Create and edit courses

In this view you can add a new course or modify an existing course. When you are in Courses view, pressing the [Insert] or [Enter] key takes you into this window. Courses are the core elements of Mimosa and with the help of courses you define how to resources (or components) are connected together in each event.

Courses are typically sequences of events that require two or more components to be present at specific times in the timetable though, in their simplest form, they may also be used to schedule a single event for a single component. In schools and universities, courses are typically sets of lectures on a particular subject that require the presence of a teacher, a group of students and a room but they may also be used to schedule exams, meetings, planned absences or any other events requiring one or several components.

The course definition indicates how many events (occurrences of the course) need to be scheduled in the timetable. Mimosa will not allow you to schedule an occurrence of a course in the timetable unless all the components of that course are available at that time. Each course can contain up to 240 components and you can define categories for different kinds of courses.

For each course, you have to enter a

• unique course Code,
• descriptive Name,
• Category, defining the type of the current course,
• MAX number of times this course is used and
• the list of components connected to this course.

When starting to create a new file and you do not have created any courses, you input here only the Code, Name, Category and MAX for each course. After one or more components have been created you can attach them to courses in a similar manner as you can do in Components view. Note that these both views are very similar in their functionality. Mimosa checks that the permissible links of courses and components are always valid, by showing on the right box only those components that can be added.

Before any lectures have been scheduled, all combinations of courses and components are available. When lectures have been scheduled, the available component selection on the right box will become smaller and decreases the possibilities to connect them with courses. It is of course possible to create courses that contain only some of the components, schedule the courses, and then add the remaining components to courses afterwards.

The goal in this view is to create courses and to select the right components for each course. The box on the right side contains all components you can select for the current course and the box on the left contains those components you have already selected. You can use the arrow and swap buttons or use the mouse drag the components across the boxes.

Press the [Insert] key to create a new course.

If you have not created any components, the screen looks like the above. You should create at least some of the components before you create courses, but Mimosa does not restrict to create courses without them, if you like to add them afterwards. After you have created one or more components in components view, they will appear also in this screen. Note that each course must have at least one component, before it can be scheduled.

Replace the suggested course code (CourseX) and course name. Input the maximum number of lectures (MAX) for this course. MAX must be larger or equal to the number of times this course will appear in the timetables. When you have created some courses, the screen looks like the one below:

If you have not added any components to courses, the column LINKS contains question marks. When there components are added to the courses, their number is shown instead.

When you have created some components and created a new course, the window which you use to you insert and edit courses displays the available components on the right and those which are selected for the course, on the left.

You can add components from the left box to this course one by one, but you can also multi-select them by keeping [Ctrl] button down and clicking the selected components with the mouse.

After you have selected them, click Add button, and the components appear in the left box.

Press the [Enter] key to edit an existing course. If you have already selected components for this course, they are in the box on the left and on the right you see components that are selectable.

To add components to course, select the available component(s) on the right box and click the Add button or double-click the component. If you want to add several components, keep [Ctrl] button down and select the components you want to add. In a similar way, you can Remove selected components from the left box or Swap components across boxes. You can continue this process also after creating timetables, since Mimosa takes care that overlaps cannot occur and lists only those items on the right box which are currently available and will not create conflicts.

The order of the components on the left is the same as you see them in timetable cells, but you can format the result in several ways. Use the Arrow buttons (,) to move the components on the list to get the desired outcome.

Techniques to select and move items between the boxes:

• If you want to select or deselect a single item from the list, click the left mouse button
• If you want to include several, but not necessarily consecutive items in your selection, keep the Ctrl button down and click the left mouse button
• If you want to include a range of items from the first to the last in your selection, keep the Shift button down when selecting the first and last item from the list
• You can drag-and-drop selected items from one box to another, by keeping the left mouse button down and dragging items from one box to the other box and releasing the mouse on the target box

After each of these selection techniques, click the Add, Remove or Swap button to perform the task. If you accept the selections, click the [OK] button to close the view.

Samples of most common course structures:

Note that the course structures may vary according to your needs. Mimosa does not restrict how you want to create the courses, which can represent any kind of events, such as meetings, exams and so on. You will find more examples about various Course structures or collections at the bottom of this page.

Example 1: A simple example of a typical school course (one class/group, teacher and room):

Example 2: Teacher is teaching students of two classes/groups at the same time:

Example 3: Students of one class/group are split for two teachers:

If a class/group are split to two courses and the courses are run concurrently, they should be combined in a same course, containing all components they require:

Example 4: Students of two classes/groups are split for three teachers:

Example 5: Personalised teaching for six students by one teacher:

Example 6: An example of a meeting (one room, two or more teachers):

Example 7: Conference presentations or sessions can also be interpreted as courses:

(Typically conference attendees can act in up to three different roles: as chairmen, presenters, and referees. Note that each session can occupy one or several of them. Streams are used in conferences to exclude papers of the same area of interest to be scheduled in the same time).

Example 8: Music/theatre rehearsals constitute also courses:

(In music rehearsals, also instruments and other needed equipment can be included as components and scheduled).

Often courses consist of different sections, each requiring a different set of components. Note that you should create a course for each of these sections, since Mimosa assumes that all components of the course are always available and scheduled in the same time. If you include all components, even when some are only needed occasionally, it will prevent using any of them in other courses even though some would actually be available. In the example below the course must be split into five Mimosa courses, to represent the varying sets of components it requires during its lifetime. You can use the Edit|Split tool to split a course to sections without the need to reschedule it, if you have previously scheduled a course having different sections.

Creating courses from your spreadsheet application

Note that the course-component connections can be represented in several alternative ways:

If you want to paste the courses from a spreadsheet application with the help of the Clipboard, you can use either of the two last formats above. See the selection Edit|Paste from the Clipboard|3 Add to collections in Courses view.

Description of screen elements:

Code

Enter a new code (with maximum length of 15 characters) here for the course you are going to create or modify the old code if it has already been created. When inserting a new course, Mimosa fills the field initially. Replace it with your own code, which describes its content. Also take into account that you may want to use this code later on as sorting criteria. Note that when printing or publishing timetables, you can always select to display the code, name or both.

Name

Add to each course a descriptive course name (with maximum length of 63 characters).

You can enclose in brackets [ ... ], ( ... ), [ ... ] ,\ ... \ or / ... / those texts you do not want to show in reports and on the screen, but are helpful when working with data. For instance, you can include hidden personal comments or price information (such as Smith [demanding person!] or Language studio [rent costs $70/h]). See Options|Other|Hidden text separators.

You can let Mimosa compare the capacity of the rooms with the requirements of other components (such as groups). The capacity and the requirement of the component is denoted by using the special character # followed by the number, such as #30, and it can be enclosed in brackets as described above, if it is going to be hidden.

For example, to set the size of "Group A" to "25", change its name to "Group A (#25)". To set the capacity of the room "Room 123" to 30 students, change its name to "Room 123 (#30)". When you view or edit a course, Mimosa automatically detects if the defined room capacity is enough for the requirements and informs about it on screen. If the course contains several components, all requirements of other components are added to together and compared with the capacity numbers of all rooms.

You can define which components are interpreted as rooms in the selection "Category of rooms" in Options|Timetables. All numbers in this component category are interpreted as capacities, whereas all numbers in other categories are considered as requirements when they are compared.

Category

Because of the different needs of the institutions that use this software, the default types of the courses are given here only as examples, but they should be redefined in Options|Categories to suit your needs.

MAX

This is the total number of lectures planned to be allocated over weeks for this course and later scheduled. Note that you cannot enter a smaller number here than in the field SUM. To enable this, right-click to display the menu where the allocated (SUM) and/or scheduled (DONE) lectures can be erased or reduced, or click the button () to reduce the number of lectures one by one.

SUM

The total number of allocated lectures of this course (SUM<=MAX). The value in this field is automatically updated by the application in the Weeks view and cannot be changed here. If you have only one week, this number is always equal to MAX.

DONE

The total number of scheduled lectures of this course (DONE<=SUM). The value in this field is automatically updated by Mimosa after the lectures have been scheduled, typically in Timetables view.

LINKS

The total number of components included in this course or the size of the collection. This number is automatically changed when you change the size of the code list on the bottom left in this window.

Buttons on top of this window

The functions presented below can also be accessed from the pop-up menu:

Copies the selected codes from the left list (course components) to the Clipboard. You can copy the selected or all codes to the Clipboard and Paste it to another course.

Pastes the selection from the Clipboard to the left list (course components).

Cuts (copies and removes) the selection from the left list (course components) to the Clipboard.

You can use the above three functions to copy and move course components across two or more courses. Once you have select the Copy or Cut operation, you can select another course or create a new course and then select Paste to copy/move the stored components to this course.

Click it to enable/disable only the currently activated category to be displayed on the right box. This option is often useful to limit your search to a specified set of the code list.

Displays detailed information of the latest selected course or component, its links to other codes and schedule information. See Show info for details.

Jumps to Tools|Show timetables.

Displays a window of all conflicting components for all courses, with the current course activated. See Tools|Modify collections.

Change the previous/next course as the active course, without using the [OK] or [Cancel] buttons. If some of the fields have been changed, you are prompted to accept the changes before moving to the next course.

If at least one of the lectures has been scheduled and the course is not locked, clicking this button reduces the number of lectures one by one, starting from the latest lecture and also adjusting the SUM and DONE fields accordingly. This enables then to decrease the MAX lectures, which is set to be at always larger or equal to SUM.

Buttons between boxes

You can change the selected fields that are displayed in the lists on the left and right. If too many fields are displayed, only a part of the component name is shown.

Components are added to the active course by picking them from the list of All addable components on the right. You can add the components one by one by clicking them with the mouse or select several components at once by simultaneously pressing the Shift or Ctrl keys with the mouse. Press Add to add selected components.

Components are removed from the course collection by selecting them from the list on the left and then pressing Remove.

You can also simply Swap two selected components from both lists and combine clicking the Add and Remove buttons.

If you want to remove all components from the left box, click the Clear All button.

Sort sorts all components in the course collection in the order of code and category number.

Select All selects all components of the course.

Erase removes the scheduled lectures of this course from the selected weeks, thus allowing new components to be added to the course collection.

Moves the active component up or down within the course collection on the left box.

Instant scheduling

After you have created a course, you can also view and modify the course timetable by clicking Schedule now button on the bottom of the screen. The view expands and displays the timetable of the course and the active component on the left box. Instant scheduling tools enable to schedule the course immediately without switching to Weeks view and Timetables views.

When you have selected to modify the course and it is not set as locked, click Schedule now to view and edit its schedule. Click a cell on the timetable to view a more detailed description of its content. If you have defined more than one week, use the left and right arrow buttons to switch to the timetable of the next or previous week. Double-click a slot which contains a lecture of the current course or click a permissible slot where the course can be scheduled. These slots are marked with the same (but inverted) colours. The changes in the lectures are visible on top of this timetable. Note that the weekly allocated (planned) lectures which are maintained in Weeks view are here automatically set equal to the number of scheduled lectures. You can B>Copy and Paste course timetables across weeks and Clear the course timetable of the current week. Copying and pasting is useful when the same course timetable pattern is applied in several weeks.

In the example below some basic operations are demonstrated:

1. Three additional lectures of course "FOR" (abbreviated from "FOR275") are scheduled in week "S2"
2. The timetable of week "S2" is Copied to memory
3. The current week is switched from week "S2" to "S4"
4. The timetable is Pasted to week "S4" (by first automatically clearing previous course schedules and copying only permissible schedules).

After modifying the timetable, clicking Save confirms changes and clicking Reset (or clicking Schedule now again) restores the previously saved course timetable. When the schedule view is opened, components cannot be removed from or added to the course. After the timetable has been saved and the schedule view closed, this can be done again. Changing the timetables may also change the options to add alternative components to the course.

Below is a summary of instant scheduling tools:

• Save stores the changed course timetable and disables to use [Cancel] button.
• Reset discards the changes made into course timetables. Clicking Schedule now to close this view has the same effect.
• Copy copies the lectures of the current course timetable of the current week to memory (to be pasted to another week).
• Paste pastes the stored course timetable to the current week. Only those cells are pasted which do not conflict with previously scheduled slots.
• Clear clears all course timetable lectures from the current week.

Course structures or collections

Collections are the core elements of your Mimosa file. With Mimosa you can add up to 240 components to each course, and within each institute there are various types of collections you may need to use. In a typical case course contains 3-5 components, but sometimes it can contain only one component, whereas in other cases it may contain tenths of components (individual timetables, meetings). When a course is scheduled, Mimosa requires that each of the components are available at the same time. For this reason collections cannot normally contain alternatives, since Mimosa assumes that they all must be available in the same time.

Mimosa can be applied (and it has been applied) in several environments, not only schools and universities. Components and component categories can be built freely for any specific need. Here are few typical examples of the ways how Mimosa has been used:

• Schools, group tuition: Components are classes (=groups of students), teachers, rooms. Courses consist in most cases of one class, teacher and room, but also in some cases of several of them in case of mixed courses.
• Schools, personalised tuition: Teachers, rooms, students, rooms are here the components. A course in this kind of school constitutes typically of a teacher, room and a set of students.
• Universities: Because of the large number of students, the components are often only teachers and rooms. Users may also apply "streams" instead of groups to preventing overlaps of some courses. A course contains typically of one teacher and room.
• Scientific conferences: Components are participants, streams and rooms. A course is in this case often a session where a publication is presented. A course consists of person(s) presenting the publication, referee for the publication, chairman of the meeting, room where presentation takes place and possible a stream which is used to prevent overlaps of similar kinds of sessions. Same participants can be in several roles in different sessions.
• Trade fair meetings: Components are suppliers, clients and rooms. The purpose is to schedule several meetings between suppliers and clients. Since the meetings may need different kind of combinations of them, a course in this case consists of one or more suppliers, one or more clients plus one room.
• Rehearsals: When organising rehearsals for a play, opera or similar event, courses are sessions which consist of a set of persons, rooms and equipment/instruments needed for each session.

If you want to list components as "alternatives" (such as in student selections), you can in some case uncheck the option "Prevent conflicts for" in Options|Timetables. In this case Mimosa does not check the overlaps in timetables for these components.

The order of components the collections does not have any specific meaning for Mimosa, but the order that has selected here is also used when printing or publishing timetables on web. Therefore in case of collections which contain several teachers and rooms it is recommended to list them in the same order so that their interpretation is as simple as possible.

Note that the similar rules to combine several kind of resources for different courses (or projects, sessions) can be easily applied to other than educational environments, such as for conferences, staff and machines scheduling, theatre and music rehearsals etc.

Examples of typical collections are presented below:

Example 1: Class, teacher and room

Suppose that the class LineA must study three hours in a week the course called Nursing of People at Different Ages, taught by NICHOLSON in room R112. We use the abbreviation NURSING for that course and go to the selection Edit|New course to create it.

Use the Add button in that window to move the selected components from the right-hand list (green) to the left-hand list (blue), and Remove button to do the reverse operation. You can pick several components at once by keeping the [Ctrl] button pressed while clicking the components to select on the right box.

Example 2: One class, two teachers and two rooms

In this example the class G107 is split into two sections for two teachers BEATTY and HACKMAN who teach their groups in rooms R112 and R206, respectively. Note that the order of components is a question of taste and readability.

or

Example 3: Two classes, teacher and room

It is also sometimes possible that one teacher has a session which contains students from two classes.

Example 4: Student-based or personalised courses

If you want to create individual timetables, the collections of the courses typically consist of one teacher, room and a set of students. In this case components do not contain any classes/groups, but a list of students which are associated to their courses as follows:

Example 5: Meetings of teachers

Meetings of teachers can also be scheduled as special courses, and in this case courses typically contain one room plus the list of teachers attending the meeting.

Similarly, you can create all courses for your institution. In most cases courses consist of a class, teacher and room, but there are limitless of other combinations. If the teacher is required to teach pupils from two classes simultaneously, both classes are added to the left-hand list. Below are examples of different types of course collections:

Note that when course structure varies across lectures, it must be split into two or more courses:

The most common way to define those set of mixed courses containing several teachers and classes is to include all classes (C1,C2,C3,C4), teachers (T1,T2,T3) and rooms (R1,R2,R3) in the same course. The application neither knows nor cares which one of the pupils is attending the lectures of each teacher. The course, when defined in this way, always keeps all classes (and other components) occupied at the same time, and the list of components is: C1, C2, C3, C4, T1, T2, T3, R1, R2, R3.

The order of the components is not relevant, you could also list them as C1, C2, C3, C4, T1, R1, T2, R2, T3, R3 to emphasize in timetables where each teacher is located.

Note that when there are two or more classes and teachers that should be connected together, it helps to view the setting in a form of a table as follows:

The structure of the collections you define for courses in this way are always special cases of the above matrix, which often contain only one row or column and in most (and simplest) cases, it contains only one row and one column (teacher, class and room).

Using of subjects as components in courses is basically descriptive and voluntary, and recommended in mixed courses as the one below. If the course structure is simple, the course name is often used instead to describe the course content. Adding a set of subjects (S1,S2,S3) to the course tells the readers of the timetable, what the teachers are doing with their sets of students (coming from several classes). The subjects can also be used as comments and for statistical reasons to count the sums of lectures of different types. By default, subjects are (by default) not checked for conflicts, which enables several instructors to teach the same subject simultaneously (in schools with several teachers of the subject Mathematics, for instance).

When you add the subjects to the course collection, you can insert them where the corresponding teachers and rooms are, to make the component list in timetables more understandable.

Use the arrow keys to move the component up or down on the list to get the desired result. The same order is used when timetables are printed.