UniTime Subject Area Linking

[BURAK KOŞAR]

Hi Tomáš ,

We would like to clarify an issue regarding our UniTime setup. The hierarchy in our system is as follows:

• Department → Faculties
• Subject Area → Coded courses (e.g., BIM, YAM)
• Instructional Offerings → Course titles and numbers (e.g., BIM 101: Introduction to Algorithms)

The problem is that some courses share the same code (e.g., BIM), but exist in multiple departments. For example:

• BIM 101 exists in the Engineering faculty
• BIM 150 exists in the Business faculty

However, in our current setup, each Subject Area can only be associated with a single Department. This prevents us from linking courses with the same code to multiple faculties.

Our question is: Is it possible in UniTime to create an additional linking entity between Subject Area and Department to manage this situation, or do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Burak Koşar

[Tomáš Müller]

Dear Burak,

Yes, many institutions use a similar setup to the one you have indicated. However, it is also possible to use subject areas as departments (one department per timetabling unit), and to use the course number to identify each course. For instance, there could be a BUS subject area for the courses offered by the Business faculty (or a particular department/timetabling unit within the faculty), with the course numbered BIM 150 (the course would be lised as BUS BIM 150 in UniTime, but you could only rely on the course number when it comes to integration with other systems at your institutions). Similarly, there can be a course under the ENG - Engineering subject that is numbered BIM 101.

Another approach is to use a cross-list: an instructional offering can be offered under multiple names (course offerings), but only one is marked as controlling, and the department in the subject area of the controlling course is responsible for the timetabling of the offering. So, a BIM 150 course can be cross-listed with, say, YAM 150, with YAM 150 marked as the controlling course. This way, the course is timetabled by the department of the YAM subject area, but the students can request it under both course names.

Also, a course offered by one faculty can be requested and attended by students of other faculties (e.g., can be present in curricula from other departments/faculties).

Best regards,

Tomas Muller

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[Burak Koşar]

Dear Tomáš,

Thank you for your clear explanation.
Your suggestions helped us understand the available options.
We will review these approaches on our side.

Thanks again for your support.

Best regards,
Burak

26 Kasım 2025 Çarşamba tarihinde saat 00:06:14 UTC+3 itibarıyla Tomáš Müller şunları yazdı: