Table of Contents
Overview
Viewing Sections
Adding Sections
In-line Merge Status for Sections
Deleting Sections
Configuring Sections
Department & Calendar View
Video Walk-Throughs
Related Articles
Overview
Once your course list is accurate, it’s time to configure your sections.
For information on how to view "Section Demand Analytics", refer to this article.
Viewing Sections
Overview | Rule Violations | Section Editing Modal
Overview
To access the sections of a specific course:
Navigate to Scheduling > Section Dashboard > Sections.
Click into the section you wish to view and/or edit. This will open the section editing modal.
Rule Violations
If you see a yellow alert triangle, that means the section is in violation of scheduling rules set by your Admin.
This typically indicates that something is missing or in conflict with something else.
You may hover over the triangle for a note about what the issue is.
You may resolve the issue by reviewing and updating the appropriate/related field.
Section Editing Modal
The Section Editing modal opens when you click into a section.
The modal contains all of the information about a section.
- The fields you see in the editing modal will vary depending on how it was set up by your institution’s admin, but generally speaking here are some of the fields you might see:
Section Number – A unique identifier for each section under a given course. Often will be sequential, i.e. 001, 002, 003.
Section Type – e.g. Lecture, Lab, Seminar
Call Number – Or Course Reference Number, sometimes used by students when registering for a course.
Instruction Mode – Most frequently “In Person”, “Online”, or “Hybrid”.
Campus – The college campus associated with the section.
Grade Mode – Most often “Letter”, “Pass/Fail”, and “None”.
Part of Term – Only applicable to institutions with sub-terms i.e., Summer I, Summer II, Summer III
Section Type – Most often “Lecture”, “Lab”, “Seminar”, “Discussion”, etc.
Alerts will display at the top of the modal so you can easily identify information that is missing or in violation of a rule. Note that if you submit a rule exception request that is auto-approved, the related warning should disappear upon refreshing the page.
Adding Sections
Overview
Unlike courses, sections will sync with the SIS. If you need to make any changes, you can create new sections within the Coursedog platform.
Note the course must exist in Academic Scheduling before you can add a section to it.
How to Do It
Step 1:
You can do either of the following:
Navigate to Scheduling > Section Dashboard > Courses; find the course you want to create a section for; and select "+ Section" next to it.
Navigate to Scheduling > Section Dashboard > Sections; click “+ Add Section”; find the course in the “Add Section Modal” and click “Add Section”.
This will open the section editing modal where you can edit all of the settings for your sections.
Step 2:
Input values into available “General Information” fields.
Some of these fields may be locked or hidden, and some of them may be fields that you will want to edit.
Any warnings or conflicts will be shown in yellow at the top of the card.
Required fields are denoted with a red "required" symbol in their label.
We do not recommend adding instructors, meeting patterns, or rooms just yet – we will add those later. Before adding flexible fields (such as meeting patterns, instructors or rooms), we need to configure fixed settings. This will help guide the assignment of those variable fields.
Step 3: Hit “Save Section” to add the section to the schedule.
Additional Notes
When adding a section, the new section number must be unique for each course within a term.
If you attempt to save a section that cannot be saved, a tooltip will display with information as to why the section cannot be saved.
If you try to submit a "New Section" request and you create a new section using an existing section number, you will not be allowed to submit the request.
In-line Merge Status for Sections
The section editing modal has the ability to display an Integration Sync status at the top of the modal. Learn more here.
If permissions allow, you might also see an “SIS Sync Tool” to the right of section details. Learn more here.
Deleting Sections
Overview | Best Practice | Note for Banner SIS Users | How to Do It
Overview
Most SISs do not allow for section deletion or discourage it. This is because they require a specific order of operations or checks (e.g. Ensure no registration/enrollments, etc.).
This means that when sections are deleted in the Coursedog platform, that change might NOT successfully POST to the SIS (i.e. Coursedog will NOT DELETE the sections in the SIS).
Section deletion is only fully supported for Banner integrations and non-integrated environments.
Learn more about deleting sections in PeopleSoft here.
Best Practice
With the exception of Banner and non-integrated schools, section deletion should be performed directly in the SIS.
Sections should be marked cancelled in Coursedog (i.e. “Section Status” changed from “active” to “cancelled”).
An admin should set the “delete sections” permission to “deny” for all roles at Academic Scheduling > Settings > Roles > (Select Role) > Course Editor.
Note for Banner SIS Users
Banner integrations support the ability to delete sections on the back-end. However, this is disabled by default (via Role Permissions) to prevent sections from being accidentally deleted if schools want such safety mechanisms in place.
How to Do It
If permissions allow you to delete sections in Coursedog, you can do so in one of two ways.
Option 1
Open the editing modal for the section you wish to delete; click Delete Section" at the bottom; click “Yes” in the confirmation modal.
Option 2
From the “Actions” column within the Section Dashboard, select the trashcan icon and then click “Delete Section” in the confirmation modal.
Configuring Sections
Overview | Section Relationships | Credits | Enrollment Settings | Room Preferences
Part of Term, Section, and Meeting Patterns Dates | Other Settings
Overview
What you do here will differ somewhat depending on the scheduling policies of your institution. However, the general idea is the same: Before assigning flexible fields such as meeting patterns, instructors, or rooms, you need to configure fixed settings.
Section Relationships
Relationships are used for defining time or room connections between sections.
It’s important to set up Section relationships prior to assigning meeting patterns and rooms, as relationships can impact your assignments.
Whether relationships are created by Department Schedulers or Admins varies from institution to institution.
For a breakdown of different relationship types and instructions on how to set them up, go here.
For Banner-specific instructions, go here.
Credits
Depending on your school’s configuration, you may need to fill out the credits field in order to assign a meeting pattern. You have the ability to assign fixed credits as shown below, or variable credits by selecting “Switch to Variable Credits”.
Credits are often tied to curriculum, and the intersection of credits and scheduling differs for different SIS systems. Refer to this article for an outline of the current Coursedog functionality, known SIS functionality, and features that we could build.
Enrollment Settings
Make sure all of your sections have a designated enrollment capacity. This will help ensure that the room selected for the section is large enough to hold all enrolled students.
To optimize classroom space, the room capacity should be as close to the section’s maximum enrollment as possible.
If the class size is larger than the selected room’s capacity, a warning will appear at the top of the section editing modal.
Whether or not you see a waitlist field will vary by SIS and template configuration. If you see it in the editing modal, note that you can disable it by setting it to "0".
Room Preferences
For each section, you have the option to add room preferences. If these are filled out, they can be used to help you later select/assign rooms based on type, building, capacity, and features.
Part of Term, Section, and Meeting Patterns Dates
The editing modal may be configured to capture part of term (also known as session) information for a section. Not all student information systems capture or require this information, so this field may not be visible to you. For example, Summer Term may have two parts, Summer I and Summer II, that are each four weeks. To properly schedule a section, a user must select the part of term desired for the offering.
When configured to default the part of term (PoT) from the parent term associated with the section, the start and end dates populated in the section template will reflect the chosen PoT.
The start and end dates for the PoT will cascade to any meeting times assigned to the section. This information can be found in the Set Details link in the Meeting Patterns & Rooms card.
The modal will display the start and end dates for each meeting pattern.
Additional Notes
Changes to part of term assigned to a section will be cascaded to both the section start and end dates as well as the meeting pattern start and end dates.
These dates are important because they inform the Coursedog logic that checks for conflicts in resource assignments. This is the order in which the Coursedog conflict algorithm determines what dates to employ when checking for resource utilization:
First checks if dates are defined on meeting.
If not, checks if dates are defined on the sections.
If not, checks if dates are defined on the part of term.
Finally, checks if dates are defined on the term.
Other Settings
Other settings will primarily be institution-specific, and variable across schools. Some potential settings include Section Attributes, Section Topic, Section Status, and Notes.
Department & Calendar View
See “Navigating the Section Dashboard” to learn more about Department and Calendar Views.