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Course Scheduling

HSAS&F

HS Instructional Support acts as the time schedule office for all courses held in our rooms, which are located in the Health Sciences complex and South Campus Center. Our office oversees the quarterly course scheduling process and continuously works with curriculum coordinators on any requests for course revision, addition, or withdrawal from the online Time Schedule.

Only forms submitted by your department’s designated curriculum coordinator will be accepted.

It may take up to 24 hours for the changes to be reflected on the online Time Schedule.

If your course has a room assignment outside of the Health Sciences complex (Health Sciences Building, South Campus Center, William H Foege Building) you must submit your change requests to upper campus Time Schedule Office at times@uw.edu.

Courses are those offered to students enrolled at the University of Washington and have been approved by the University Curriculum Committee. This excludes continuing education or other university training courses. To reserve rooms for these and other events, contact Classroom Services at crshelp@uw.edu

As of Autumn quarter 2019, Classroom Services is no longer scheduling finals after the start of the quarter. Going forward, unless you specifically indicate in Time Schedule Construction that your course will NOT be having a final, a room will be assigned for your course’s final in accordance with the University Final Examination Schedule. The goal of this change is to standardize course scheduling procedures across campus, as well as alleviate the additional complexity of scheduling finals midway into the quarter.

Courses have the option of administering their final exam in accordance with the Quarterly Final Examination Schedule (i.e., “regular” final) or on a different date and/or time that week (i.e., “off-grid” final). If a course wishes to have an off-grid final, the dean and all the students enrolled in the course must approve it.

Please refer to the Time Schedule Production Calendar 2024-2025 for specific dates. Classroom Services will also send curriculum coordinators reminders for upcoming important deadlines and will confirm any dates that are listed as “tentative” on the Production Calendar.

Coordinators use Time Schedule Construction (TS Construction) and Time Schedule Update (TS Update) to manage their curriculum. Please note that TS Construction and TS Update look very similar, so be sure to double check which system you are logged into before making any changes.

The following course changes can be made on Time Schedule Update

    • lowering enrollment
    • updating comments (however, please do not delete comments regarding room assignments that are entered by Classroom Services)
    • generating add and drop codes
    • changing enrollment requirements and exclusions

In addition, you can add/remove instructors from the Student Database (SDB) on the F231 page.

*The Office of the Registrar holds Time Schedule Construction/Update trainings every few months for new Curriculum Coordinators and/or those who would like a refresher. It is highly recommended that any staff who are new to working with curriculum and the Time Schedule attend these trainings. 


Things to keep in mind:

  • Course changes cannot be done over the phone. All changes must be confirmed in writing through our forms at the top of this page.
  • Our room scheduling program matches classes to the best room fit based on time needs, capacity of class-to-room ratio, and other courses requesting spaces. The scheduling process is completely new every quarter and our goal is to maximize room-use efficiency.
  • To ensure that room assignments are maintained, courses need to have active student enrollment. Courses with zero enrollment will have their room assignments dropped within the first weeks of the quarter.

  • Small errors in Time Schedule Construction can greatly affect scheduling. Examples include:

    • requesting an upper campus room
    • selecting “general assignment classroom partition” when the course will not require a room assignment from Classroom Services
    • entering wrong start & ends dates under the General Attributes section
    • having wrong expected enrollment
    • asking for features that our rooms do not have
  • The key is “less is more.” Do not request features on Time Schedule Construction that do not directly affect or relate to your course curriculum.

I want a specific room for my course. How can I guarantee this room will be reserved for me?

  • We can never guarantee that your course will be placed in your preferred room. We have a limited inventory of spaces that the cohorts in the Health Sciences schools are quickly outgrowing. There is a preference form specifically for the Active Learning Classrooms (SCC 221, SOCC 303, HSEB 325). Communication is sent to curriculum coordinators notifying them when the ALC Preference Request Period begins (usually three weeks prior to TS Construction being closed). 

 When can I see my courses’ room assignments?

  • You can see your course room assignments after Time Schedule Update becomes available (please check the Time Schedule Production Calendar 2024-2025 for tentative dates). During this time frame, referred to as the “changes period”, courses will have the best availability in our spaces because course breakouts and non-course events are not yet able to submit requests. After the changes period, which usually ends about a week prior to the Time Schedule being published, course breakout and non-course event scheduling commences. At this point room availability is significantly reduced, consequently making it harder to fulfill room assignment changes for courses. We recommend that you contact your instructors as soon as Time Schedule Update becomes viewable to inform them of their room assignment instead to waiting for them to discover their room assignment when the online Time Schedule becomes viewable. Classroom Services will contact curriculum coordinators with the changes period deadline and other relevant information.

Will the course changes requested through Classroom Services carry over the future Time Schedule Constructions?

  • No, changes that are made by Classroom Services will not carry over. Only revisions made in Time Schedule Constructions are permanent. Curriculum coordinators are responsible for reviewing and updating their courses on Time Schedule Constructions before they close.

Joint courses: what do I need to know?

  • Curriculum coordinators for the joint courses will need to work together to ensure that the information matches in Time Schedule Constructions prior to closing. Mismatching enrollment information could result in no room assignment or a room assignment that is not suitable for the class. Please review the Office of the Registrar Curriculum page for more information regarding joint courses.

What is a course breakout? How do I request rooms for breakouts?

  • Course breakouts are meetings related to the course content that occurs on meeting days and times that are different from its normal meeting day and time (i.e., what is listed on the Time Schedule). Examples of course breakouts include study hours, review sessions, office hours, etc. To request rooms for your course breakouts, please contact Classroom Services. To receive important updates about scheduling breakout sessions and special event spaces, please subscribe to the HS_Events listserv.