Making Scheduling Work for the Registrar’s Office Marianne Schnaubelt Marianne Schnaubelt Associate Registrar Associate Registrar University of California, Irvine University of California, Irvine MOSIS Conference MOSIS Conference July 16-19, 2000 July 16-19, 2000

Overview b Introduction b Background Information on UCI b Classroom Priority Scheduling b Electronic Scheduling b Scheduling Policy b What Makes It Work? b Elements of a Good Scheduling Policy b Distributed vs. Centralized Scheduling

Classroom Priority Scheduling  UCI’s Policy in effect since the early 70’s. b General Assignment Classrooms Lecture halls Lecture halls  Medium and small rooms Technology-Enhanced classrooms Technology-Enhanced classrooms b Full utilization of priority rooms b Priority lost

Scheduling Process b Registrar’s Office develops a skeleton from a year ago or last quarter b Departmental schedulers build the upcoming quarter’s schedule b Registrar’s Office “assigns” rooms b Conflict resolution and finding rooms for homeless classes

What Made It Work? b Support from the top and faculty-to-faculty communication b Departmental buy-in b Scheduling preferences b Consistency and fairness b Enrollment statistics

Elements of a Good Scheduling Policy Politics Course Enrollment Management Governance Who does it? Support from the top Position of Registrar (faculty?) Position of Registrar (faculty?) Goals (examples) Course Database Avoid conflicts in required Need a central one? classes Give faculty preferred days Need to check the and times SOC against it? Maximize classroom utilization Need to clean up catalogue? Provide data for faculty workload Build historical record of reports enrollments Remember: Need policy that is fair and can be applied consistently Need a clear line of authority for exceptions Need a person with the power to enforce the rules and make exceptions

Distributed vs. Centralized Scheduling Decentralized Centralized Knowledge Base Locus of Control Workload Training

Advantages and Disadvantages Advantages Advantages b Puts the responsibility where the knowledge is b Makes enrollment management easier b Maximizes classroom utilization b Maintains course consistency b Distributes the scheduling workload b Lessens the hassled for the Registrar’s Office Disadvantages Disadvantages b High turnover in departmental schedulers b Differing skill levels b Hard to avoid taking the work back