Courses view Courses viewOther views: Components | Weeks | Timetables
Having first created the list of some or all of the components you can then create the list of courses in a similar technique, using the commands Insert, Modify and Delete or the corresponding buttons. Courses are sets of components defining all teaching requirements for the institution (such as school or university). For each course, you must select its own set of components (=collections) to define how it is synchronised with other resources (classes, teachers, rooms) and also define the lectures for all weeks or terms and later assign them in timetables. Courses can also be any other events, such as meetings, appointments, tests, etc. and the number of components (persons, rooms, equipment) for each course can vary from one to 240.
When the list of courses is double-clicked, the list of components of the course plus its timetable are automatically displayed on top of the course list (if they exist). Double-clicking the list again hides them.
When creating a new course, you must also supply a collection of components, which are treated as simultaneously with the course plus the total number of lectures that must be allocated to weeks (MAX).
See section Modify or insert a course for examples about different types of courses.
The order of the courses in the list can be changed with the help of the Move up and Move down buttons or by sorting them all according to some appropriate criteria (Tools|Sort). Note that it is very easy to import the list of courses and their components via Clipboard, provided you have entered it in a spreadsheet application with a specific format below (Code, Name, Category number, MAX):
With Edit menu selections you can modify the list of courses.
This command duplicates the last activated course by creating a new course with the same
The code for the new course is generated automatically by using the old stored code as the basis (by appending letters a, b, c,…). You can change the suggested new code and modify all fields of this course later on.
This selection is a generalisation of the above Duplicate course once selection, but it also enables to automatically replace a selected component in the courses that are going to be duplicated. This feature is useful in cases, where the same course is held for several classes by the same teacher and in the same room.
| Course | Class | Teacher | Room |
| Course1 | Class1 | Teacher | Room |
| Course2 | Class2 | Teacher | Room |
| Course3 | Class3 | Teacher | Room |
| Course4 | Class4 | Teacher | Room |
| Course5 | Class5 | Teacher | Room |
After you have selected a component of the course to be duplicated, you are prompted to select one or more components of the same category that are going to replace the original component in duplicated courses. You can replace the automatically generated course code after each course is created or do it afterwards.
This selection allows you to split the course lectures in three different ways and perform some typical allocation or timetabling operations automatically. Starting from the active or current week (the week that was last clicked in the Weeks window or activated in the Timetables window) and ending with the last week, the lectures of the course are shared with the original (source) course and the pasted (new) course. Sharing means that the total number of lectures remains the same after the new course is created. After the procedure both courses have the same collections. This selection gives the user an easy method to create a new course and move some of the lectures from the original course to the new course. After sharing the collections or any other data of the two courses can be modified.
Before this option, change the active week (displayed in the bottom right) in Weeks view or Timetables view according to your needs.
Copy onto the ClipboardCopies the list of courses onto the Clipboard to be used by other Windows applications. See Clipboard.
1 Codes and links
2 Codes, names, categories and MAX [Ctrl+C]
3 Codes and lectures 4 Codes and collections
5 Codes and lectures in weeks
6 Codes and addable components
7 Codes, names and lectures of components
8 Codes, names and lectures of components in weeks
9 Timetables
10 Selection matrix
Use timetabled lectures
The last selection Use timetabled lectures applies timetabled lectures (instead of lectures allocated to weeks).
You can select a subset from the courses and components to focus only on those codes that are of interest at the moment. If you first select "Use timetabled lectures", the results are calculated from already timetabled lectures (including Manual rooms), instead of weekly allocated lectures.
In selection 6, The Clipboard content is typically a large matrix containing as rows, lists of all components that can be added to the corresponding course without causing conflicts. This can be used as a list containing all permissible selections.
Paste from the ClipboardPastes the list of courses from the Clipboard, possibly created by other Windows applications. See Clipboard.
Insert [Insert]Inserts a new course. See Modify or insert a course.
Modify [Enter]Modifies the data of the current course. See Modify or insert a course.
Delete [Delete]Deletes the current course.
Erase lectures [Ctrl+Del]Clear allocated and timetabled lectures of the course.
Erase timetables [Shift+Del]Clear timetabled lectures of the course.
Move upMoves the current course up.
Move downMoves the current course down.
You can use this advanced selection to check and improve your current room selections. When you invoke this selection, the application displays to you the replacement options of all rooms of all courses one by one. Courses that cannot be improved by a room replacement are passed.
If you have several weeks in the school year, you can also optimise room usage only from a selected week on. This gives you often more degrees of freedom, since the system does not perform conflict check for the previous weeks. (Room conflicts, which remain in history, are not normally important today and in the future).
Once the application finds a course and room combination, where you can balance the room usage, the rooms are displayed in order of their desirability (in increasing order or maximum weekly load). Select the replacing room if appropriate to move to the next course and room (Replace). If you choose not to replace (Cancel), the application asks you to confirm continuation of the process.
If the course does not have any rooms yet, you can modify its content, with only the rooms on the right-hand side box, ordered in increasing order of maximum weekly load.
Selecting the most appropriate rooms is left on the user’s responsibility, since there are so many human factors to determine the best room choice in the last place. The room replacement list displays always only the logically permitted options, in order of their current usage, and balancing their load normally makes it easier to assign lectures into timetables.
See also Options|Maximum weekly load.
You can automatically combine courses when they do not cause any conflicts. The application searches for pairs to combine and prompts you to accept the action. Note that combining courses is not necessary, but it can give you a better picture of the structure of all courses.
With similar collections
You can combine courses with similar collections by adding together their weekly-allocated lectures and constructing unions of their timetabled lectures. The selection automatically examines all pairs of courses having identical collections, prompts to combine them and lets the user to input new code and name for the new combined course, without changing the total amount of lectures of the courses.
If the answer is Yes, the two courses are combined, and if the answer is All, all subsequent similar courses are automatically combined (by selecting the code and the name of the first course). This tool is efficient in identifying courses that have mistakenly been opened twice with a similar structure.
Of all components
This option compares all components of the collections of courses and if they are all similar, courses can be combined.
Of timetabled components
This option compares all components of the collections of courses with component type defined as Prevent conflicts for in Options|Timetables and if they are all similar, courses can be combined.
With disjoint collections
You can combine courses having disjoint collections. These courses have no common components and combining of them means adding the collections of both courses together. This operation requires that timetables of both courses are identical (or empty). The selection automatically examines all pairs of courses satisfying these conditions, prompts to combine them. The name of the combined course is constructed from the codes of these combined courses. If the confirming answer is Yes, the two courses are combined, and if the answer is All, all subsequent valid pairs of courses are automatically combined (by selecting the code and the name of the first course).
Select grid font Selects the font used in this window.
Course info [Ctrl+H]Displays the list of the components (collection) of the active course. If you also want to replace some of the components, remove or add a component, select the appropriate component and then click Modify? button. (In some instances, Modify? is not allowed, if the conflict checking cannot be performed.)
CollectionsThis selection displays or hides a window on top of the courses window, showing the collection of the current course. Double-clicking the list of courses has the same effect.
Weekly lectures [Ctrl+W]This selection shows/hides the weekly timetables and/or lectures of courses.
Find ... [Ctrl+F]By entering the code or name (or a substring) locates the first course that matches the search criteria and makes it the active one. The search method is not case-sensitive. Press [F3] to locate the next code with the same search criteria.
This extended search mode allows the user to locate only those courses that have some of the selected components in their collections or those that do NOT have any of them. Press [F3] to locate the next code with the same search criteria.
In collections
Finds those courses that have one or more of the selected components in their collections.
NOT in collections
Finds those courses that do NOT have any of the selected components in their collections.
Locates the next course that matches the search criteria and makes it the active one.
Finds other components with the most similar collections compared with the current (last activated) course. Courses are listed in the order of best match, each course code followed by the percentage number indicating the similarity of their collections (100%=exact match). This option can be used when creating a new course when the user is not certain if a similar (or near similar) course has already been created.