an auditorium, lecture room, or seminar room usable by various disciples for instructional purposes.  General purpose classrooms are rooms that are centrally scheduled by the scheduling office and may or may not have fixed demonstration equipment.

a room with specialized equipment or use that is assigned to a department and used for regularly- or irregularly-scheduled instruction.

use of a room for classes with official department identifiers and course numbers for scheduled class and section meetings.  Optional meetings, open labs, and tutorial sessions are not included in scheduled use.

the percentage of student stations occupied when room is in use.  In practice it is computed as the percentage of stations in a room theoretically occupied according to the official enrollment of the course/section.  General purpose classrooms are considered "full" at 65% occupancy (Minnesota Facilities Model).

is the percentage of time that a room is used/scheduled during a specified block of time.  The normal block of class time is defined as 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.  General purpose classrooms are considered fully used at 71% time (Minnesota Facilities Model).

General purpose classrooms are defined as fully used when the product of the time and station rates equal 46% (Minnesota Facilities Model).

Classes will be scheduled in 50 minute time blocks (plus a 10 minute break), in configurations appropriate for the class and in a manner to minimize class conflicts for students.

Exceptions to these schedule patterns may be allowed for pedagogical reasons and in a manner that will minimize possible conflicts in student schedules.  Exception requests should be submitted through the college schedule coordinator to the VCAA office for approval.

Departments will schedule classes for students on a five-day per week (Monday through Friday) basis.

Classes offered in patterns other than approved above will be placed in classrooms after other classes have been placed and if space is available at that time.

If space becomes available in prime time for class placement, classes will be placed in the following order of priority: technology needed, location preference (from the scheduling software preferences), and best fit between class size and room capacity.

Departments submit their SCDR forms, as well as a "spreadsheet" showing the time distribution of the department classes, to their college scheduling coordinator, who monitors compliance and helps resolve scheduling problems, before the forms are forwarded to the campus scheduling office.

11.

Academic offerings have priority on the space into which they have been scheduled.  Departments should be certain that academic offerings are not displaced from departmental rooms by meetings, conferences, or other occasional activities.

12.

If a department makes any scheduling changes in a course, or section of a course, a "Request for Change in Class Schedule" form should be completed immediately and sent to the campus scheduling office for notification of any affected parties.

13.

The availability of a larger classroom must be verified before faculty give students permission to enroll in a class beyond assigned room capacity.

Scheduling of teaching laboratories is the responsibility of the department and collegiate unit to which the lab is assigned.  Departments are expected to achieve acceptable use of laboratory space (with a "full-use" goal of 44% time utilization and 80% station occupancy).  Under-utilized laboratories are subject to reassignment by the VCAA office.

Summarized (from several scheduling documents) and Revised, December 2001