Creating the Schedule of Classes
This document explains the steps needed to create the schedule of classes. Department chairs, program directors, deans, academic support staff, and the Office of the Registrar collaborate to prepare the schedule each semester.
To request access to creating and editing course sections in Colleague, please complete the training, available online via Canvas, and email registrar@valpo.edu when complete.
Daily Class Schedule Template, Effective Fall 2023
Please use the Daily Class Schedule Template with 15-minute passing periods when creating the Schedule of Classes.
Follow any of the links below to navigate to a specific section.
Preparing the Schedule of Classes
Begin by gathering all of the details needed for the schedule:
- Course number
- Title
- Instructor(s)
- Class days and times
- Instructional method
- Requisites
- Restrictions, such as capacity or rules for “majors only”
- Permissions required, such as instructor
- Other details described in this document
The Schedule of Classes Archive is available on the Faculty & Advisor Information page. Download the schedule of classes from a previous term and use it as a starting point for creating a new schedule. The Excel files available include all of the details needed and serve as a great reference tool.
Please continue to coordinate with other departments, your dean, and any other colleagues who currently are part of your schedule planning process.
For anything that currently requires your dean's approval, please continue to request that approval before making a change.
Knowledge Base
For additional information, please read Using the Schedule of Classes Archive.
Course Changes
If your department has submitted a proposal to change a course, Faculty Senate will need to approve the proposal and the Office of the Registrar needs to process that change in Colleague before you create course sections with the new information. Creating new course sections before the change is entered in Colleague will result in outdated course details displaying on the schedule.
Effective Spring 2023: Valparaiso University uses Modern Campus Curriculum (fka Curriculog) to manage catalog and curriculum changes. Training and support are available through the Office of the Registrar.
Entering the Schedule Details
Using the VPN for Working Off-Campus
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Using Colleague
Administrative Links: Colleague UI Production
https://confluence.valpo.edu/display/AP/_Administrative+Links
Log in using your usual Valpo username and password. Search for the SECT: Sections form in Colleague.
Enter the term, subject, and course number in the Course Section LookUp field.
Example: 2022FA GS 150
If this is the first section of this course being created within the academic term, you will see a message stating “Record not found -- Reenter or Add.”
Select Add.
If there are already sections, and you want to create another, click the Add button at the bottom of the list of existing course sections.
If there are multiple versions of this course, select the active version (no end date) that meets your department’s needs.
Review each field in the SECT form and make updates as needed before publishing your schedule details in DataVU and allowing students to register.
Many of the fields will be populated with information from the academic calendar and the catalog, such as term start date, term end date, course level, academic level, title, course types, and requisites.
Use the notes in this document to help you make selections for fields such as credit type, credits, grade scheme, instructional method, section cap, billing credits, and cross-listing.
To enter additional information, such as instructor, class meeting details, the section cap, and more, click on the button with the page icon next to each category shown on the right side of the screen.
Section Designation
Enter the section number. Colleague uses the section number to build the course name (ENGL-200-A), which consists of the subject (ENGL), course number (200), and section number (A).
This information should be unique for every section of a course for a term. For example, there should not be two HIST-121-A sections in the term 2022FA.
The table below explains each of the standard section designations and how they're used in the schedule of classes.
Section | Notes |
---|---|
A, B, C, ... | Most common section designation - Course sections offered during the day |
EV, EVA, EVB, ... | Evening - Course sections offered late in the day, after 4:30 pm |
OL, OLA, OLB, ... | Sometimes used to indicate online course offerings Not required. Students can use Instructional Method as well as the "Online" filter in Search for Sections to identify online courses. |
X | Indicates cross-listing. Add to regular section designation Examples: AX, BX, EVAX, ... |
Initials | For Topics Courses: Use the instructor's initials in the section designation. |
IS | Independent Study |
Music | The Department of Music uses section designations to indicate specific instruments for studio lessons. |
Academic Terms
The term field shows the term during which this section is active and will be carried to the student's record when the student registers for this section. This field is populated using the term you entered in the Course Section LookUp above. The term is a combination of the year and a code from the table below.
Code | Term | Example |
---|---|---|
FA | Fall | 2022FA |
FB1 | First-half fall courses - Not used for most undergraduate and graduate courses. Only used by select programs, such as MBA. | 2022FB1 |
FB2 | Second-half fall courses - Not used for most undergraduate and graduate courses. Only used by select programs, such as MBA. | 2022FB2 |
SP | Spring | 2023SP |
SB1 | First-half spring courses - Not used for most undergraduate and graduate courses. Only used by select programs, such as MBA. | 2023SB1 |
SB2 | Second-half spring courses - Not used for most undergraduate and graduate courses. Only used by select programs, such as MBA. | 2023SB2 |
SMR | Full Summer | 2023SMR |
S1R | First-half summer courses - Session 1 | 2023S1R |
S2R | Second-half summer courses - Session 2 | 2023S2R |
Start Date and End Date
These dates are pulled from the academic calendar in Colleague for the term you selected. Do not change these dates. Class meeting days and times are managed under Offering Info, not in these fields.
Department
The department field and percentage field are populated using the department code from previous offerings. The percentage should always total 100.
Credit Type
The schedule of classes includes only courses being taught at Valpo within a specified academic term. For that reason, all of the course sections you are entering should have Institutional as the credit type. Type the letter "I" in this field to select Institutional credit.
Different codes are used in this field for transfer credit and credit by examination, but they do not appear in the schedule of classes.
Credit Hours - Min/Max/Incr
Enter the number of credit hours as shown in the Catalog. Use the Min field for the credit hours of this specific section. For courses that are always offered for the same number of credit hours, use the credit value in the catalog. For variable credit courses, enter the credit hours for this specific section in the Min field and make sure that the Max and Incr fields are blank. Otherwise, you'll see students registered incorrectly for varying amounts of credit for taking the same section.
When creating a new variable credit course, we use all three fields (Min/Max/Inc) at the course (not section) level only for variable credit courses to show the range allowed. Each section on the schedule has a specific (not variable) number of credits.
Course Level
Entering the course level allows Search for Sections to narrow down results to only courses at each course level: 100, 200, 300, etc.
Course Level | Description |
---|---|
100 | Undergraduate courses numbered between 100 and 199 |
200 | Undergraduate courses numbered between 200 and 299 |
300 | Undergraduate courses numbered between 300 and 399 |
400 | Undergraduate courses numbered between 400 and 499 |
500 | Graduate courses numbered between 500 and 599 |
600 | Graduate courses numbered between 600 and 699 |
700 | Graduate courses numbered between 700 and 799 |
Academic Level
Entering the academic level allows Search for Sections to narrow down results to only courses at each academic level: U or G. This field restricts registration so that undergraduate and graduate students can register only for courses at the same academic level (U or G). This field also organizes educational records in a way that allows for printing undergraduate and graduate transcripts.
Grade Scheme
Enter U for the Undergraduate grade scheme or G for the Graduate grade scheme, depending on the course level of this course section.
Entering the grade scheme allows Colleague to accurately record and use final course grades on transcripts, in the degree audit, for GPA calculation, within registration rules, and more.
Grade Scheme | Description |
---|---|
U | Undergraduate grade scheme |
G | Graduate grade scheme |
Course Titles - Topics and Seminars
The course title is populated using information from the Catalog. The short title is only customized for topics courses and seminars to indicate the subject of the course section. Otherwise, it matches the course title shown in the catalog. The table below displays examples of customized titles for topics courses and seminars. Please note that "Top:" and "Sem:" are used to indicate that the course is offered under multiple titles with varying content.
This field has a 30-character limit. For that reason, long titles are abbreviated to allow them to fit on transcripts. Often vowels are omitted to shorten titles to fit.
This field is displayed on transcripts, and it must match the title published in the catalog for accreditation and audit purposes except in the case of topics courses and seminars where the course description in the catalog explains that the topics vary.
Tip: Colleague adjusts capitalization in the title field to assist with consistency in capitalization. If you want to retain specific capitalization rather than the default, type the equal sign (=) before the title in this field. When you leave the field, the equal sign will disappear, and the title will retain the capitalization as you entered it.
Type of Course | Course Number and Section | Title Example |
---|---|---|
Topics | BUS-390-A | Top: Analytics Programming |
Topics | CVA-390-A | Top: Live Stream Production |
Topics | GS-390-A | Top: Cmnty, Cultr, & Chng Ldsp |
Seminar | CC-300-AX | Sem: Ancient & Medieval Phil |
Seminar | CC-300-BX | Sem: Political Ideologies |
Seminar | CC-325-A | Sem: Encountering Others |
Status
The status of any course section being added to the schedule of classes should be A Active.
To cancel a course section, please update the status to C - Cancelled and email the Office of the Registrar for assistance.
Course Type
Course types are used to facilitate degree audit evaluation and other processes. Courses approved by the General Education Committee and Faculty Senate to meet certain degree requirements are given a course type, which allows them to display properly in the Program Evaluation (degree audit). Once the Progress feature is fully developed in the upgraded version of DataVU, it will replace the Program Evaluation and continue to use course types.
Examples of Course Types: Cultural Diversity, Humanities: Fine Arts, Humanities: History, Humanities: Literature, Humanities: Philosophy, Quantitative Analysis, Social Sciences, Writing Intensive Course (WIC), and Writing in Discipline (WID).
The course type field is populated based on information from the catalog. Some topics courses are approved to meet a general education requirement based on the content being taught in a specific section, and in that case, this field can be customized to reflect approval from the General Education Committee. Once we move to Self-Service Progress instead of Program Evaluation, the course type will need to be controlled at the course level rather than the section level. See the Office of the Registrar for assistance with this.
This field can have more than one value in it. For example, some sections of THEO 200 have both the T2 and WIC course types. This means that they have been approved to fulfill both the 200-level Theology course requirement and the Writing Intensive Course requirement. Click in the Course Types field and use the buttons at the top of the screen to scroll through all values in the field.
Knowledge Base
For a detailed list and descriptions of the course types in use, please read Course Type Abbreviations for the Schedule of Classes.
Faculty Assignment
Type the full name of the instructor in the Faculty Member field in row 1. Select the instructor from the list of results that appear.
If an instructor is new and has not yet been recorded by the Provost's Office in Collea