UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- An application available starting Tuesday, Sept. 27 through eLion gives Penn State students at all campuses the opportunity to compare their non-class schedule conflicts with open courses to make scheduling classes easier.
Schedule Planner, an online application, aligns a student's intended courses with self-identified event conflicts -- such as a recurring work schedule, meetings, rehearsals and practice times -- and reports back open class sections that work around those conflicts.
"We view Schedule Planner as a secure way for students to use technology to make course registration an easier process," Karen Schultz, University registrar, said. "We believe the service will give students the ability to tailor their course options to the demands of their daily and weekly extracurricular activities."
At any time, even prior to open registration dates, students can log in to eLion and select the Schedule Planner link, which redirects them to the Schedule Planner website. There they list all known blocks of time that they are unavailable for classes along with the courses they wish to take for an upcoming semester. Schedule Planner returns all open class sections that fit open blocks of time. Students then return to eLion, and enter their preferred sections from Schedule Planner's personalized results to complete course registrations.
The registrar's office will send Schedule Planner hourly updates regarding section space availability. Additional features of Schedule Planner allow students to save their listed schedule conflicts for future use and offer the ability to lock in a particular section of a desired course.
Schedule Planner is available through the eLion website.