Scheduling policies

The University has a class scheduling policy that promotes fair use of classrooms. While departments are not required to use any of the time periods, classes do need to be spread out across the day and week. The class scheduling policy requires the following:

  • Colleges must distribute classes evenly throughout the day, with no more than 3% of class demand scheduled in any one standard time block.
  • Colleges are permitted to schedule a maximum of 50% of their class demand using Tuesday/Thursday meeting patterns.
  • Colleges will check compliance with this policy using the Class Scheduling Distribution Summary report.
    • As an FYI, this report is a snapshot of scheduling data taken from CCS as of the previous night.

For additional May/summer class information and calculating instructional hours, review May/summer classes.

Please see the Collaborative Class Scheduling User Guides for more information. 

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General purpose classroom (GPC) assignments

GPCs are in high demand for the fall/spring semesters. When we assign classrooms, we consider classes scheduled with the following criteria first:

  • During the daytime using standard class times
    • 8:00 a.m.-5:45 p.m. in Minneapolis
    • 8:30 a.m.-6:15 p.m. in St Paul ; AND
  • Already has a meeting pattern; AND
  • No classroom is already assigned (including virtual rooms).

Only after the classes listed above have GPCs assigned, will we start to assign classrooms for the following:

  • Classes that are non-standard and meet outside of the standard class times (before 8:00 a.m. or after 5:45 p.m. on the Minneapolis campus; before 8:30 a.m. or after 6:15 p.m. on the St. Paul campus). Exemptions to non-standard classes are listed below.

Classes with the following criteria will not be assigned a classroom unless [email protected] is notified:

  • Classes that do not have a meeting pattern (days and/or times)
  • Classes with the components of:
    • Lab
    • Rotation
    • Field Work
    • Independent Study
  • Classes with the facility ID field in CCS is populated with:
    • A departmentally-controlled space
    • ROOM TBA
    • NO ROOM REQD
    • ONLINE ONLY
    • REMOTE

Calculating hours allowed per standard meeting time

According to the policy, no more than 3% of class hours should be scheduled in any given “A” time period. To determine hours allowed, OCM takes the total number of class minutes requesting GPC space for the semester and multiplies that number by 3%.  

  • For example, if your department offers 100 sections of the same class, each meeting for one 50-minute time period per week, your hours allowed would be: (100*50)*3% = 150 minutes (or 2.5 hours).

For B times (75-minute periods), half-term, and three-hour classes, if a meeting pattern overlaps more than one A-time period, the demand minutes are distributed according to how many minutes take place in each period. 

  • For example, a B-time period class meeting Tues/Thurs 8:15-9:30 a.m. would count as 50 minutes (0.8 hours) in the first time period block on both Tuesday and Thursday and as 25 minutes (0.4 hours) in the second time period block on both Tuesday and Thursday.

Non-standard exemptions

Departments are expected to schedule classes so that students have reasonable access to courses inside and outside their department. 
Exemptions to this include:

  • Classes on weekends.
  • Off campus or online classes.
  • Classes that start after 6 p.m. on weekdays.
  • Classes that meet on Fridays and use a standard start time.
  • Courses designated as "Graduate Career" in a departmentally-owned room.
  • Clinically-based Health Sciences courses in Health Sciences Classroom Services managed rooms.

Classes are not subject to standard times when scheduled in a specialized space (e.g., clinics, laboratories, rehearsals, studios, rotation, etc.).