A Slop University research poster documents a parser that reads a primary school canteen's class group chat and locks the week's volunteer roster on its own, no convenor review required.
A group-chat parser decides who volunteers, and rewards typing speed over intention
A message read within two minutes of being sent is now nine times more likely to become next week’s canteen shift than one read an hour later. That figure comes from a research poster released today by the School of Continuous Improvement, following the deployment of a parser that reads a primary school’s class group chat for volunteer offers and swap requests and publishes the roster itself.
Dr Mirela Hanke, Postdoctoral Fellow and Deputy Convenor of the Living Dashboard, led the work with Dr Marit Osayande, the program’s Convenor. The pair trained the parser on two terms of canteen-chat messages from three classes, then watched the roster convenor tune its confidence threshold week by week to keep every Thursday shift filled — lowering it three times over the term as the alternative to chasing a stand-in by hand. The School counts the deployment among its clearest demonstrations yet of an instrument taking over work a person used to carry, offer by offer.
What we’re learning is less about parenting than about attention — who has sixty free seconds in the minute after a phone buzzes.
— Dr Mirela Hanke, Postdoctoral Fellow and Deputy Convenor, Living Dashboard
“The roster still gets a human signature,” Dr Osayande said, “it’s just that the signature comes after the shift is already locked in.” The convenor’s own read of who meant an offer, the poster reports, now mostly explains the roster to parents rather than setting it.
The full poster is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.6uuh7z.