…. but once past this, everything soars…. :D

Oof, yeah, Lyne I hear yah. It takes a lot to get your money when you’re self employed :( I got lucky in one of my longer term self employment jobs. They were supposed to pay every month, and it only took 2 months to actually get that payment, haha. It was a fun way to work, but I’m glad it’s done for now…. now I don’t have to put away money for taxes on my own (i.e. save money like crazy 2 months before taxes are due so I don’t get audited!).

So far it looks like ‘monthly payments’ are winning on this thread. Get your voice in here so we can consider this better!

Once a month is Totally Unacceptable by me. If that were to happen, I’d just take my business somewhere else. That’s one of the benefits of being here. If its taken away…..

Its bad enough that Superpass is once a month….. ALL…NO WAY!!!

Koichi…. I was and still am lucky because I contract with my government (sometimes they’re slow…. red tape administration, you know? :P) BUT! they pay for sure!!!!…. and I have to say they’re pretty good (they usually send their cheques on the 30th day). Taxes…. that’s something else, isn’t it?…. I have a real good accountant and, with all my expenses and RSP, I don’t send my two governments (provincial and federal) lots of $$$…. also, here businesses and self-employed individuals who make more than $35,000 per year have to send money for taxes quarterly (if you send more, you get a refund at the end of the year) – therefore it’s easier to plan…. In my case, the bummer is the GST tax report I have to file every single month (I have to work for the government, i.e. collect their tax on services….)…. BUT…. I wouldn’t change anything to my situation: I’m my own boss and I work my way …. and between you and me, I DO have a problem with authority! ;)

Unfortunately I agree with Judith. I do feel as though I am giving quite a lot, with the understanding that this is a young company that I can grow with. I give free classes, I follow the forums to search for tips and clues to enable me to work better within this system.

It’s not just improving attendance rates. I understand the market, I have to give it time to establish a presence, get feedback, testimonials, experience. I appreciate that I can do this on Edufire. But, what should I do when a student books a 1:1 session with me and I know they aren’t going to turn up? It leaves me despondent. I know this happens in the real world, I’ve experienced it in the schools that I have taught in, but again, this is where the school steps in to take measures. If EduFire cannot do this on our behalf, we should be able to respectfully do it for ourselves and for each other.

Previously I registered with Myngle, and I must admit that I don’t really like the way they operate, it’s completely hierarchical, and they seem to have grown faster than they can really cope with, which results in a very impersonal and competitive atmosphere. I enjoy the openness of EduFire, I enjoy the forums, I like that we can teach subjects other than languages and I appreciate being able to network with the students and the teachers. EduFire has a lot of very positive aspects, but I think that the aspects of not being able to rate students, and of having our time consistently wasted not only lacks respect for the people that are helping this business grow, but also induces, in me at least, a sense of frustration and apathy. Is this in the design to wheedle out those who can’t hack the competitive edge of capitalism? The EduFire survival of the fittest?

Lastly, in regards to uploading documents, I have been trying. Please see this forum thread.

http://edufire.com/forums/3/topics/4391

lol re: the last comment, lyne

I guess I do miss being able to write off EVERYTHING, though. TV…. computer…. apartment rent…. lamps…. food…. my cat….

I got nice and creative last tax period :)

Totally agree with you Holly. Like I said, we’re working on something that we think is going to be a good solution. Still, there’s always going to be that capitalism aspect, though. We want the best teachers to get rewarded (another thing we want to revamp is the rating system, and we’re talking about student ratings more as well). I just posted on the thread you posted, too, Holly. Let’s see if we can figure this out. I was having that problem too, then I found out I was uploading gigantic file sizes, which doesn’t quite work. Another thing to try is uploading a PDF version – I think powerpoint (or most of the programs that do presentations) allow you to export to PDF, and that might help.

Okay, adding to the tally …. We have one absolute no out there in terms of monthly payments. Anyone else out there not a fan of the idea? Potentially you get payment-on-sign up in return.

@Enrique, what do you think about a one week holding period, where you get paid for classes you teach 1-2 weeks after you’ve taught them?

I think the delayed payment scheme is a great idea Koichi, [ sorry Enriche!]

However long it takes beats the hell out of waiting in a booked, empty edufire class!!

:)

What do you think of monthly, Johnny? It’s much easier from eduFire’s perspective, but on the other hand we know some folks want to get paid quickly. I mean, SuperPass is already doing monthly payments, and all that could be bundled together