Course Schedule Improvements Fall 2020
October 22, 2019
Dear Rutgers–New Brunswick Colleagues:
As part of our ongoing commitment to improve our students' educational experience, I am pleased to announce the launch of the university's new course scheduling platform, CourseAtlas, for the Fall 2020 semester.
The CourseAtlas initiative modernizes our approach to course scheduling by considering detailed course information, program curricula, classroom inventory, faculty/instructor availability, and projected student enrollment to build a schedule that best fits the needs of our students, faculty, departments, and programs. Beginning this spring semester, as students begin registering for Fall 2020 classes, they will notice fewer conflicts for courses that fulfill their requirements, in addition to scheduling options that reduce their need to travel between campuses.
Enhancing the student experience, which includes decreasing our students' time-to-degree and the associated financial burden, was identified as an institutional priority in our university-wide strategic plan in 2014. The introduction of CourseAtlas comes after years of research, review, extensive testing, real-time simulations, and the continual collection of feedback to ensure the system will best meet the needs of our students, faculty, schools, and departments. It will greatly assist departments in offering the courses their students need while reducing course conflicts and curricular bottlenecks. For more information about this initiative, please visit: https://scheduling.rutgers.edu/courseatlas
During the last two years, the CourseAtlas implementation team solicited and received extensive input from faculty members, a faculty committee, and faculty leadership in creating and modifying the web application that faculty members will use to input their preferred teaching availability. In addition, faculty have the ability to request "block offs," which are times when they are unavailable to teach due to scheduled university or departmental obligations, including professional obligations relating to service, research, and scholarship, or due to accommodations for a qualifying disability or sincerely held religious belief or practice.
I would like to recognize the tireless work of all of those involved in this vital effort, including the dedicated staff from the Office of Scheduling and Space Management (OSSM) and project members from the Office of Information Technology (OIT). Throughout this project, the implementation team has worked closely with departmental scheduling staff, faculty, and faculty administrators from across the schools and departments, and this collaboration will be integral to the project's overall success.
I want to thank all of our faculty, staff, and students for your ongoing commitment to Rutgers. Together, we will continue to enhance our dynamic course offerings and research opportunities to help ensure Rutgers remains a world-class institution.
Sincerely,
Christopher J. Molloy, Ph.D.
Chancellor, Rutgers University–New Brunswick