Registrar's Office: Scheduling 101 - Course Resources

Greetings from Charleston!  Last week, we discussed how you can simplify scheduling by defining relationships between courses.  Today, our topic is course resources.  On the Resources tab of a course record, you can identify teachers and rooms that can be assigned to classes of the course.

Defining course resources is an important step in the scheduling process. How important? Well, let’s take a look at two scheduling issues that can occur if the Resources tab on course records is not up to snuff.

Issue #1 - Wrong Number of Teachers Scheduled for Classes

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• Automated Scheduling: "Some of our classes are taught by two teachers. Why did the automated scheduler assign only one teacher to the classes?"
  
• Manual Scheduling: "Some of our classes are taught by two teachers.  Isn’t there a way the program can remind me which classes require this?”
  

How to prevent the issue

Give the program the information it needs to meet your expectations. To do that, go to the Resources tab on the course record and do the following:

A. Enter the correct number in the Number of teachers for each class field.

B. Identify as many teachers in the Available teachers grid as the program needs to assign the correct number of teachers to each class.

What happens when the Resources tab has the correct information

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• Automated Scheduling: Unless the assignment violates a teacher’s defined restrictions – like number of classes per term – the automated scheduler will assign two teachers to classes of the course.
  
• Manual Scheduling: When you attempt to save a class before assigning two teachers, you’ll get a prompt for each term the class is in session.
  

 

Issue #2 - Classes Scheduled in the Wrong Rooms

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• Automated Scheduling: "Why did the automated scheduler put Biology Labs in classrooms instead of labs?"
  
• Manual Scheduling: "When I search for available rooms for Biology Labs, why does the Find Free wizard show me classrooms, not labs?”
  

How to prevent the issue

Tell the program exactly what you want. To do that, go to the Resources tab on the course record and:

A. Clear the Include homerooms of faculty specified as resources checkbox if the homerooms are not the correct room type.

B. Identify the correct room type -- or specific rooms -- in the Available rooms grid.

What happens when the Resources tab has the correct information

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• Automated Scheduling: The automated scheduler will put classes in rooms of the defined type unless none are available.
  
• Manual Scheduling: When you use the Find Free wizard to search for rooms – and keep the Only include resources selected on the course checkbox selected – only rooms of the appropriate type display in the results window.
  

 

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Turn to Knowledgebase for More Information

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• How to add teachers and rooms as resources to course records: BB261350.
  
• How to find free teachers and rooms (Find Free wizard): BB139745.
  

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Need Training? We've Got You Covered

We're Offering Six 1-Hour Instructor-Led  Classes About Scheduling in July

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• Registrar's Office Scheduling Tasks I: Core Curricula and Global Requests
  Tuesday, July 23 10 am - 11 am EST
  
• Registrar's Office Scheduling Tasks II: Create Classes
  Wednesday, July 24: 10 am - 11 am EST
  
• Registrar's Office Scheduling Tasks III: Manually Schedule Classes
  Thursday,  July 25: 10 am - 11 am EST
  
• Registrar's Office Scheduling Tasks IV: Automatically Schedule Classes
  Thursday, July 25: 1 pm to 2 pm EST
  
• Registrar's Office Scheduling Tasks V: Manually Schedule Students
  Friday, July 26: 10 am - 11 am EST
  
• Registrar's Office Scheduling Tasks VI: Automatically Schedule Students
  Friday, July 26: 1 pm - 2 pm EST