A Summary of Classroom Priority Rules
Office of the University Registrar
February 8, 2002

Classrooms are divided into two categories for room assignments. General purpose (GP) rooms are a pooled resource of classrooms scheduled by the University Registrar. This pool does NOT include any specialized lab space.

Non-general purpose, or delegated, classrooms are rooms controlled exclusively by the departments. The Paulien study was based on 261 rooms, 179 general purpose rooms and 82 non-general purpose rooms.

Each of the 179 general purpose classrooms are assigned a departmental room priority. The room priorities are assigned based on the percentage of sections taught by each department and adjusted for non-general purpose rooms. A committee appointed by the Provost did the last adjustment in room priorities in 1995.

For example, at the time of the study, the English department taught 11% of the courses. They have 20 rooms assigned, which is 11% of the 179 rooms. There were no non-general purpose classrooms. The School of Business taught about 7.5% of the sections, but its percentage was adjusted to 2.5% and was assigned four rooms because it used 14 non-general purpose classrooms.

Three types of rooms within the general purpose classrooms are not assigned a departmental priority. Large lecture halls, master audio-visual rooms, and "ad hoc" rooms are scheduled based on justified need for the room features and best fill. The five ad hoc rooms are assigned by ATN for use by departments when a room with specialized equipment is needed for just a few class meetings but not enough to need the room for the entire semester.

Classes are assigned to rooms in two passes. In the first pass, departments submit room assignment requests and their courses are placed into their priority rooms. In the second pass, the courses that could not be placed are then placed into any remaining space available. A software package called Schedule25 is used in the second pass to maximize the placement of courses into space. About 80% of the courses are assigned in the first pass and 20% in the second pass.

Departments can schedule no more than 60% of their courses in prime time. Prime time is defined as the time between 9am and 12 noon. Within the prime time, no more than 30% of their courses can be scheduled on the Tuesday, Thursday time slots. This percentage is calculated and certified by the department heads each semester.

The Paulien study recommended two new rules. Rooms should be filled to about 65% capacity and rooms should be used a minimum of 35 hours a week. These rules are being phased into the classroom scheduling procedures.