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Term dates and exam week(s)

Thomas Winger

December 14, 2017 14:46

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It would be helpful if the definition of term dates would distinguish between the time frame when classes are held and when exams are given. Here's the problem:

• If you set the end date of the term as the last day of exams, then Populi will schedule classes right through exam week (and the prof will have to delete them manually).

• If you set the last day of classes as the end of term, then you can't run online tests during exam week (Populi complains that the dates are out of term). You have to "extend access" to each course manually, which is time-consuming.

My solution right now is to set the last day of exams as the end of term and then add the exam days as "holidays" in the academic year settings, so Populi won't schedule classes then. But that's a bit misleading and not very logical.
Thanks.

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7 comments

• 1
  
  Dee McOwen December 14, 2017 15:08

  I've thought quite a bit about scheduling meetings for classes. At the graduate level, courses don't always follow a standard pattern. We have hybrid courses that combine online work with one week spent on campus. The course begins at the start of the semester and continues to the end of the semester. The only dates I want shown are the dates they come to campus. It is very misleading to enter those as the course's start and ending dates. It is also cumbersome to enter meeting dates for just the 6 days students are on campus,

  Another scenario we have are weekend classes. Those meet 3 or 4 weekends during the semester. They do not necessarily meet the 2nd weekend of each month, so if I use repeats every 4 weeks, I still have to manually adjust the dates of the meetings, then the meeting I delete shows the meeting date was cancelled, which is also inaccurate.

  Is it possible to add the option of selecting dates and times? This would allow the flexibility to accommodate every school's unique scheduling.

  Thanks.

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  Adam Sentz December 14, 2017 16:56

  @Thomas - Setting up an Exam Week "closure" is a clever way to do it, but what I'd recommend is setting the end date of the course to when you want classes to end, and the end access date to when the exam period will end.

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  Thomas Winger December 14, 2017 17:26

  Thanks for the suggestion. The only problem with this solution is that you can't set an "access date" for the term as a whole, but only one course at a time. So it takes a lot more work.

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  Adam Sentz December 14, 2017 17:30

  @Thomas - I understand. If you need to make a change like that to an unwieldy number of courses, I'd check with Support to see if they can make a bulk change for you.

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  Dee McOwen December 14, 2017 18:25

  Another potential problem is that student's could look at the course end date completely missing the end access date.

   

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  Chrissy Coleman March 13, 2019 21:30

  Would it be possible to add a function to "meeting time" of a course that is just a one-time meeting, that I could name EXAM, and the class can see for the whole quarter?  Right now it seems meeting times must be repeated, and not just a one-date event.  Perhaps there is another option I'm not aware of? Thanks!

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  Adam Sentz March 22, 2019 20:50

  @Chrissy - You can already add single events to the course calendar. If you need help with this please open a support request.