Every term, signage needs to be set up in the Physical Activities Complex (PAC) to help examination candidates find their assigned seats. The signs are divided into three categories:
- “Permanent” direction signs — these signs direct people to Red North, Blue South, etc. Ideally, signs like these would be permanently installed in the PAC. For now we use re-usable signs.
- Temporary direction signs — these signs help people find the right place inside the gym. They are affixed in place by magnets and are re-usable.
- Posting lists — these signs are printed new every term. These provide a backup to the Web candidate examination schedule.
These signs are important because the online candidate examination schedule directs candidates writing the PAC to a specific corner of the building, and the room is very large.
Permanent Direction Signs
These signs are printed on blue (Exact MP Pastel Blue) and red (Exact MP Pastel Pink) letter-size sheets, laminated, and in many cases permanently taped together into pairs or triples where appropriate. The signs are as follows:
- “Welcome to [location]”;
- “[location] [left arrow]”;
- “[location] [right arrow]”;
- “To [location]”
where [location] is Red/Blue North/South. The paper colour matches the colour mentioned on the sign.
The source is a Word document of Permanent Direction Signs; to re-print lost pages, use PDF document of Permanent Direction Signs.
These signs are to be posted at various locations in the hallways of the PAC according to annotated floor plans (to be posted here). Scotch tape is used to attach to metal and glass while masking tape works for concrete.
For the most part these signs ought to be a permanent part of the PAC. The exceptions are:
- “Welcome to …” signs on doors to the main gym;
- Direction signs in the hallway between Red North and Blue North on either side of the master posting list.
Temporary Direction Signs
These signs help candidates find their seats within the main gym, and are as follows:
- “Where Do I Sit?” — these are posted on the doors to the main gym, above each door-mounted posting list. A PDF document of “Where Do I Sit?” signs is available. It is intended to be printed on yellow (Astrobrights Lift-Off Lemon) ledger-size sheets, cut into two, and laminated (each page produces two signs).
- Column letters (A–Z, except for I and O) — these are attached to conduits running across the front and back of the main gym, as much as possible in line with the rows of tables. At the front the full set is used, starting with “A” at Red North and proceeding across to “Z” at Blue North. At the back only “C” at Red South across to “X” at Blue South are used. The source is a Word document of alphabetical seating signs; to re-print lost pages, use the PDF document of alphabetical seating signs. These are intended to be printed on yellow (Astrobrights Lift-Off Lemon) ledger-size sheets and laminated (although our current signs are actually printed on Astrobrights Terra Green).
- Upper Activity Area signs — these are attached to the railings at the North end of each of the upper activity areas, and say simply “UB” for Upper Blue and “UR” for Upper Red. The source is a Word document of signs for upper PAC areas; to re-print lost pages, use PDF document of signs for upper PAC areas.
Posting Lists
These signs provide a backup to the candidate examination schedule page on the Web. They consist of a number of pads of ledger-size paper with lookup lists ordered by UW ID. Within each pad, each page is for a different time slot. After examinations are well under way for that timeslot, the page can be torn off to reveal the page for the next timeslot.
At each corner of the main gym, there are two copies of a lookup list for that corner. The copies are to be posted on the second and fifth doors from the left (out of six doors at each corner). Above each pad, covering the “No shoes in the Gym” sign, goes a “Where Do I Sit?” sign mentioned above. The corner lookup lists show only candidates who are supposed to enter at that door.
In the corridor between Red North and Blue North, there is a single copy of a master list showing all assigned seating locations. This is multiple pads depending on how many are needed, since the master list frequently takes more than one page for a timeslot. Pads after the first one will have multiple blank pages replaced by a single blank page.
To the left and right of the actual master list posting pads, a page of seating lookup instructions should be posted. This is printed on white letter-size paper and laminated. The source is a Word document of Seating Lookup sign; to re-print lost pages, use PDF document of Seating Lookup sign. Additionally, arrow signs identical to the permanent direction signs should point left and right as appropriate.
To print the posting pads, first ensure that all seat assignments for the term are completed, then invoke the function main() from the Python module uw.local.teaching.bin.submit_posting_pads, passing the term_id as a command line argument and setting the Postgres environment variables to cause database connections to be made to the production database.