2023-2024 Classroom Scheduling

To help plan for classroom space needs, our School of Medicine Academic Technology Services team is now requiring any programs planning to use spaces for CME or for-credit courses to submit a course inventory. This will allow us to identify conflicts and work with groups earlier than in the past to hopefully accommodate the most groups possible.

• All for-credit courses for MD, DHS, and Graduate Education in the School of Medicine
• All Grand Rounds programs
• Any other programs granting CME credit

You may download a course inventory form here if you did not receive one for your department.

How to Complete and Submit Course Inventory

Submit Course Inventory

Click Here to Submit Your Course Inventory

Video Demonstration

Instruction Guide

1. Download the inventory form from the e-mail you received, or download a blank template here.
2. Open the file in Microsoft Excel.
3. If you received this through e-mail, some information will be prefilled. Please review the information, update, and add any missing items.
4. Enter the information as detailed below:
   • Program Type: REGI for university courses filled through the registrar, CME for Continuing Medical Education programs such as Grand Rounds.
   • Term: The term that the course aligns with. For university courses, this should be the semester the course occurs in. For CME and certain courses with block schedules that do not align with a single semester, this would be the Academic Year (AY).
     • For each course occurrence in the year, you will add a new line in the inventory. For instance, if course SPHS 984 happens in both fall and spring, there should be two lines in the inventory for the course. One to account for both your fall and spring needs for classroom space.
   • Dept Code / Course Number: The academic department code (e.g. MTEC, SPHS, CLSC) and the course number that make up the course code. This does not officially apply to CME Courses — a stand-in code will be provided on inventories that were e-mailed out.
   • Course Name: The official name of the course as it appears in Connect Carolina for university courses. The name of the grand rounds or program for CME.
   • Number of Sections: The number of sections of the course that occurs in the term. This does not apply to CME generally and should be 1.
   • Enrollment per Section: Expected enrollment per class section. For CME, the number of expected on-site attendees for the session (this translates to space capacity).
   • Time Preferences: The segment of the day that the course/program typically occurs. If there are multiple sections occurring at different times, select the time period that captures the most occurrences.
   • Cross Listed With: If this course shares classroom space with another course through cross listing, indicate this here. When filling the room reservation request later, instructions will be provided for dealing with this scenario to ensure duplicate requests are not entered.
   • Preferred Venue Type: The type of venue that is best suited for the course/program.
   • Preferred Venue: A specific venue or building that is preferred for the course/program.
   • Course Style: Whether the course/program is fully in-person, occasionally Hybrid, or recurring Hybrid.
   • Equipment/Technology Needs: Any specific technology that is needed in the space to accommodate the course. For instance, an HDMI connection to connect a laptop, or microphone with sound reinforcement in the space.
   • Notes: Any other notes that would help us understand the use of the space.
5. Once you finish, save the file, and then submit your course inventory using this form.

FAQ

Why are we doing this course inventory?

The classroom space needs of the School of Medicine are changing rapidly, and often this has not been communicated to our scheduling office until the last minute. We recognize that many programs do not have a final decision on course offerings so far in advance, but we would like to be able to capture your early expectations for the upcoming academic year so that we can discuss potential periods of heavy utilization with our partners in the school and communicate back to departments to recommend changes. In the past, we have not had the luxury of time as class registration has usually completed prior to requests being received.

Why are the items in the schedule due so far in advance of the semesters

The extended time is to provide better notice of issues ahead of course registrations to allow for potential changes within a department such as changing the enrollment limit or time of the courses to better take advantage of classroom availability. With the current schedule, we are often unable to accommodate requests during certain periods with shorter than desired notice to the departments.

Will this guarantee I receive a classroom?

Despite this effort, we can never guarantee the availability of classroom space. The primary driver for this process is increased classroom utilization and larger class sizes. Our primary goal with this process is earlier identification of issues for resolution. An anticipated benefit is being able to work with programs to modify parameters of the course offerings to have a better chance at getting space. This still means that in cases of inflexibility or needs beyond our capacity, there may not be a space available.

What happens if I do not complete a course inventory by the due date?

Course Classroom Requests will be pre-populated by the information on the inventories. Those that are prepared from the inventory will be prioritized for classroom space. Groups that do not submit an inventory by the due date (February 7) will still be able to request a classroom reservation form once we reach that period for their course or CME Program during the scheduling period to be able to request space ahead of space becoming open for other meetings and events.

Once the course requests are due on March 1, classroom reservation forms can still be submitted, but they will not be prioritized over other programs, and will be processed in the order received. Within reason, attempts will be made to hold to our standards for classroom scheduling (maintaining same location, using the preferred type of venue), however there will not be bulk reassignment of already placed events that are confirmed.

What if we don’t have this information available yet?

We will accept drafts of the expectations for the academic year. The new schedule has been selected to be closer to the course maintenance timeline for registration, so we expect at least a draft of the information should be available for the course inventories. See this comparison of dates for Fall 2023/Spring 2024:

Multiple people are on the e-mail I received with my department’s courses

Some departments do not have a single point of contact for all courses in the department. In these cases, we sent it to all who were associated with that department’s courses. The choice of the department will be to either designate one person responsible for the process going forward and submit a single inventory on behalf of the department (and later a single room reservation request), or if your department chooses, you can continue dividing the duties, and remove the lines that do not apply to you before submitting. We will maintain this information for future inventories and requests.

Course Inventories Not Received (as of 2/7/2023)

If you know of a course or program that is missing from the list that makes use of general access classroom spaces, please have the coordinator download a template and submit the information for that course.