You can direct the scheduling system to link sections of different courses by assigning corresponding link numbers to these sections. Students must include both courses in their course requests for linking to be automatic.
Linking causes a group of students to stay together. It will not force two courses to fall back to back across semesters or back to back across periods.
Below are examples of different methods of linking courses:
In linking home economics 810 and 820, assign identical link numbers to each section of 810 and 820 (Table 1). Students taking section 1 of 810 will also take section 1 of 820 in this example.
TABLE 1
|
CRS # |
SEC # |
LINK # |
CRS # |
SEC # |
LINK # |
|
810 |
1 |
1 |
820 |
1 |
1 |
|
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
||
|
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
Or you may decide that students taking section 1 of 810 should take section 3 of 820 (Table 2).
TABLE 2
|
CRS # |
SEC # |
LINK # |
CRS # |
SEC # |
LINK # |
|
810 |
1 |
1 |
820 |
1 |
3 |
|
2 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
||
|
3 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
The next string of linked courses cannot use the same link numbers as the first string. If after linking the home economics courses above, you link four English courses- English 105, 110, 115, and 120-your link numbers must be unique to that string (Table 3).
TABLE 3
|
CRS #105 |
CRS # 110 |
CRS # 115 |
CRS # 120 |
||||
|
SEC # |
LINK # |
SEC # |
LINK # |
SEC # |
LINK # |
SEC # |
LINK # |
|
1 |
7 |
1 |
7 |
1 |
7 |
1 |
7 |
|
2 |
8 |
2 |
8 |
2 |
8 |
2 |
8 |
If any sections of a course have link numbers, all sections of the course should have link numbers.