Preparing for the start of the term

With January 21 quickly approaching, ASR asks that students, faculty, and staff prepare in advance for the start of the term. Faculty and instructors will receive a welcome message from OCM on January 14. In the message, they will be encouraged to record their classroom assignments in advance and minimize any room change requests. Students will also be encouraged to record their schedule in advance. Because of this, consider sending an email to the students in a class if there is a change in the week before the term starts.

You may also want to consider having a hard copy of your classroom assignments available to reference in case there is an unexpected system issue the first week of term.

Class cancellation policy and spring 2020 deadlines

The last day for spring 2020 class cancellations is January 27, 2020. According to the Course Enrollment Limits and Cancellation policy, colleges (and sometimes departments) maintain policies regarding low-enrollment course sections. Sections may not be canceled after the fifth day of classes for the term. Each college has its own guidelines for canceling low enrollment classes on its website. University best practice is to cancel as early as possible once a decision has been made to ensure impacted students will have an opportunity to register for an alternate class.

For spring 2020 class cancellations:

• If there is no enrollment, cancel the class directly in CCS. This will ensure the room assignment is released and the class is accurately displayed on the Class Schedule. Changing the enrollment capacity to zero and checking the “no print” box in CCS will not release the classroom assignment nor cancel the class.
• If there are students enrolled, notify ocmsched@umn.edu for cancellations and follow collegiate policies. OCM will cancel the class and an automated email will be sent to enrolled students. We still encourage departments to send an email directly to students to let them know of the cancellation and to encourage alternate class options.

Make final changes to variable credit/grading basis

With the spring semester beginning soon, it is imperative to make final changes to classes requiring set credits and/or changes to grade basis. After the term has begun, the number of credits for a class and the grading basis cannot be altered.

If you need to change the number of credits for a class from a variable number to a set number, email ocmsched@umn.edu. If you need to make a change to the grading basis of a course, submit it directly through ECAS.

Auto-enroll from waitlist reminders

Auto-enroll from waitlist stops running for each term/session on a date specified per campus. For the spring 2020 regular session, the last waitlist run for the Twin Cities campus is January 21, 2020.

Filling seats after auto-enroll stops running

After the last auto-enroll run, classes that still have wait lists will typically have an Enrollment Status of “Closed.” This means that the open seats will not automatically fill after an enrolled student has dropped the class. In order to fill these seats, you have two options to choose from based on the method that works best for your department.

Option 1

Give students a permission number to override a closed class using the Closed Class checkbox on the Class Permission page. This option allows you to give permission to wait-listed students, when appropriate. To determine which students need permission, the wait list will be available to you until the end of the add and drop period.

Option 2

On the Enrollment Control tab, uncheck the Auto Enroll from Wait List checkbox, which changes the Enrollment Status to “Open” and allows any student to register for the remaining seat(s) up until instructor approval is required.

Permission number expiration reminder

Permission numbers expire and are deleted at the end of the term/session’s add and drop period. After this time, unused permission numbers will no longer permit students’ enrollment.

Check spring term instructor assignments

You can have a positive impact on your classes when you enter complete and correct instructor information. Entering instructors in CCS gives students access to their online class rosters, Canvas site, and their grade rosters (at the end of the term). Students also benefit from knowing who their instructors will be as they begin the semester.

Css schedulers should please verify the following instructor information for spring (1203) on the UM CSS Maintain Schedule of Classes, Meetings tab:

• Correct instructor
• Accurate instructor role
• Appropriate grading access

Note: all teaching assistants should be entered with a role of "TA." Additionally, undergraduate teaching assistants can not have grade access.

Scheduling Update newsletter frequency reminder

Since December 2019, the Scheduling Update is sent monthly on Wednesdays instead of every other week. We will plan to send the newsletter the second week of each month. If there are important topics that need to be communicated before the newsletter goes out, we will communicate via email.

UPK retirement

The PeopleSoft User Productivity Kit (UPK) help tool, accessed by clicking the "Help" link on PeopleSoft pages, retired on December 29, 2019.

A library of user guides for PeopleSoft Campus Solutions is available on the ASR website to replace the UPK tutorials. The guides, which are housed in Google Drive, document specific processes for staff who use Campus Solutions:

• Scheduling classes
• Updating majors and minors
• Assigning advisors
• Updating student groups
• Posting a transaction

If you have any questions about the new user guides contact the following departments:

• Office of the Registrar at srhelp@umn.edu for questions about student records processes.
• Office of Classroom Management Scheduling team at ocmsoftwarehelp@umn.edu for questions about class scheduling. 
• Student Financials at sfhelp@umn.edu for questions about student financial processes.