Staff Documentation - Unitime

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Last updated: Nov 07, 2022
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Staff Documentation - UniTime

This documentation is to help the staff of the University of Guyana to enter the required data in Unitime to generate the University’s timetable. The SSETA team has begun the UniTime effort by entering the following data from SRMS, HRMIS and other university sources.

-Instructors

-Programme Structure/Curicula

-Room information

-The courses being offered and their information such as delivery mode, projected class size, and assumed class structure(how many hours a week, and how many lectures).

 

To proceed in generating the timetable, departments are expected to enter instructor time preferences, course time preferences and class room preferences to ensure the timetable is generated appropriately.

First, begin by visiting https://timetable.uog.edu.gy and logging into the Unitime interface with the provided username and password given to you.

 

 

In the top left corner of the screen, you will see a “Courses” tab where you can navigate to the appropriate screen for data entry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 1. Instructor Preferences

 

Select the “Courses” tab, hover over the “Input Data” tab and select “Instructors” to go to the instructor search page.

 

 

 

Here, you will see a list of all the instructors assigned to your academic faculty. Search through the list and click the instructor that you wish to set time preferences for.

 

 

In the top right corner of the instructor pane, click “Edit Preferences” to view and edit the preferences page.

 

Here, you will see all the preferences for the instructor. You can scroll this page to see the different types of preferences, however, this tutorial wishes to focus on the time preferences.

 

 

Time preferences are set by using a Likert scale that ranges from “Prohibited” to “Strong Preferred”. You can use these values to set preferences for individual times. By default, all times are set to “Neutral” which means that the instructor has no preference towards or against a particular time.

 

Time preferences can be set by clicking the intended value on the scale and clicking on a time slot, for the effect seen in the photo below.

 

 

The above setting tells that the instructor cannot teach any classes from 7:30AM to 4:30PM, strongly prefers that their classes are held around 4:30PM to 5:30PM and has a slight preference for their classes to be held 5:30PM to 6:30PM. Click the “Update” button to the upper right corner of the preferences tab when you are satisfied.

 

Part 2. Course Preferences

2.1 Course Time Preferences

The courses under your faculty can be viewed by hovering over the “Input Data” tab under the “Courses” link again and selecting “Instructional Offerings”.

 

From the Instructional Offerings page, click on the appropriate department abbreviation and click the “Search” button to display courses for that faculty. Then click on the appropriate course to open a details page for that course.

 

 

 

On the course details page you will see a configurations tab that houses all of the classes of the course; There we can see “Lecture” and other types of classes such as “Laboratory”. Click on the specific Lecture you would like to add time preferences to.

 

 

Click ‘Edit Class” in the top right corner of the pane.

 

Then, scroll down to the time preferences tab and use the Likert scale to set time preferences using the same steps used to create the instructor time preferences above.

 

 

One new addition to the Likert scale was the “Required” option. This means that the class MUST be held at this specific time. Use this feature with caution.

 

2.2 Class room preferences

Scroll further down the ‘edit class’ page and you will note “Room Group Preferences”, “Room Preferences”, “Building Preferences” and “Room Feature Preferences”.

 

In these sections you can use the first dropdown to select the item, and the second dropdown to select the type of preference on the Likert scale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the example below, the online room was set to ‘Prohibited’, meaning this class cannot be held here.

 

To add more preferences beyond the two slots provided by default, click the “Add” button for the respective section and it will add a new slot. Finally, when you are satisfied, click “Update” at the bottom or top of the page to save your changes.

 

 

2.2 Class distribution preferences

To ensure that class times and room use is distributed appropriately in special cases, Unitime has provided distribution preferences where we can create relationships between different classes in terms of time scheduled and room sharing.

 

Examples of when to create distribution preferences are:

  1. To ensure the different lectures of the same(or different) course do not happen at the same time.(Same Days; Prohibited)

  2. To join classrooms for merged courses(Same Room & Time; Required)

 

Return to the course details page to see the configurations tab and click on the specific Lecture you would like to add distribution preferences to.

 

 

On the “Edit Class” page, click “Add Distribution Preferences” in the top right corner of the screen.

 

 

 

 

On this interface, you can select the distribution type, structure and the preference type(remember Likert scale).

 

 

Select all the fields in the pane, then add the appropriate classes to the distribution preference. Below is an example of setting ACT2100 and ACT1100 classes back to back, with required preference.

 

2.2.2. Distribution Preferences Options Explained

 

Distribution Type: This speaks to the exact relationship between the classes in the specified list. It either refers to relationships in terms of time or room placement. Examples are “1 hour between” meaning that the classes must be spaced 1 hour apart, “back-to-back” meaning the classes must be one after the other and “same room” meaning they must be in the same physical location(though not at the same time).

 

 

Structure: This speaks to how the list of classes is processed. Does the preference apply to all classes? Should the preference be applied to groups of two?

Luckily, the unitime interface explains each of these Structures as they are selected. Select a structure that seems to match your use case to get a description.

 

Preference: This is a Likert scale that operates the same as the others mentioned earlier. This scale ranges from Prohibited to Required.

 

 

Part 3. Creating New Classes

 

Return to the course details page to see the configurations tab and click on the specific Lecture you would like to add distribution preferences to.

 

 

From there you can fill out the form and use the add button to add different types of classes with different durations, and number of classes. Lastly, click “Update” when you have finished configuring the course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FAQ

What does time preference formats like “1 x 180” mean?

These time preferences are in the form of “number of classes per week x number of minutes per week”.

 

Do we have to set time preferences for each course and instructor?

No, time preferences should only be set for those instructors that have specific time requirements. Usually, this is for part-time staff who cannot work during particular hours.

 

Do we have to enter tutorials for each course?

No, for this semester, we are only entering tutorials for “service courses.” Other course tutorials can be scheduled outside of the timetable as per usual.

 

What exactly does distribution preference mean? How does it work?

Distribution preferences speak to how classes are distributed in relation to each other in terms of time and space. Classes can share rooms or share time slots. Further, classes can be spaced a particular number of hours or days apart, and not share days or rooms. Distribution preferences allow us to create the relationships between classes of the same course or different courses.

 

Do we need to add distribution preferences for all courses?

No! Only when it is absolutely necessary for classes to be distributed in a certain way. For example, a circumstance we see this being used in is for when two lectures of the different or same course cannot be on the same day.

 

N.B: Clashes in courses that students are doing are already taken care of in the system, do not use distribution preferences to do something such as avoiding a clash in time.

 

What does the timetable solution take into consideration when placing classes?

The timetable takes the following into consideration:

  1. All the preferences set by the departments(instructor preferences, class time preferences, etc.)

  2. Room sizes must fit classes

  3. As much as possible, no two classes that students are doing should clash(Student conflicts)

  4. Two classes cannot be in the same room at the same time, unless specified

  5. No lecturer must be teaching two separate classes at the same time