Enrollment Management Electronic Newsletter

Centralized Academic Scheduling with EMS Campus

The Budget Committee recently approved the purchase of EMS Campus, a centralized academic scheduling system that will work with our existing EMS room reservation software as well as with Banner.

While we are waiting for the latest release of the product (available July or August), we will begin the work necessary to set up implementation. Particularly, we will begin working with Facilities Management and the academic departments and schools to help identify and clarify the specific characteristics and uses of each of the instructional spaces we use for courses, as well as the needs and preferences of each academic department. Those definitions, when loaded into the new software system, will work with course information loaded into Banner to connect the section requirements with the best-matching available space.

The system also provides for a single, online scheduling process, streamlining communication between the academic departments and our office. This is good news for everyone who works with this process.

So, will my science lab section be assigned into a broom closet?! I suspect not.

First of all, sections that require a specific, specialized space (like science labs, music lessons, art studio courses, etc), will be directly assigned into the appropriate spaces as usual, and will never pass through the automated system.

Secondly, we will not be defining non-instructional spaces (like a broom closet, or someone's office) into either system. So the likelihood of being assigned to a completely inappropriate non-instructional space is pretty darn close to zero.

More information will be coming out to the departments as we have additional information, and we'll rely on your help to make the system best serve the instructional space needs of the institution. We look forward to a good partnership with all of you.

http://www.shepherd.edu/register/