Academic Scheduler Help: Course Editor
The courses database should contain a list of all of the courses the department offers.
One restriction the program makes is that a course is taught by a single professor. So in the case where you have
a lecture course that has a lab which can be taught by another professor you should create a course for the lecture
and a course for the lab. There is a course linker in the program that will allow you to associate the lab with the
course, see the page on the Class Linker from the Contents page.
To open the course editor select Edit > Edit Courses... from the main menu. When you do, a small
window will open which contains a list of all the courses you currently have in the course database.
At the top is a small toolbar with three buttons. The first is for adding a new course to the database, the second
is for editing a current course and the third is for deleting a course. When you add a course an input course
dialog box will appear allowing you to input the properties of the course.
- The department code should be short, such as MATH, COSC, or ENGL.
- The course number should simply be the number of the course.
- The course title is obviously the title of the course. This may be a more lengthy string. If your course can
have subtitles there is another facility for subtitling so use only the base title here. For example, if you can
have a course titled MATH 490: Special Topics with a subtitle of Galois Theory use Special Topics for the title and
the other facility for Galois Theory.
- The contact hours is the number of hours the class meets per week. This number is used for determining
if the class is meeting the correct number of hours per week. It is not used for professor workload
calculations.
- The workload hours is the number of hours the professor gets credit for per week. This is used for
professor workload calculations only. This number is not used for determining
if the class is meeting the correct number of hours per week.
- If the course is a lab then click the This is a Lab check box. In the same section of the course properties
you will see a check box labeled Use the 3 prep. rule for workload. Currently at SU if you have 3 or more course
preparations you get full credit for the number of contact hours (1/24 of the yearly workload per contact hour).
On the other hand if you have only one or two preparations then you get a reduced rate on the workload for a
lab (1/28 of the yearly workload per contact hour). This option turns that calculation on. If you do not select that option
then the faculty workload is calculated at full credit (1/24 of the yearly workload per contact hour).
- The force contact hours to match credit hours check box will make sure that you schedule the class for the required
amount of time using the red, yellow and green color codings. If this is not selected then the course can be scheduled
for as many or as few hours per week as you wish.
- The include course in workload will use this course in the workload calculations. Most courses will be included in
the workload calculations but classes like independent studies may not be.
- The this course has a subtitle check box will allow you to set a subtitle for this class. Subtitles are set for
each individual section of the course and can be done in several places where you can alter course properties.
To edit a current course either select the course and click the second toolbar button or just double-click the course.
When you do, the same course dialog box will appear with the course properties loaded. Simply make the desired changes
and select the OK button.
Once your courses have been input they will show up on the course list in the course assignments window, as shown below.
One technical note about courses. Courses are linked to the schedule so if you had a course, say MATH 100, and
you change the number to MATH 135, then all of the current Math 100 classes would be changed to MATH 135. Also,
if you delete a course any of those classes that were scheduled would be removed from the schedule completely.