Switch to zero‐based scheduling for efficient, cancel‐proof courses

Abstract

LOS ANGELES — Ensuring that your departments are offering the courses your students need, that those courses are adequately filled, and that your campus has the right space to accommodate those courses is one of the major challenges each registrar's office faces every academic term. For Los Angeles City College, the solution was moving to a zero‐based scheduling system. Outside of higher education, zero‐based scheduling is known as a system to ensure efficiency where all time is accounted for, even if it's time when one should be sleeping. Within the higher education world, it's “a way to provide a schedule with all in‐class course hours planned out based on efficiency metrics [to ensure no courses are canceled],” said Anna Badalyan, Dean of Institutional Effectiveness at LACC, at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers annual conference.