Platinum - Line Generation with Sub-classes

Platinum - Line Generation with Sub-classes

Preamble

With your Platinum licence comes three important and powerful enhancements to Lines:
  1. Overlapping lines
  2. Sub-class lines (this document)
  3. Multi campus lines.
This document deals with sub-class lines, which needs the overlapping lines engine under the hood.

Sub-class lines supports grid structures of up to 60 periods.


What are sub-classes?

Sub-classes are components of a class.  Consider these examples of schools using sub-classes to create different component classes.

There are times when a class needs more resources all or some of the time:
  1. Two or more teachers at once - Often used when there's an intern teacher assigned to a main-teacher's class.
  2. Two or more rooms at once - Often used when a class needs a breakout room for a particular pedagogical or organisational purpose, like a rehearsal space for a drama class.
This can already be achieved in standard (non-Platinum) by creating a second class and linking the two together.


However, consider circumstances when a class needs certain resources (teachers or rooms) some of the time, and different resources for the remainder of the time:
  1. Different rooms for different purposes - Often used when a subject has both a practical and theoretical component running at different times, for instance:
    1. Science (laboratory some periods, academic classroom for others)
    2. Physical Education (gym/open space some periods, academic classroom for others)
    3. Music (specialised keyboard facility some periods, conventional music classroom for others)
    4. Food technology (kitchen some periods, academic classroom for others)

In the class data snapshot above, (P)ractical and (T)heoretical sub-classes are defined for Year 9 Food Technology, with different room resources available for each sub-class.

  1. Different teachers for different purposes - Often used when two teachers share a class, for instance:
    1. Giving younger teachers access to teaching a higher-level class with a senior teacher
    2. Teachers having different specialities in a subject with two distinct exams

In the class data snapshot above, two sub-classes exist to hold different teachers, perhaps with their own room.

For both of those scenarios, it is possible to use your Platinum line capability to consider these sub-class arrangements at line generation.

Why would I want to consider sub-classes at line generation?

In the past, sub-classes could not be configured at line generation time.  Very often timetablers used work arounds to deal with this situation:
  1. Knowing a certain block/line contained a course with two teachers at different times, they manually adjusted courses running in lines beneath these to allow that to occur. 
  2. If they had a finite set of Science laboratories (or gyms, or kitchens), they artificially inflated the number of laboratories their timetable could use, knowing that each class would only need them for a small number of periods.

With Platinum lines, timetablers are able to consider all of this at line generation time, removing guesswork, reducing human error and providing you with confidence your lines can be staffed and roomed.


How to configure sub-classes at line generation

1. Choose a course that needs sub-classes, and right-click on the course code.


2. Select Manage sub-classes
3. You'll be asked if Edval can turn on Overlapping lines capability - this is required for sub-class lines to work.

Remember, sub-class lines supports grid structures of up to 60 periods.

4. Select the number of components you require.


5. As your course splits into sub-classes, the default period count is the unit count, spread evenly across components.  Ensure that the period count for each component is accurate, and the total is the period-count for the course.  Once split, the total period count changes only by changing the periods allocated to the sub-classes.


6. Depending on your region, the default resource arrangement will change.

Where different rooms are required for different components, your sub-class arrangement should look like this, waiting for you to put in any hard-coded overrides to rooms or teacher.  Assuming you're using existing codes for sub-classes, Edval will automatically pick up the required room sets for your sub-classes.


Where different teachers are required for different components, your sub-class arrangement should look like this:



Generating lines

As this feature uses Platinum's Overlapping lines to work, consult the Platinum - Overlapping lines knowledge base document to set up correct parameters for your line generation.

Once you've configured your courses table, collected student preferences and set up overlapping lines parameters, it's time to generate your lines!  This is no different to conventional line generation.

Further reading

This feature uses Platinum's Overlapping lines to work.  Consult this knowledge base document to set up your lines correctly.

For assistance analysing and communicating the result of your line generation, consult the Knowledge Base documents here:

Additionally, explore the entire Lines Knowledge Base:


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