How to Build Your Courses

Throughout the year, the Registrar's Office works in conjunction with academic departments across campus to create the schedule of courses for each upcoming semester. The course building process begins well in advance of the start of each term. Classes offered in the Fall begin being developed in early December, Spring classes in early August, and Summer classes in early October.

As the beginning of the course building process draws closer, our office sends out an email to departmental staff announcing training opportunities and providing updates and general information about the process.

Fall 2023 Schedule of Courses Timeline

*Beginning January 23, 2023, departments must submit changes via the SOC Change/New Section forms in myUVM. Changes resulting from proofing must be submitted no later than 4:30 p.m. on February 22, 2023. Changes to sections scheduled in a non-GP classroom that are submitted after this deadline will be processed starting March 20, 2023; changes to sections scheduled in a GP classroom will be processed beginning March 27, 2023.

Please note the following important information regarding the Schedule of Courses processing:

1. Fall 2022 course information has been rolled to the Fall 2023 semester in SWCSCHD.  Please make sure to delete any courses that will not be offered, and if you do not find a course that you expected to have rolled, please add it. 
   • Please note that when a three-digit course displays in the SOC comments, this means the course was ended at the catalogue-level. During your review, you will need to replace this with the appropriate four-digit course. For your reference, here is a link to the three- to four-digit course report: https://go.uvm.edu/renumber , and to the three-to-four digit widget https://go.uvm.edu/change3to4.
2. Courses with the following titles have now been set up for each unit.  Please use that course, rather than Special Topics.  The course number, other than the level, is listed.
   • Undergraduate Research – x995
   • Independent Study – x993
   • Internship – x991
   • Teaching Assistantship – x994
3. Please make sure to review the course and program fee policy: http://www.uvm.edu/policies/acct/coursefees.pdf.  Fees and appropriate detail codes should be entered in the comments section of SWCSCHD during department or dean loading periods, or submitted via the new course/change forms.  Courses with fees that have not been finalized prior to April 14, 2023 will be changed to pending status and will not display on the Schedule of Courses until the detail code and fee amount is submitted to the Registrar’s Office.  No modifications or fee additions are allowed after student registration for the course has opened.
4. Semester courses must span the full term (15 weeks in fall and spring) of the semester in which they are offered, with a minimum of 45 hours of total effort per credit. Part-of-Term courses in the semester or summer must span the full part-of-term in which they are offered and distribute the 45 hours of effort per credit over a shorter time window. For more information, please see University Policy Regarding The Definition of a Credit Hour:   http://catalogue.uvm.edu/undergraduate/enrollmentregistration/registration/
5. Please work with your Associate Deans to follow these guidelines when building the schedule:
   Spread out course offerings over all the meeting patterns.  There are enough rooms to accommodate sections if all the meeting patterns are used.  Please use the Course Distribution tab in myUVM to view distribution of courses across the day. Please contact your Associate Dean or email regsoc@uvm.edu with any questions about using these reports.
6. Expanded Section Descriptions (ESDs) are due by April 3, 2023. Per the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), Article 16.20, faculty members must provide ESDs or a link to a recent syllabus for all of their course sections in the upcoming semester. ESDs help students understand the nature of a course, its learning objectives, pedagogy, and methods of evaluation.  The link to post an ESD, including an instructional video, is located on the Teaching tab of myUVM. Department Chairs, Associate Deans, and Deans can view the status of ESD entries via the “Expanded Section Description Report” located on the Dean/Chair tab of myUVM in the Schedule of Courses Tool section.
7. Travel Courses: Please use “DOM TRAVEL” for domestic travel courses and “INTL TRAVEL” for international travel courses. Alternatively, you may put information about domestic versus international travel in SWCSCHD notes and we will enter the “classroom” information.
8. Course Safety: If your course will use hazardous materials (chemicals, biological hazards, radio-isotopes) please enter “HAZMAT” in the SOC comments. The Registrar’s Office will move this information into the SOC Notes section of SWCSCD for tracking purposes only. The information will not appear in the SOC. Please see https://www.uvm.edu/riskmanagement/identify-hazards for information on hazardous materials.
9. Please review the Instructions for SWCSCHD by logging into myUVM, selecting the dean/chair tab and clicking on ‘SWCSCHD Instructions’ in the ‘Schedule of Courses Tools’ section. You will find a helpful Banner 9 User Guide on the Registrar’s Office Website.
10. In addition to the training being held next week, the Registrar’s Office is happy to provide additional assistance to departments in using SWCSCHD.  One-on-one help sessions can be arranged by emailing rachel.purnell@uvm.edu.
11. Important Safety Reminder – Please Distribute to All Faculty

    This is a reminder for faculty. UVM strongly discourages the practice of holding classroom break-out groups in hallways, stairways or other areas not designed for assembly. Assembled groups of people in these areas may inhibit safe passage or impede egress in the event of a need to evacuate.  In the case of laboratory buildings, the risks are elevated.  Active laboratories transfer and receive potentially hazardous materials and supplies through these areas. Navigating through groups of people increases the risk of an accident or unplanned release. 

Please contact safety@uvm.edu with any questions.

While this reminder pertains to all locations, current laboratory buildings include:

• Aiken Center
• Colchester Research Facility
• Bioresearch Complex
• Delehanty
• Discovery Building
• Given Building
• Health Sciences Research Facility
• Hills Building
• Innovation Hall
• Jeffords Hall
• John Dewey Hall
• Marsh Life Science Building & Carrigan Wing
• Perkins Hall
• Rowell Building
• Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Center
• Stafford Building
• Terrill Building
• Votey Building

Resources

Please review the Schedule of Courses Tools section on the Dean or Chair page of myUVM, as well as the Summer 2023 Standard Meeting Patterns (SMPs).

Summer 2023 Schedule of Courses Timeline

Schedule of Courses Processing Information:

1. Professional and Continuing Education (PACE) is currently in the process of working with each school/college Dean’s Office to debrief SS22 and discuss unit plans for SS23.  If assistance is needed, or questions arise during the course build process, please reach out to apadmin@uvm.edu. 
2. Course information has been rolled from SS22 to SS23 in SWCSCHD, and the Banner Page will be available to departments on Tuesday, October 25th.  Course information will need to be entered, confirmed, edited and/or new sections added accordingly into SWCSCHD.
   • Please note, only standard meeting patterns should be entered for SS23 courses in SWCSCHD (see SMP list attached).  Courses allowing a TBA meeting pattern such as internships, independent study, practica, online and travel courses can be entered using the standard meeting pattern date block.  Days and times can be left blank.
   • NEW: SMPs now have a corresponding Part of Term (POT) Code. I have attached the POT Key for you to reference when adjusting the dates in SWCSCHD. Please note: some of the SMPs were adjusted to accommodate the celebration of Memorial Day, Juneteenth, and July 4th.  NEW: you are now able to enter the POT code and it will populate the correct dates.  You no longer need to enter dates in the SOC comments. Please just enter the appropriate POT code.  Because is new, please don’t hesitate to reach out to myself or regsoc@uvm.edu with any questions about this.
   • For the 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 4.4, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1, 10.1, 12.0, 12.3, and 12.4 SMP’s, please identify course details in course comments for review.
   • Please make sure to review the course and program fee policy: http://www.uvm.edu/policies/acct/coursefees.pdf.  Fees and appropriate detail codes should be entered in the comments section of SWCSCHD during department or dean loading periods or submitted via the new course/change forms.
   • Please note, courses with the following titles have been set up for each unit:
     
     Undergraduate Research
     Internship
     Independent Study
     Teaching Assistantship
     
     Please use the regular course number for these courses. Please do not submit them as Special Topic (Schedule types of “T” or “I” are no longer valid for Special Topics courses)
   • Please review the instructions for SWCSCHD by logging into myUVM, selecting the dean/chair tab and clicking on ‘SWCSCHD Instructions’ in the ‘Schedule of Courses’ channel.  Please pay special attention to the “Entering Information on SWCSCHD” section.  This outlines very important course details that need to be documented during this process.  One-on-one help sessions in using SWCSCHD can be arranged by emailing regsoc@uvm.edu.
3. Starting November 14th, all changes must be submitted via the SOC change/new section forms in myUVM.   Arts & Sciences course changes and new section requests must be submitted to the appropriate CAS chair, and then forwarded to Lise Larose in the CAS Dean’s Office.  All others should be submitted directly to CDE.
4. Expanded Section Descriptions (ESDs) are due by February 1st:  Per the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), Article 16.20, faculty members must provide ESDs or a link to a recent syllabus for all of their course sections in the upcoming semester. ESDs help students understand the nature of a course, its learning objectives, pedagogy, and methods of evaluation.  The link to post an ESD, including an instructional video, is located on the Teaching tab of myUVM. Department Chairs, Associate Deans, and Deans can view the status of ESD entries via the “Expanded Section Description Report” located on the Dean/Chair tab of myUVM in the Schedule of Courses Tools section.
5. Please make sure to review the course and program fee policy: http://www.uvm.edu/policies/acct/coursefees.pdf.  Fees and appropriate detail codes should be entered in the comments section of SWCSCHD during department or dean loading periods, or submitted via the new course/change forms.  Courses with fees that have not been finalized prior to February 3, 2023 will be changed to pending status and will not display on the Schedule of Courses until the detail code and fee amount is submitted to the Registrar’s Office.  No modifications or fee additions are allowed after student registration for the course has opened.
6. Only independent study courses or additional sections needed, due to high student enrollment demand, may be added after February 3. 
7. NEW: Course Safety: If your course will use hazardous materials (chemicals, biological hazards, radio-isotopes) please enter “HAZMAT” in the SOC comments. The Registrar’s Office will move this information into the SOC Notes section of SWCSCD for tracking purposes only. The information will not appear in the SOC. Please see https://www.uvm.edu/riskmanagement/identify-hazards for information on hazardous materials.
8. Important Safety Reminder – Please Distribute to All Faculty
   
   This is a reminder for faculty. UVM strongly discourages the practice of holding classroom break-out groups in hallways, stairways or other areas not designed for assembly. Assembled groups of people in these areas may inhibit safe passage or impede egress in the event of a need to evacuate.  In the case of laboratory buildings, the risks are elevated.  Active laboratories transfer and receive potentially hazardous materials and supplies through these areas. Navigating through groups of people increases the risk of an accident or unplanned release. 
   
   Please contact safety@uvm.edu with any questions.  
   
   While this reminder pertains to all locations, current laboratory buildings include:
   • Aiken Center
   • Colchester Research Facility
   • Bioresearch Complex
   • Delehanty
   • Discovery Building
   • Given Building
   • Health Sciences Research Facility
   • Hills Building
   • Innovation Hall
   • Jeffords Hall
   • John Dewey Hall
   • Marsh Life Science Building & Carrigan Wing
   • Perkins Hall
   • Rowell Building
   • Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Center
   • Stafford Building
   • Terrill Building
   • Votey Building

How to Request a Change

• Request a change to an existing section
• Request a new section be created