Booking Rooms During Saturday Midterms (Fall/Winter only)

Owned by Tanya Pompilio
May 30, 2023
4 min read

This procedure describes the method of how to book rooms using Campus room booking software on Saturdays. This is to indicate what the midterm time slots are and to prevent booking non-midterm events in rooms immediately before or after midterms. 

Regulation states: The Faculties of Mathematics and Science may schedule Saturday tests for large, multi-section courses in the fall and winter terms, if the appropriate Associate Dean approves those tests, scheduled using TST components on the Schedule of Classes, and announced to students during the first week of classes via published course outlines.

PROCEDURE       

After Scheduling staff have determined that all criteria have been met as highlighted above, and the Schedule of Classes reflects the actual writing time only here are the slots to use when booking space in Campus room booking software:

Fall 2018 and Winter 2019 Saturday available midterm TST slots for Math and Science faculty courses are*:

  • 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (1 hour and 1.5 hour tests possible, if a 10:00 a.m. start)

  • 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (1 hour and 1.5 hour tests possible, if a 1:00 p.m. start)

  • 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. (a 2.5-hour test must provide pedagogical justification to the AD, UG for approval)

For Saturday non-midterm bookings in fall and winter terms only:

If the booking has a requested start time of:

10:00 a.m. – book event starting at 9:59 a.m.

1:00 p.m. – book event starting at 12:59 p.m.

If the booking has a requested end time of:

11:00 a.m. – book event ending at 11:01 a.m.

11:30 a.m. – book event ending at 11:31 a.m.

12:00 p.m. – book event ending at 12:01 p.m.

2:00 p.m. – book event ending at 2:01 p.m.

2:30 p.m. – book event ending at 2:31 p.m.

3:00 p.m. – book event ending at 3:01 p.m.

3:30 p.m. – book event ending at 3:31 p.m.

*will be evaluated by TST slot focus group before being approved for use again beyond Winter 2019

A midterm request template for Saturday midterms can be sent out a few months before the start of the term to collect this detail:

Hello everyone,

This message is a reminder for all Scheduling Representatives to please submit all midterm requests from your department to the Scheduling Office using the standard midterm template (see below), if you have not done so already. One email per course, please.  We determine the priority of the booking requests by the order in which you send your requests.

(TST slot components displayed on the Schedule of Classes always get the highest priority but they must still be submitted as midterm requests if rooms are required).

REMINDERS:

As always, we encourage the use of class time for in-class midterms. However, if a time slot outside the regularly-scheduled class is required, we ask that you use the following Friday evening standard slots as much as possible since we have most of our classroom inventory available for midterm use:

·         4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

·         6:30 - 8:00 p.m.

·         8:30 - 10:00 p.m.

Note:  These are Senate-approved times.  Requests for Friday evenings that overlap these slots will generally not be accommodated. 

Your best chance of getting a large number of seats in the smallest number of rooms is to:

  • be prepared to seat students in tablet armchairs since our largest rooms have tablet armchair seating (please do so by answering "yes" to the tablet armchair question on the template if feasible)

If a TST component is not listed as an official component for your course at the catalog level, we will add it for one term only if requested by the department. Beyond one term, we insist that you have Senate approval to add it as an official component.  Also, if a TST slot is not Senate approved beyond one term and/or is not officially scheduled on the Schedule of Classes, the midterm will automatically be considered a non-TST slot.   

Midterm Booking Request Template (must be used for every midterm/TST slot)

COURSE:
EVENT:
DATE:

BEGIN/END:

ALTERNATE TIME/DATES YOU WANT ATTEMPTED IF ROOMS ARE NOT AVAILABLE?:
*NUMBER OF SEATS REQUIRED:

ROOM/BLDG PREFERENCE:
TABLET ARMCHAIRS OK TO BOOK? (y/n):
TST SLOT ALREADY SCHEDULED ON THE SCHEDULE OF CLASSES? (y/n):

*NUMBER OF SEATS REQUIRED - Please always double your enrollment if you require double spacing. If you are using your regular classroom and would like spillover space please indicate your regular classroom number as well as the number of extra seats you require.

Example:

Enrolment = 90. Already have MC 2034.

Formula is:
90x2 = 180
180-96 (96 is the number of seats in MC 2034) = 84 additional seats needed from Scheduling

NOTES:   If a course has a TST slot component on the Schedule of Classes, but the time is indicated as TBA, it will automatically go into the non-TST slot queue and be treated as a non-TST slot midterm.  Also, if a TST slot is in the catalog but not scheduled on the Schedule of Classes as a component, it will also be considered a non-TST midterm. 

If you submit a midterm request but later on send in a re-submission, the new date and/or time will automatically be put at the end of the queue for the category you are submitting for (TST and non-TST).

Should your Math or Science faculty midterm date be on a Saturday, please add these information-seeking questions to your template submission:

MATH/SCI MULTISECTION COURSE?

Approved by the appropriate Associate Dean?