Overview
This article provides tips if you encounter several types of conflicts when creating or updating a course section. Instead of waiting until schedules have been submitted to identify potential issues, Coursedog identifies conflicts as departments build their schedules. This allows departments to review and resolve potential scheduling issues before submitting courses for validation.
Instructions
Instructor Conflict
An Instructor Conflict occurs when an instructor is assigned to sections with overlapping meeting times.
When an instructor conflict occurs, an error will appear at the top of the course section template.
The conflict will also appear next to the instructor's name within the section template, indicating the number of conflicts associated with that instructor.
How to Resolve an Instructor Conflict
Review the instructor's assignments and determine whether:
Room Conflict
The Registrar's Office will continue to take the lead on assigning rooms to courses. However, if you encounter a room conflict involving department-controlled space, it is recommended that the conflict be resolved before submitting your schedule for validation.
If you receive a warning stating: "There is 1 meeting time without a room" you may still submit the section for validation during Phase 1.
The Registrar's Office will handle room assignments as part of the rooming process in Phase 2.
Course/Student Conflict
When building the schedule, departments should consider courses their students may need to take in other departments.
If your students regularly take courses offered by another department, you can use Coursedog to view that department's schedule and avoid scheduling required or commonly paired courses at overlapping times.
How to View Another Department's Sections
From the Section Dashboard, search for the department whose schedule you would like to review.
All Villanova University departments will be listed. Scroll to the appropriate department and select Show Sections.
Note: You will only be able to edit sections for departments to which you have appropriate access. Sections belonging to other departments will be view-only.
Date/Time Conflict
A Date/Time Conflict may occur when a course's meeting pattern overlaps with another assignment associated with the instructor.
An error such as the following will appear:
To resolve the conflict, either:
How to Change the Meeting Day/Time
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Scroll down to Meeting Patterns & Rooms on the section template.
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Click the existing day/time within Meeting Patterns & Rooms. A new window will appear:
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Select a new meeting day/time.
You can narrow the available meeting patterns using filters such as:
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Select the appropriate new meeting pattern.
Once the meeting pattern has been updated, review the section to confirm that the conflict has been resolved. The conflict should not appear at the top of the section template and allow you to save.
Reviewing Conflicts Before Validation
Before submitting courses for validation, it is recommended that departments review outstanding conflicts using the Reports tab on the left panel navigation bar.
Once in Reports, select Conflicts.
At the top of the Conflicts report, you can narrow the results by semester and department.
You may also review conflicts across other departments for the current scheduling semester. This can be helpful when determining whether another course is contributing to a conflict with one of your department's sections.
The conflicts matching your search criteria will appear in the report. You can further narrow the results by selecting a specific conflict type.
When reviewing the Conflict report, click the applicable course to open the course in the section template. You can make the necessary changes to resolve the conflict for your department
Before Submitting for Validation
Before submitting your department's schedule, use this quick checklist: