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Schedule Development

Building a Student-Centered Schedule

Step 1: Identify courses scheduled to be offered

Review your 2-year schedule plan to identify what courses you have planned to offer for the semester. 

Step 2: Review the schedule data dashboards

• Estimate the number of sections you need: Identify how many students have each course on their Comprehensive Education Plan and how many declared majors you have for your programs.
• Identify the best sessions, meeting times & days, and modality: Review data on fill rates and success rates to determine trends in class meeting times, meeting days, and modality.
• Ensure you are offering the courses students need for their program: Review your program's pathway map. Ensure students completing your degrees and certificates can do so based on your schedule plans. 
• Plan to meet your FTES target goal: Identify how many FTES you needed in prior years schedules based on census numbers. Anticipate how many FTES you will need for this semester based on that historical data and any plans for enrollment growth. 

Step 3: Develop a plan 

Course Name & Number	Total Number of Sections	Number of Online Sections	Number of Hybrid or Hyflex Sections	Number of Daytime Sections	Number of Evening Sections
Engl 100	65	20	10	30	5

Step 4: Start Small and Add 

The first iteration of the schedule should accommodate what you are certain will fill, no larger. Add classes as needed based on enrollment trends.

• Develop an initial schedule based on steps 1-3. Do not add additional classes just to get all of your FTES on the schedule. Start smaller and add sections as needed to meet student demand.
• Watch enrollment trends. As classes are filling at specific times, days, and modalities, add in additional sections to accommodate students with the same or similar times to those that are filling quickly.*

*Courses must be publicly viewable in the schedule at least 30 days before the first day of class.

Schedule Development Timeline

Available Sessions

Fall & Spring Semesters: 18 week, first 15 weeks (15A), last 15 weeks (15B), last 12 weeks, first 9 weeks (9A), last 9 weeks (9B), first 6 weeks (6A), second 6 weeks 6B, third 6 weeks (6C), and 1 week as needed

Summer Sessions: 12 weeks, last 8 weeks, 1st 6 weeks, middle 6 weeks (starts with 8 week session), 1st 4 weeks (4A), middle 4 weeks (4B), and last 4 weeks (4C) 

Plan Using Standard Meeting Patterns

Academic Affairs is working to move toward standard meetings times to help students enroll in a full load of classes. Here are some guidelines and resources for scheduling using standard meeting times:

• Start classes at the top of the hour with a passing period at the end of the hour. For example, a morning 3 unit 18 week class can be scheduled from 8:00-8:50 MWF.
• Schedule in standard meeting patterns: MW, TTh, MWF, TThF, MTWTh, M-F, and one day per week courses

Resources for Determining Meeting Times

Calculating Contact Hours