Class Scheduling Guidelines

The Office of the Registrar schedules classroom assignments in University facilities. The Office of the Registrar maintains a central record of all assignments within PeopleSoft, which is the only official location for the schedule of classes.  Academic scheduling is a collaborative effort between the Office of the Registrar and the Academic Departments, with the collective goal of planning a course schedule that best supports student achievement.  The following are recommended guidelines based on course scheduling best practices. 

Course Distribution

• Course offerings for each department should be spread evenly throughout all day and time blocks.
• Standard courses must be scheduled during the approved class time blocks to maximize classroom usage and minimize scheduling conflicts.
• Courses with multiple sections should be distributed between morning and afternoon, and across the days of the week.
• Courses within your department should be evenly spread between 2-day and 3-day meeting patterns.
• Corequisites should be cooperatively scheduled by the involved departments to avoid time conflicts.

Special Room Requests

• Faculty with room requests due to medical needs must submit their request for a specific room during the initial scheduling.
• All requests for classrooms with specific characteristics must be made during the initial scheduling.  Requests received after departments have returned their course offerings will be scheduled based upon availability.  
• Courses will be scheduled into classrooms based upon estimated enrollment needs. The Registrar's office will attempt to schedule courses within their respective buildings (engineering courses in CAMP, business courses in Snell, etc) whenever possible, however appropriate room size will be prioritized over location.

Enrollment Capacities

• Enrollment caps should be set appropriately for true expected enrollment at the time the course offering is requested. Reserved seating and the waitlist can be utilized to allow controlled enrollment during the enrollment period.
• Whenever possible, consider adding an additional section of a course, rather than increasing enrollment caps above 49 students.   

Meeting Patterns

• All lecture and discussion based courses should be scheduled into a standard meeting pattern time block. 
• Requests for non-standard meeting patterns must be submitted for approval through an academic department's Dean, with final approval by the Provost. Final approval will be forwarded in writing, to the Office of the Registrar. Approved non-standard meeting pattern requests are subject to room availability. 

Standard Course Meeting Patterns