Elective bidding
Allocate scarce elective seats through timed bidding rounds, with the whole cohort online and positions updating live.
Built for the people who run it
- PGP and MBA programme chairs
- Programme offices
- Student academic councils
- Second-year students
What usually prompts the call
- Popular electives are oversubscribed and first-come allocation is seen as unfair.
- The whole cohort is online in the same hour, which is when a system either holds or does not.
- Students cannot see where they stand until the round is over.
- Add and drop requests after allocation are handled by email.
What it does
Which of these are included in a deployment is set out in the proposal for that institution.
Demand round
A first round records which electives students want, before any points are spent.
Bidding rounds
Students bid from a points budget in timed rounds run on a three-stage timer.
Minimum required bid
Each elective shows the bid currently needed to hold a seat, so students can decide where to spend.
Live positions
Bid counts and standings update in real time without the page being refreshed.
Add and drop round
A final round lets students add or drop electives against the seats that remain.
Validation rules
Bids are checked against the budget and the round's rules as they are placed.
Schedule configuration
Administrators set the dates, timers and rules for each round.
Elective timetable
A scheduler for the elective timetable, and handling of students absent from the demand round.
Results export
Round results can be downloaded for the programme office.
How it runs, start to finish
An illustration of a typical sequence. Your own process is configured during implementation.
The programme office configures the rounds and timers.
Demand round: students indicate the electives they want.
Bidding rounds: students place bids from their points budget.
The system shows the minimum required bid as the round runs.
Add and drop round settles the remaining seats.
Results are exported and feed the term's registrations.
Where it has been delivered
Bidding software was supplied to the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode in 2016, as recorded in our published order history. The Indian Institute of Management Calcutta is among the institutions we work with today.
Frequently asked
Can it be adapted to our ordinances and regulations?
Much of what varies between institutions is configuration that your own staff control: the admission form, scoring criteria, fee structures, grade scales and curves, elective rules and feedback forms. Where a regulation needs something the standard modules do not do, we assess it as customised development and say so in the proposal.
What happens after we request a demonstration?
We reply to arrange a time, and ask which offices and workflows matter most so the demonstration covers those. You do not need to prepare anything. If you have used the requirements builder, you can attach its summary to the request.
What does it cost?
It depends on the number of students or participants, the modules you take and the deployment model. Tell us those three and we will give you a figure.
See elective bidding with your own workflow
Tell us how your office works today and the demonstration will follow that.