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Distance Delivery or Face-to-Face?

Preliminary analysis of the impact of the space reductions indicates that most courses of 50 or more students will need to be taught via Distance Delivery, with one exception detailed below. Overall section capacity will likely be reduced 55%-75%, depending on how many smaller courses will be offered online. Instructors will be contacted by their department to determine their teaching status for fall, especially for those who have personal circumstances making it advisable or necessary to teach online.

Flipped & Rotating Scheduling

Courses over the limit of 50 have the option to use a hybrid/flipped mode with cohorts attending alternating class meetings in physical classrooms. Sections using this mode of teaching will select "Keep Current Room" during the data collection phases. These courses will be coded as either Some Online (SO) or Hybrid (HY). More about Instruction Modes.

The Fall 2020 Re-Scheduling Process

Data Collection

The Registrar's Office created an OBIEE report/form that will allow each department easily communicate which sections will use Distance Delivery and which sections will need to keep the current room to practice Flipped Mode scheduling. This report should be submitted to the Campus Schedulers by 6/30/20. The OBIEE form, "COVID - Add Supplemental Data", can be found at: myWSU > OBIEE > Schedule Builder Dashboard > Schedule Builder > COVID - Add Supplemental Data. Instructions are available on the page. Email the Campus Schedulers if you need additional help with the form. More information on Data Collection.

Courses with a Requested Room Capacity of 50 or higher: If there is no notation on a large course, we will assume that it will be taught online and will remove the room. The course will be coded as Distance Delivery. More information about Instruction Mode coding.

Re-assigning Rooms

Reduced GUC capacities will require that sections with GUCs be re-assigned. This process is called "optimizing".

• The Campus Schedulers will remove all current GUC room assignments now for Fall 2020 in preparation for re-assigning rooms. If you need a copy of your courses with the original room assignments, and they are no longer available in myWSU, please email Melissa.
• Sections that have requested to keep the current room assignment will be re-entered into myWSU.
• The Room Optimizer application will attempt to reassign classrooms for all face-to-face courses.
  • The Optimizer knows your Academic Organizations room preferences from our previous Optimizing
  • In testing, we were able to place about 1/3 of all sections using the Optimizer.
• We will attempt to manually assign as many remaining sections as possible.
  • In testing, we were able to place about 15% of sections manually. Approximately 50% of sections were successfully assigned in test based on the current Fall 2020 schedule of classes. We are hopeful that more sections will be placed when we have the correct information about which sections will be taught without rooms.

No Room Available

If, at the end of this process, there are courses or sections left without a classroom, the Registrar’s Office will contact the department. Options may include moving online, moving to another classroom configuration, or possibly moving to another day or time.

What about Department Rooms?

Departments will manage department space scheduling. Please follow the normal procedure, and leave a Notes/Request in Maintain Schedule of Classes for department room updates. If you would like a GUC, please leave a Notes/Request. If this is done before we Optimize, the course will be included in the first run of Optimizer.

Will we get our large room back?

Large sections are traditionally taught in the same room from semester to semester. We have those room preferences and will be able to re-assign rooms to those sections when we roll to future semesters.