Astra Schedule supports the creation of exam records for academic sections via exam meeting time mapping.  Exam section meetings are generated per term for applicable courses as configured.  Exam meeting times are assigned based on the meeting time of the section meeting as defined.  Once generated, exam meetings appear along with other section meetings and details on the section form, and can be scheduled into rooms either manually or through optimization.

Process Overview

The overall exam scheduling process has three general phases:  Setup, Creation, and Scheduling.

 

The exam setup phase includes the system exam configuration and definition required to support exam creation and scheduling.  This includes information that must be configured to perform exam scheduling, but only needs to occur one time.  Once configured, this phase does not need to be revisited unless changes are required.

 

The exam creation phase is comprised of the steps necessary to generate the section exam meetings for a specific exam session and term.  Exam creation must be performed every time new exams are required.

 

The exam scheduling phase occurs after the exam meetings are created and assigns rooms to the exam meetings.  This phase is similar to scheduling sections for an academic term and may be performed manually or by using the optimizer.

 

The following steps outline the overall exam scheduling process from beginning to end:

 

•Exam Setup:

 

1.Define Exam Types (i.e. Final, Mid-Term, Written, etc)

2.Associate Exam Types to courses per course Meeting Type (dictates which courses have exams)

3.Define exam room scheduling preferences

 

•Exam Creation:

 

4.Create an exam session for a specific term (i.e. Final Exams for Fall 2009)

5.Initiate the creation of exam meetings for the term
 
The system will identify course sections for the term that are configured to have exams, generate exam meetings, and apply room preferences
 

6.Initiate meeting pattern mapping
 
The system will present a list of distinct meeting patterns for sections with exam meetings in the term
 

7.Enter exam meeting times and dates that correspond to the section meeting times

8.Initiate application of exam meeting times to exam meetings
 
The system will update the exam meetings and apply the times as configured

 

•Exam Scheduling:

 

9.Initiate exam-specific room assignment optimization
 
The system will assign rooms that meet room preferences and exam needs
 

10.Manually resolve any remaining room scheduling or exam meeting issues