Page 6 - 2020 OIT Progress Report

over 24 hours without finding an adequate solution. Associate Provost Peter Moore gave the team the final rule that would ultimately create a solution – classes could be split into two for a Red/Blue rotation. After several weeks and several hundred million iterations, a base schedule was created. In the end,
that final solution only took ten minutes on ManeFrame II!
Once the schedule was created, another part of the team was enlisted to load the new room schedule into my.SMU. Enrollment would have to be frozen and several steps tested
and executed. On July 16, the Great Room Migration of 2020 was executed in my.SMU.
ADJUSTING COURSE END TIMES
(CODENAME: THE TIME TURNER)
The changes in class locations and technologies necessitated a longer time period between classes to ease the commute for students, reduce congestion in hallways, and give faculty much needed technology setup time. Although it seems like a simple change, updating thousands of course entries in my.SMU was rather complex. We briefly pondered using Robotic Process Automation, something we have used before for mass changes. Unfortunately, there are too many variables and potential clicks that may confuse a robot. Instead, an automated script was developed to reduce all class times by five minutes within the period of 8:00 AM – 6:15 PM Monday through Friday. The Time Turner project was completed on August 6.
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