Scheduling FAQs – Spring 2021

Q. What are the deadlines?

A. The first deadline is Monday, October 19. At 5pm, all general assignment room requests are due. Also, you cannot add dept. space in Banner after this time. Any room assignments/requests must be emailed to fms-courses@illinois.edu.

Course Explorer will go live for students all others to see on Friday, November 6. Priority Registration will begin on Monday, November 30.

Q. What do I use the spreadsheet for?

A. The spreadsheet is a three-tabbed list of all of your sections. It breaks down like this:

Active/Pending: This will be your working document. It is a snapshot of all active and pending sections in Banner for the Spring 21 Term. Department room assignments rolled from the previous spring in rooms where a physical distancing evaluation has been completed. All other room assignments were dropped. Please check with appropriate department to see if the rooms are available. If they are and that information is fine as it is, then there is nothing you need to do. If not, please remove the room assignment from Banner. The schedulers are responsible for making necessary changes to times/days/restrictions/instructors, etc. Changes to section data should not be returned to FMS.

Inactive/Cancelled: This is a list of Cancelled/Inactive CRNs that you can Activate or re-purpose as needed. Please make every effort to reactivate or re-purpose CRNs. If you are unsure if you can or not, ask us BEFORE making a new section.

IND: This is a list of Independent Study CRNs that are available for use or to be re-purposed. Again, please make every effort to reactivate CRNs.

Q. What do I do if a room assignment exists in Banner but it is not a room my department controls?

A. If a room assignment exists in Banner and is not a space your department controls, you need to confirm Spring 21 use by whatever method is normally used. If through that process you are informed that the room isn’t available for that section, manually remove the room assignment in BANNER and request a space from FMS.

Q. How do I receive priority room assignments?

A. Per the Campus Administrative Manual (CAM) Course Scheduling Policy, sections must meet during the campus standard teaching schedule beginning at 8:00 AM (50 minutes on MWF and 75-80 minutes on TR—see chart below for proper start and end times). Classes following the campus standard teaching schedule receive priority room assignments. Classes where it is deemed academically necessary to meet outside of the standard teaching schedule should be reviewed on an individual basis and scheduled in departmental space when possible. Peak Hours for general classroom spaces are M-F 10:00 AM-2:00 PM.

MWF8:00 AM-8:50 AM9:00 AM-9:50 AM10:00 AM-10:50 AM11:00 AM-11:50 AM12:00 PM-12:50 PM1:00 PM-1:50 PM2:00 PM-2:50 PM3:00 PM-3:50 PM4:00 PM-4:50 PM
TR8:00 AM-9:20 AM9:30 AM-10:50 AM11:00 AM-12:20 PM12:30 PM-1:50 PM2:00 PM-3:20 PM3:30 PM-4:50 PM

Q. Do I need to return the spreadsheet?

A. Only return the spreadsheet if you need to request a room from FMS. Delete all rows from the spreadsheet that do not need room assignments. Utilize the notes column. I read every comment before I assign space. If you are asking for a room larger than what has been traditionally given and there is a specific reason(s) for it, please put that information in the comments. The distance cap needed column must ALWAYS be completed. If it is not listed, I will return the spreadsheet.

Q. For the “Distance Cap Needed” column, what do I input if the section is using distributed attendance?

A. The “Distance Cap Needed” column would need to reflect the number of students that would attend class in any one single class session. If a section meets twice a week and has 60 total students who each would attend in-person once per week, you would list “30” for the distance cap needed.

Q. Do I send the spreadsheet back if I assigned department space in Banner before 5pm on October 19, 2020?

A. No, if you see the assigned space in Banner and on Course Explorer, you are done.

Q. I missed the deadline to submit room requests. What do I do?

A. All late requests can be emailed to fms-courses@illinois.edu. They will be processed after those submitted by the deadline and will be processed in order received.

Q. How do I tell FMS that I need a cross-list ID assigned?

A. Email fms-courses@illinois.edu to set-up or remove cross-list IDs or if you need to change your cross-list max. Those will be amended prior to room scheduling.

Q. Will our department have to provide a section list with information on delivery types (what was referred to as Phase I and Phase II in Fall 2020)?

A. No. You will simply make the decisions at a dept. level as to how you plan to execute your courses and sections in accordance to campus guidelines and make those changes in Banner. FMS will not be asking for or gathering section lists.

Q. What do I do to change sections to online delivery methods?

A. If the section is going completely online, you just do the following:

  1. Take note of the instructor info: UIN/primary/percentage. Remove instructor(s) using the “Delete” button in BANNER. SAVE.
  2. Take note of meeting row info: day check boxes, start/end times, automatic scheduler. Remove meeting row(s) using the “Delete” button in BANNER. SAVE.
  3. Change schedule type on first page of SSASECT. SAVE.
  4. Add meeting row(s) back on. For any meeting rows with days/times, the “Hours per Week” will fill in automatically. If there are no days/times on a meeting row, you will need to enter the “Hours per Week” manually. SAVE.
  5. Add instructor(s) back on. SAVE.

If you are doing partial remote attendance, you will need to have two CRNs reflecting each delivery type — one for in-person and one remote.

  • Re-use one CRN currently on your active worksheet and adjust the max to reflect the number of students for that delivery method.
  • Look for a CRN on the inactive/cancelled tab to re-purpose for the other delivery method. If there are none available, add a new CRN. This CRN should mirror the other one.
  • The in-person CRN should have the projected enrollment changed to reflect your anticipated in-person attendance (for space consideration).
  • The online CRN must have one of the online schedule types (OLB, OLC, OD or ONL (OLD available by request)). Max and projected would be set as desired. This CRN may (if live) or may not (if recorded) have the same meeting row as the in-person.
  • Be sure that the total max between these section does not exceed instructor workload or requested max as these will not be cross-listed together.

Q. What do I need to do if a section is in-person with distributed attendance?

A. In addition to providing the distance cap needed on the spreadsheet, you will also need to put the following in SSATEXT: “This section will have distributed classroom attendance with supplemental instruction.  You will receive an email from our department with specific attendance directives.”

Q. Do you have training materials on your website?

A. Yes! We have tips and tricks at https://registrar.illinois.edu/training-fms

Q. Do you have a list of FMS controlled rooms with capacities?

A. You can use the list on our website at https://registrar.illinois.edu/specifications