In many cases, lecturers would like to use the office hours functionality to address all of the students: previous, current and prospective. Right now, office hours can only be booked with a course / group and (if JF agrees) through the portfolio.
 
In order to match the needs of higher education everyday life, office hours should be bookable through categories as well in.

• This could be realised by a extending the office hour administration by adding a "Share my office hours" fucntionality that lets the user select categories or branches (category including sub-categories) in which the office hours can be seen and booked.
• This selection should be copied when a category / tree / sub-tree is copied.
• Since the calendar is not enabled in many category sub-trees, a new way of presenting the list of lecturers who have shared their office hours might be a good idea. This could either be realised by a new block (e.g. extendable tabs)  on the right hand's side "Available Office Hours" which contains an alphabetical list of lecturers. The usual calendar "cog-wheel" mode is, imho, not really an option, since the number of lecturers in an entire sub-tree will be by far hogher than in a single course / group.

Contact the following persons if you want to know more about this feature, its implementation or funding:

• Information about concept: (name, e-mail)
• Information about funding: (name, e-mail)
• Information about implementation: (name, e-mail)