Academic Technology Schedule

Thought you all might be interested in this also (my notes in italics):

Academic Technology Schedule

• Dec. 9 – end of term but sections open for two weeks, until Dec. 23
• Dec. 10 & 11 - Process Student Survey and limit release to QA and Chairs. This will be distributed to appropriate users.

• Dec. 13 – Grades due
• Dec. 17 – Student Surveys are released to faculty
• Dec. 24 – testing of the Banner-Vista scripts (Banner upgrade happens the prior weekend, Banner is the current student information system used.)
• Dec. 28 – 30 – Vista Server will be off-line for a period of 48 – 60 hours beginning sometime on Dec. 28 for a hardware change. (New database server).
• Jan. 2 – continued testing of changes to both Banner and Vista
• Jan. 3 – resume processing of the dup requests
• Jan. 15 – all section dup requests due by 12 noon; all duping that can be done prior to splits should be finished this day
• Jan. 16 – section splits
• Jan. 17 – 12 midnight, regular registration closes; late registration until Jan. 24
• Jan. 21 – Spring term opens
• Feb. 1 – Open dup site for Spring II requests
• Feb. 19 - all section dup requests due by 12 noon; all duping that can be done prior to splits should be finished this day
• Feb. 20 – split meeting
• Feb. 21 – Close of registration at midnight; late registration goes one week to Feb. 28
• Feb. 25 – Start of Spring II

Further explanation:

Dup requests: Every semester David and his team copy your shells for the coming term from either a master shell or your shell from a past term. This is of course a time-consuming process that takes place on a regular schedule. Your program chair turns in the specific dup request (which shell to copy from), so be sure they know what your preference is.

Split meeting: The Wednesday before classes we sit down as a group and decide exactly how many sections of each course we will offer. This typically involves much negotiation around class size, grading load, availability of faculty, and cost. So when your program chair says they don't know for sure how many sections we will offer two weeks before the start of classes they are being honest with you.


Unrelated side note on late work:

Late work of course causes the vast majority of the student/faculty conflicts I mediate each semester. Today while surfing I saw this policy on a course David Wiley teaches:

Late Work Policy

If your work is ever late, I may or may not accept the work and may or may not penalize the work, depending completely on my possibly grumpy, biased, or elated mood. If this does not seem fair to you, then do not be late with your work.

I like it because it reflects my own -- I let students turn in work as late as they want (although before the end of the semester), but I noted that I truly hate to get a mass of grading the last week of class and will probably be extremely grumpy at the sight of it. They should reflect that grumpiness to be reflected on their grade.

My high school daughter has a math class this semester which allows late work up to a point -- 5 days. She hasn't managed to turn in all of her assignments because she does tend to let them pile up for the entire 5 days, however she is learning a valuable lesson her other teachers are skipping - she is trying to figure out how to manage her own schedule -- school, work, social, etc. I appreciate the math teacher for giving her this flexibility and of course the rope with which to hang herself. :^)

Lisa