Penn State Mark

Course Offering Instructions

To request access to the Course Offering Search, e-mail David Lingenfelter (dxl127@psu.edu) in the Registrar's office.

The course offering process consists of a series of data entry screens, reports, web pages, and batch procedures. The process is designed to put maximum control directly in the academic department and college offices. In all cases, the Registrar's office is available to assist, or if requested, perform the scheduling functions on behalf of the academic department. The course offering process is designed to maximize the availability of courses, sections, and seats to students. A reduction of courses, sections, or seats is carefully controlled to guard against the loss of scheduling opportunities for students. The course offering process is a continuous process that provides maximum flexibility to satisfy student registration patterns. The specific course offering scheduling information is published in the Enrollment Services calendar on the Web. The process of building the semester course offering begins approximately 5 months before the start of the semester registration calendar. The basic order of events is:

  1. Registrar's office uses previous (like) semester course offering to establish current semester course offering. Departments review and update the semester course offering.
  2. Classroom assignments (general purpose, special use, and department controlled) are made to all offered courses.
  3. Registrar's office publishes the Schedule of Courses and student registration begins.
  4. Departments monitor their course offering during student registration making adjustments as needed.

Creating, Reviewing, and Updating the Course Offering

The fundamental assumption inherent in starting the semester course offering is that the course offering at the end of the previous (like) semester is the best start of the new semester course offering. In support of this assumption, the previous course offering is "rolled forward" to become the new course offering.

Academic departments are notified by the Registrar's office as this event occurs. Starting at this time and continuing until the Schedule of Courses is made available publicly, departments may view the planned course offering using the Course Offering Search.

All previously offered courses/sections are automatically created for the new semester except:

  1. Canceled courses
  2. Courses with enrollment = zero*
  3. Honors courses (suffix value = H, T, M, Z) not approved for the new semester
  4. Courses for which the delivery code was not R.
  5. One-semester titled courses (defined as X94 - X98 with a suffix).
  6. Courses that are not valid on the Senate file for the new semester.
  7. Courses/sections that already exist for the new semester.

*Course numbers X94 - X98 with no suffix, and 600, 601, 602, 610 and 611 are automatically created regardless of the previous semester enrollment.

Previous part-semester course offerings are created with corresponding part-semester dates for the target semester.

Adjustments to the previous offering may be necessary due to curricular changes, faculty changes, and changes in general education course offerings. Each department course planner must review their course offering to balance department's resources with course enrollment needs of students. After reviewing the course offering, designated department and college staff may update their course offering on screen ARUAC. The following changes are possible:

  1. Increase/decrease the enrollment limit of a course/section (enrollment in common lectures are the sum total of the base section and all other common sections).
  2. Cancel a course/section.
  3. Add a new course/section.
  1. Renumber sections.
  2. Change course/section credits (within the approved range).
  3. Change information in the "Additional Information" field. This is a free text field of 18 characters used to convey special information about a section.
    Important note     - All sections must have the exact same message or the system will not work properly.
  4. Change course characteristics.
  5. Change course begin and end dates.

Departments may choose to use the following additional screens:

  • Screen ARUAI to update instructor information.
  • Use screen ARURX to review existing course controls. Departments requesting a course control must submit the Course Control form.

Classroom Assignments

As the previous course offering is "rolled forward" to create the new course offering, the following criteria applies to the assigned classroom(s):

  1. All previously assigned departmentally controlled classrooms are automatically scheduled.
  2. All previously assigned general purpose classrooms will be automatically assigned unless:
  • The classroom is unavailable for the target semester due to renovation or construction.
  • Classroom seating capacity has been reduced
  • The type of seating has changed
  • Classroom has been reclassified
  • Previous semester course enrollment was below the room utilization ratio
  • Course does not satisfy the technology requirement in order to be scheduled back into the room
  • Course is ineligible for scheduling into the room because it does not meet the college/department priority scheduling requirement
  1. Cross-listed courses and concurrent courses are treated separately as related to scheduling of classrooms.
  2. Department course planners use the Course Offering Search to view offered courses without assigned classrooms. Screen ARUAR is used to schedule all classrooms. Courses may be immediately scheduled into department controlled rooms. For general purpose classroom scheduling dates refer to the Enrollment Services Calendar.
  3. Course/sections requiring technology classrooms for the entire semester may be scheduled using screen ARUAR. If a technology classroom is required for a limited number of class meeting period, use screen ARUAE after instructional support scheduling has started.

Class Distribution

In an effort to provide maximum scheduling opportunities for students and to maximize utilization of the classrooms and other learning facilities, each academic department should distribute the department's course offering according to the following criteria:

  • Mon/Wed/Fri sequences should not exceed 70% of the total department offerings.
  • Tues/Thurs sequences should not exceed 45% of the total department offerings.
  • Any one meeting sequence should not exceed 15% of the total department offerings.
  • Early morning and late afternoon classes should have a combined value of at least 20% of the total department offerings. For spring and fall semesters, those meeting periods are: 0800-0850a, 0800-0915a, 0415-0530p, and 0440-0530p.
  • Departments are encouraged to schedule evening sections whenever possible.

Course Dates

The Penn State academic calendar provides for three academic cycles each year - fall, spring, and summer. For each cycle, students register for courses, receive a bill for tuition and fees, are awarded various forms of student aid, make appropriate payment, receive grades, and so on.

Each offered course must be designated as either a fall, spring or summer course. While most offered courses start and end within the regular semester date range, there may be specific circumstances that cause the course to be offered across normal semester boundaries. In such cases:

  1. The course should be designated as the semester (fall, spring, summer) when the course begins. Example, a course starting September 10 is designated as a fall course.

Publication of the Schedule of Courses and Student Registration

The Schedule of Courses is published on the web and is updated every 24 hours. It is requested that all course-offering changes be recorded before the course offering is published and before students begin to register. Changes made after the registration cycle starts invariably impact the student registration process.

Departments may refer to the specific course offering information published in the Enrollment Services calendar to learn when the Schedule of Courses will be published. After the publication date, the following changes are restricted and require submission of the applicable electronic form to the Registrar's office:

  1. Decreasing a course limit. Submit the Decrease Drop or Underenrollment Drop form.
  2. Dropping a course. Submit the Decrease Drop or Underenrollment Drop form.
  3. Changing credits for a course. Submit the Other Change form.

Monitoring the Course Offering During Registration

Departments should continually monitor their course offerings as student registration proceeds. Where possible, section sizes should be increased and additional sections added to meet student demand. The following information sources are available to department staff:

  1. Course Consumption Report - (updated every 24 hours).
  2. ARIRC - This is a real-time enrollment summary screen for all sections of a course. This screen details current enrollment, number of requests, and the number of seats remaining.
  3. eLion Faculty Class lists - Faculty may receive real-time electronic class lists for their assigned courses. Printed copies of the class list are also available using screen ARICC.
  4. Unassigned Student Report lists all students "not assigned" to a course.