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Fall 2020 COVID Scheduling

Academic Room Scheduling

Fall 2020: Re-assigning GUCs

Next Steps: Phase 2 Data Collection due 7/10/20

posted 7/6/20

Departments should run the OBIEE report/form COVID - Add Supplemental Data and review their courses. If changes are needed, put them in the columns on the left side. The form has been updated a bit. 

  • Keep Original Room: If yes, we will pull the room you were scheduled on 6/18/20. If you do not change the Requested Room Capacity (RRC) to match the new room, or indicate that you are using a Flipped/Rotating schedule, then we will guess and send you a message. 49 Students is the Maximum for any room. Possible changes include reducing RRC, changing instruction mode to SO/HY, or changing the course to Distance Delivery (DD). We prefer that you make this clear. This is the last opportunity to opt-in to Keep the Original Room!
  • CV Instruction Mode: Only choose this if you are changing the Instruction Mode.
  • Flipped/Rotating: Mark this if you're updating a section and plan to use this teaching model. We will assume that you have looked at the new room capacity and are planning to manage the students. If it looks like you plan to do this, but you are not clear, we do the math assuming that students will meet weekly or bi-weekly in the room, and will adjust capacity if needed. If you have a more complicated flip/rotating schedule, note that.
  • More Information: If you want a GUC, mention it here. We are not accepting specific room requests. 

Room Optimizing has been Completed

posted 7/6/20

Melissa and Jill completed the room re-assignments this morning. Normally, Melissa spends a long time on this process and we are on a time crunch, so we did it as fast as we could. Our only goal was to find you a room within your requested room capacity. We found rooms for a significant portion of our class schedule and just 81 sections with a day & time do not have rooms. 

Sections that are using Distance Delivery (DD) or Videoconferencing (VC) with no students in the room, have a Facility ID of WEB_ARR. The Instruction Mode is not updated on all DD/VC due to the time constraints. Sheree is updating those and it will take her at least a couple days to complete this.

We ask that departments add SOC Notes for all Distance Delivery sections and ideally, for the partially online sections as well. We have added standard notes to the SOC Notes area for ease in adding these. Use Sequence Number 2, then type 3, 4, or 5 in the Note Nbr field. Select Copy Note to move it to the Free Form Text area and Save. If you need help, email us.

  • 0003: Distance Delivery
  • 0004: Hybrid or Some Online
  • 0005: Flipped or Rotating

Phase 1 Status

posted 7/3/20

The initial Data Collection Phase 1 has been completed. Campus Schedulers are compiling the submitted data and entering into myWSU in preparation of Optimizing. As most reports were submitted on the deadline, there is a backlog in processing. All requests, with the exception of Distance Delivery changes, will be processed by 7/3/20. Distance Delivery will be processed last as it is easiest and we may need assistance to complete data entry. Schedulers received emails from us describing issues that we saw. Comments or changes may be submitted via email or in the Notes/Request area of Maintain Schedule of Classes. 

Comments on the Spreadsheets

There were many interpretations of our request for information. We did our best to decipher the data. When we weren't sure of the intent, we made a best guess, and emailed the department to review the courses. Departments should review the new capacities for each GUC; they are much smaller than expected.

We did not accept any room requests during this process. Room requests may be submitted after we have completed the reassignment process.

Keep Room Selected 
  • If a section was/is coded P (face to face) then we adjusted the Requested Room Capacity (RRC) and Enrollment Capacity (EC) to be at that new capacity. If a higher capacity is desired, the section must be coded Some Online (SO) or Hybrid (HY).
  • When SO or HY were requested, we assumed that the section would used flipped/rotating scheduling and did the math to make sure the RRC/EC made sense. For instance, if the new room capacity is 25, and the section meets MWF, then it would be logical that the capacity should be 75, so the capacity was adjusted down if needed. With SO, we calculated and less than 75% and HY at more than, determining that these courses might rotate over two weeks. Some sections had enrollment that was already higher, and these were changed to Distance Delivery.
  • We did not review capacities in department rooms. Departments must manage these spaces internally. Room changes may be entered into myWSU Notes/Requests.
Global Section desired
  • The department must use an existing Global section and move students into that section. Work with Global Campus to help batch move students, then cancel the existing non-global section.
Distance Delivery (DD) desired
  • It is expected that DD courses will have a time/day listed for office hours, synchronous instruction, or other purposes. DD sections may have a combination of synchronous and asynchronous instruction.
Videoconference sections
  • When possible, we left the VC designations in place and did not change these sections to Distance Delivery. If the section was not meeting in a room, we changed the room to WEB_ARR (Web Arranged).
Need a GUC

When a GUC was requested, the room was left blank for the Optimizer. When the Requested Room Capacity was 50 or higher, we lowered it to 49. For courses that also were using SO/HY we put RRC at 49 but left Enrollment Capacity as it was or adjusted to for rotating schedules. If there was low enrollment, we occasionally lowered capacity to assist the section in finding a room. We created a chart to show percentage of spaces are available by capacity. Very few departments adjusted capacities to increase their odds of finding a space.

Room Capacities

posted 6/20/20

Room Capacity changes to allow for Social Distancing make it necessary to remove current Fall 2020 room assignments and re-run the Optimizer program to re-assign rooms. We will not be re-assigning Department rooms; the departments will need to make these determinations and request room changes in Maintain Schedule of Classes > Notes/Requests. You will find information about COVID19 Scheduling on our new pages.

Fall 2020 COVID Scheduling
Academic Room Scheduling