3.04 Policy for Centralized Classroom and Event Scheduling

The University of Georgia seeks as part of its academic mission to institute an effective classroom and event scheduling practice. This practice manifests through the establishment of guiding principles that lead to the desired outcomes of scheduling courses for students in a judicious fashion and making efforts to ensure that campus resources are employed through the most efficient and effective means possible. The Centralized Classroom Scheduling Committee has developed this policy to execute a sustainable and efficient model to become effective for Fall 2016, and subsequent academic terms.

1. Rooms Available for Centralized Scheduling: All UGA rooms that have been officially designated for instruction, in all buildings, will be “on the grid” and available for centralized classroom and event scheduling. Importantly, this does not include conference rooms and other rooms that are not officially designated as an instructional space on UGA’s campuses. Areas of the UGA campus made available for reservation that are not officially designated as an instructional space (and thus subject to this policy) are subject to the University’s general Campus Reservation Policy (available here), in addition to any space-specific policies that may apply.

2. Use of UGA Designated IT systems for Scheduling: All courses must be scheduled through Banner (Athena) and most events (academic, non-academic, and student organization events) must be scheduled through 25Live. No other IT systems (i.e., Outlook Calendar) should be used.

3. Prioritization of Scheduling: Scheduling priority will be in the following rank order:

Priority 1: Credit-bearing courses, their tests, and required class meetings
Priority 2: Recurring academic events (faculty-intensive or faculty-led)
Priority 3: Non-recurring academic or non-academic events for faculty
Priority 4: Recurring and non-recurring events for student organizations
Priority 5: Events extensively for the benefit of non-UGA affiliated entities

This prioritization ranking will govern all scheduling processes on campus. Central Scheduling will have the right to make changes to the master schedule in order to preserve this Prioritization of Scheduling.

4. Central Scheduling: Central Scheduling has overall responsibility to execute this policy and support centralized classroom and event scheduling. Central Scheduling may develop supplemental procedures and guidelines that support this policy. More information about Central Scheduling, including key contact information, scheduling procedures, and responsibilities are found here: https://reg.uga.edu/faculty-and-staff/centralized-classroom/faqs/.

5. Pre-designated Rooms and their Use: Academic units will have a first-right of use and scheduling in certain rooms that have been Pre-designated to the unit by the Provost. The Academic unit must maintain Pre-designated rooms to minimum working standards that would be customarily expected by the Academic unit for offering courses to their students. Supplemental policies and guidelines for minimum working standards may be developed over time and administered by the Office of the Vice President for Instruction. Academic units are expected to schedule for themselves Priority 1 courses and Priority 2-5 events in all spaces Pre-designated to them and in a manner consistent with this policy. Other academic units or groups may use assigned non-Pre-designated spaces if properly scheduled and coordinated through Central Scheduling as described here: https://reg.uga.edu/faculty-and-staff/centralized-classroom/faqs/. The use of a non-Pre-designated space by an academic unit or group is a privilege and comes with certain responsibilities that, if not met, may be revoked. Pre-designation of a room to an academic unit will immediately revert back to the Provost if the academic unit vacates the Pre-designated room and/or moves to a new Pre-designated room in another building. Pre-designated rooms may not be transferred from one academic unit directly to another academic unit. 

6. Exclusivity Periods: All Academic units will have the first opportunity to schedule rooms Pre-designated to the unit during periods of exclusivity for both Priority 1 courses and Priority 2 and Priority 3 events. Exclusivity periods for coming academic terms are maintained by the Registrar’s office and published here: https://reg.uga.edu/faculty-and-staff/centralized-classroom/. Academic units should monitor these schedules very carefully and use the exclusivity periods for the benefit of their programs. However, after the exclusivity periods, unused rooms will be available for Central Scheduling. As addressed in section 8, there is a policy and procedures for the use of space that is not Pre-designated to an Academic unit.

7. Scheduling Requirements:

1. Academic units are strongly encouraged to complete all curriculum planning and scheduling before the Exclusivity Period ends. This is meant to ensure each Academic unit has first priority in scheduling its Pre-designated rooms for academic courses and programs.
2. Academic units must develop and formulate their classroom schedules across the five day instructional week (Monday through Friday) using standard class time periods in order to obtain the maximum functional use of instructional space and avoid any scheduling conflicts that may arise in a student’s schedule.
3. Within Priority 1 scheduling (credit-bearing courses), the highest and first priority should be given to 4- and 3-credit hour courses, followed by 2-credit hour courses, and the lowest and last priority to 1-credit hour courses.
4. Academic units should not schedule more than 50% of their courses by prefix on Tuesday/Thursday or more than 50% of the courses between 10 am and 2 pm on any day of the week. Compliance of this will be monitored centrally.
5. In scheduling academic courses and events, Academic units must allocate and reserve classroom space in order to ensure students and faculty obtain the most optimal learning experience possible.
6. Laboratory classes should be scheduled for only the established class time. No time should be scheduled for pre-lab set-up or post-lab activities other than the established laboratory class time unless pre-approval is granted through the Centralized Scheduling Appeals Committee (see section 7k).
7. Faculty-led instruction or classes for non-UGA students (i.e., continuing education) are Priority 2 events as long as the rooms to be used are in the Pre-designated rooms for the Academic unit. Instruction or classes for non-UGA students that require non-designated rooms are Priority 5 events.
8. First Year Odyssey (FYO). FYO classrooms will be scheduled by OVPI immediately after the Priority 1 exclusivity and Central Scheduling periods end. Academic units should not independently schedule or reserve (block) any rooms for FYO courses.
9. Event scheduling through 25Live. The following events must be scheduled in 25Live: Recurring and invited events (i.e., faculty meetings, faculty research group meetings, and seminar programs, etc.). Single use or single time meetings do not have to be scheduled in 25Live, but those that do will be given priority.
10. Due to Prioritization of Scheduling (above), schedulers and academic units must not block or reserve classroom space for any period in the future other than the designated academic term. If future scheduling occurs, events scheduled in the future will be deleted by Central Scheduling. The only exception to this requirement is for events in the future that require the department, college and/or UGA to enter into a contractual commitment with outside parties or partners. Requests for future events requiring contractual commitments from UGA should be submitted to the Centralized Scheduling Appeals Committee as described in section 7k. If the Committee authorizes the scheduling of a future event, the event may be scheduled subject to possible modifications in the scheduled rooms on campus, but not the dates.
11. Appeals. A three person Centralized Scheduling Appeals Committee (comprised of the Vice President for Instruction, the Vice President for Student Affairs, and the Vice Provost) will consider written appeals, requests and/or conflicts in room scheduling. Requests must be sufficiently detailed and supported by appropriate documentation. Photographs of the room(s) in question are required. In addition, providing detailed current and historical (e.g., past 1-2 academic terms) room use data for Priority 1 courses and Priority 2-5 events is strongly encouraged. Written requests must be delivered or mailed in hard-copy to the Provost’s Office to the attention of the Vice Provost. No appeals or requests sent by e-mail will be considered. The Appeals Committee may request additional information and/or meet with the Academic unit prior to making its decision. The Appeals Committee typically meets every three to four weeks; thus, the anticipated time for a decision is about one month. The guiding principle of the Appeals Committee is to take the most conservative position in deciding to remove an instructional space from the grid. The Committee considers the effect of its decision on UGA students that primarily use the identified space as well as other students or UGA courses that may benefit from using the space not being used with the ideal frequency of ~90% occupancy.

Approved by the Provost’s Office on October 1, 2015
Revised and Approved by the Provost’s Office on July 18, 2016 and January 26, 2018.