Meeting Pattern Overview

A meeting pattern is a specific combination of meeting times and days that may be assigned to an academic course section offering.  A meeting pattern record includes the time/day combination, the repeating pattern and sequence, contact hours, term types and campus/meeting type combinations for which the pattern is valid, and whether or not the pattern is "standard" for any of the campus/meeting type associations.  Additionally, usage statistics are provided per term type and campus/meeting type association.  Meeting pattern information maintained in Astra Schedule may be used to help enforce the adherence to "standard" patterns when editing sections and to provide insight into pattern usage at your institution.

If academic section data is being imported from a student information system, distinct meeting pattern records will be automatically captured and added to the Astra Schedule database as they are imported. However, meeting patterns may be manually added and edited directly in Astra Schedule as well.  In either case, the categorization of "standard" patterns must be configured manually.

Repeating vs Non-Repeating Patterns

Many typical meeting patterns repeat regularly, each week, over the duration of an academic term.  Other meeting patterns, however, may not repeat at all, or repeat on a different cycle than weekly.  Astra Schedule's meeting pattern record accommodates these practices by allowing configuration of a repeat cycle, a meeting sequence, and non-repeating meetings.  For repeating patterns, the combination of the repeat cycle and sequence provides a way to specify how often the day/time combination repeats, and within the cycle, on which occurrences does it meet.  So, for example, a typical MWF class repeats on a 1 week cycle, and each occurrence of MWF during that cycle (sequence 1) is counted as a meeting. If a meeting should occur only every other week, then the repeat cycle would be 2 weeks, and the day/time sequence would be either 1 or 2 depending on even or odd meetings.  Patterns flagged as "non-repeating", on the other hand, have no repeat cycle and are configured simply as a series of defined day/time combinations that meet the pattern's contact hours.

Examples of possible configurations

• Typical Recurring Meeting Pattern
  Repeat every 1 week
  MWF 8-8:50 - SEQ 1
• Multiple Meeting Times per Week
  Repeat every 1 week
  MW 8-8:50 - SEQ 1
  F 10-10:50 - SEQ 1
• Even Meetings
  Repeat every 2 weeks
  MWF 8-9:40 - SEQ 2
• Odd Meetings
  Repeat every 2 weeks
  MWF 8-9:40 - SEQ 1
• Alternating Day Pattern
  Repeat every 2 weeks
  MWF 8-8:50 - SEQ 1
  TR 9-10:15 - SEQ 2
• Random/Custom Meetings
  Repeat every 4 weeks
  M 8-10 - SEQ 1
  T 9-11 - SEQ 2
  W 10-12 - SEQ 3
  S 8-5 - SEQ 4
• Continuous/Non-Repeating Meetings
  Flag "Non-Repeating"
  No repeat cycle
  M 8-5
  T 8-5
  W 8-5
  R 8-5
  F 8-5

Meeting Pattern List

To find the list of meeting patterns in the Astra Schedule system, click the Meeting Patterns option on the Academics tab.

A list page is displayed with all meeting pattern records either captured by a section import process or created manually.  As with other list pages, the list may be filtered by using the filter options presented in the panel to the left of the list.  After entering filter options, click Search to update the list results.

Meeting Pattern Details

From the list page, click on the meeting pattern name link to open the details.