Standardized Meeting Patterns

The following are the established meeting patterns for all courses (lectures, labs, seminars or tutorials). Core standard meeting patterns in Centrally Scheduled Classrooms will be given priority during timetabling.  Requests that are outside of the standard meeting patterns may not be scheduled a classroom for the time requested. Meetings that are 50 minutes once or twice per week must be scheduled according to the start times below.

Evening sections begin at 16:00 (4 p.m.) or later on MWF and at 17:00 (5 p.m.) on TR. The start time must be the same each evening. 

Saturday sections must ensure that they meet the required GFC hours for the term.

Interim meeting patterns are intended to be used for:

• Lectures, Seminars, Tutorials and Labs with less than 75 capacity requesting to be scheduled in general assignment classrooms
• Lecture sections with less than 100 students in departmental space; strongly encouraged for Laboratory, Seminar and Tutorial sections if Core patterns cannot be utilized
• Course sections with greater than 75 who are unable to follow Core patterns

Courses following interim meeting patterns will be given room booking priority after courses scheduled according to Core meeting patterns.

Courses requesting to schedule components outside both Core and Interim meeting patterns must submit a  non-standard scheduling request for approval by the Registrar. Courses given approval to schedule according to non-standard patterns are still not guaranteed to be scheduled into a centrally scheduled classroom and will be given the last priority for classroom assignment.

View meeting patterns »

Approved Spring and Summer Session meeting patterns. Any courses that wish to be scheduled in a way different to these patterns must be submitted with approval from the Department Head in order to be scheduled in PeopleSoft.

For the upcoming Spring and Summer terms we would like to offer faculties greater flexibility in scheduling their courses with a block pattern option. There are two key requirements with this flexibility.

1. Ensure your courses meet their GFC hours.

• Ie. A typical 3 unit; H(3-0) course requires a total of 36 hours of instruction (take a typical 12 week term and multiply by 3 for total hours required). This means in a 6 week term, you need to schedule 6 hours per week of instruction. In a 3 week term you need 12 hours per week. A 6 unit; F(3-0) course would require 72 hours of instruction, thus 12 hours per week in a 6 week term and 24 hours per week in a 3 week term.
• Take the number of meeting days per day of the week into account.
• Schedulers should be wary of courses that meet on days that have fewer meetings in the term. If possible you should schedule extra hours to meet the total GFC hours. Ie. An extra hour would have to be added to a 3hour lab on Friday to make up for the loss of two instructional days. See number of meeting days below per term.
• 3wk1 and 3wk2 terms are no longer an option, courses must be scheduled as NS for classes that wish to follow the old 3wk block. Departments do NOT need approval to follow the standard 3 wk blocks specified below. Anything that does not follow the specified dates must seek approval.

• For non-prescriptive programs, schedulers must stick to an AM block, PM block or Evening block when scheduling courses.

• The idea is that students are still able to take multiple courses. Most students taking courses in Spring take two courses, of which at least one tends to be from the faculty of arts. Majority of courses taught include a 3 hour lecture (80%) the others have either a 2 hour lecture or 1 hour lecture. We encourage labs and tutorials to also be scheduled into these blocks. (Note that a “prescriptive” program is considered to be one with which students cannot take any courses outside of the schedule provided by the faculty).

View spring and summer session schedule »

Example Schedules:

1. A course that is 3 units; H(3-3-1) would have a schedule like MW Lecture 9-11:45am, TR lab 9-11:45am, and Friday tutorial 9:00-11:30 am (accounting for only 5 Fridays). This way a student can also take an afternoon course, and you can schedule an afternoon lab course as well. Section 2 could be the opposite with TR lecture and MW lab and students would not be advantaged/disadvantaged by the section they take. If you wish to avoid Fridays, then the ideal would be to put the tutorial twice a week from 8:00 AM to 8:50 AM.
2. A course that is 3 units; H(3-3/2-1) if more than one section, we would recommend MR lectures and a Tuesday or Thursday lab that falls into the same AM or PM block. This is so that students in one section do not have more labs than another. You can decide in collaboration with the Department Head/Associate Dean which component should have more days than the other.

Notes:

It is expected that all courses will follow the standard meeting patterns.

• All existing components of a course, as listed in the University Calendar, must be timetabled.
• Graduate courses may be timetabled with TBA start times, but must have rooms and time assigned by the end of the first week of classes.
• Courses that extend through both Spring and Summer session are expected to use the above meeting start times.
• Courses that teach in a block format require prior approval of the Registrar and are expected to begin as close as possible to the start of the Spring session. Please note there is not a formal Block week in Spring or Summer sessions.
• Requests for non-standard meeting patterns courses must have prior approval of the Registrar. These requests, with rationale, should be submitted for review prior to timetabling.  Please submit these requests to the Scheduling Office as soon as possible.
• New courses are able to be offered in Summer once they have been approved by the Calendar and Curriculum subcommittee (and entered into PeopleSoft).