4.5 Musical chairs

If there are many students interested in one project, all but one will be losers.

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This bundle provides a mechanism for open and fair allocation of highly popular projects that has the side effect of preparing students for the job application process.

The way it works It is to everyone's benefit (staff, students, commissioning companies) to ensure the student best suited to any given project is the one allocated ("best suited" might include extra-curricula skills). In a competitive situation it is worth taking time to make that match.

The primary aim of this bundle is to optimise the match of skills to project, but its use also reduces discontent among disappointed students.

What you do is to use a competitive allocation mechanism for the projects that are heavily over-subscribed. Interested students are invited to regard the project as a job, and to submit a formal application.

Actual allocation may be done on the basis of the written applications or, if time and resources permit, by interview. The latter approach is to be preferred, both to extend the experience and to provide a more open mechanism. It is particularly useful if (where appropriate) employer representatives can be included in such an interview panel, both for the quality of the experience and because the employer then takes a responsibility, and consequent interest, in the identity of the student.

It doesn't work if the selection procedure is not detected by the students as properly "fair" - for example if it is rushed, or conducted behind closed doors. Feedback to unsuccessful applicants can alleviate this.

It doesn't work unless you can devote sufficient time.

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So: solve a problem of over-subscription by exercising skills which replicate allocation in the "real world"