Simultaneous courses (clusters)

However, when the range of courses is so wide that the total number of periods of all courses exceeds the available number of weekly periods, or when students have a very wide freedom of choice, a decision must be reached as to which courses should be held simultaneously in order to improve the quality of the timetable.

In the context of the students timetables module, you yourself must specify which courses should take place simultaneously.

Note: Course scheduling module

This is where the course scheduling module comes into its own since it performs exactly this task, determining which courses take place simultaneously. Please refer to section Course scheduling .

Simultaneous lessons

You can access the input window for simultaneous groups/clusters via <Simultaneous lessons> on the 'Students timetable' tab. (When you use the Course scheduling module you enter data via the so-called course-cluster matrix).

If you wish to create a new cluster, simply click in an empty row where you then enter the lesson numbers of the course that are to take place simultaneously.

The cluster C13_1 includes e.g. lesson numbers 14, 15 and 115 that are to take place in parallel for two periods in the week.

The section at the bottom of the window displayed additional information on the lessons in the selected group.

During timetable optimisation the aforementioned lessons will be set at the sametimes. Only during the so-called swap optimisation can individual lessons be moved in order to improve student timetables.

Note: Simultaneous lessons instead of lesson couplings

You may be tempted to enter lessons that take place simultaneously as a lesson coupling . We would advise against doing this as it can lead to problems with the unique identity of courses (e.g. with a lesson coupling in which the same subject occurs twice) and as timetable optimisation is restricted by fixed couplings.

If you already have lesson couplings that you would like to convert to clusters, you can simply mark the lesson couplings concerned (by activating the '(m) marked'code for the coupled lessons in the lessons view) and execute the command 'File | Auxiliary Functions | Coupl. to Less. Sequ.'.