CASE STUDY
TAMIU Reduces Scheduling Timelines with CourseLeaf
At a Glance
Institution Type: Four-Year Public
Enrollment: 8,500 students
SIS Integration: Ellucian Banner Integration
Challenge: Fragmented catalog updates; Spreadsheet-based scheduling; Error-prone Banner entry; Limited scheduling flexibility
CourseLeaf Solutions: CourseLeaf CAT Academic Catalog Software, CourseLeaf CLSS Academic Scheduling Software & Analytics
Supporting a Growing University
Texas A&M International University (TAMIU), a member of the Texas A&M University System, serves more than 8,500 students through undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs that prepare students for leadership in an increasingly global society.
As enrollment continued to grow, so did the complexity of managing academic operations. Manual catalog updates, spreadsheet-driven scheduling, and duplicate data entry created unnecessary work for staff while making it more difficult to respond quickly to institutional and student needs.
Recognizing these challenges, TAMIU took a connected approach to improving academic operations by modernizing catalog publishing, curriculum management, and academic scheduling.
Replacing Manual Catalog Publishing
Before implementing CourseLeaf CAT in 2017, staff maintained three separate versions of the academic catalog: the online catalog, the PDF catalog, and Ellucian Banner. Late curriculum changes often delayed publication, and mismatched prerequisites and corequisites required additional review before the catalog could be finalized.
With CourseLeaf CAT, faculty and staff could publish approved catalog updates across all formats simultaneously, improving efficiency and increasing confidence in the accuracy of academic information.
The impact was measurable:
- Reduced catalog publication from 11 months to 9 months
- Increased catalog website visits by 61%
- Increased average visitor engagement by nearly 18%
- Supported overall enrollment growth of more than 14%
Expanding a Successful Partnership
Following the success of CourseLeaf CAT, TAMIU implemented CourseLeaf CIM for curriculum management and later CourseLeaf CLSS for academic scheduling.
Before CLSS, scheduling relied heavily on spreadsheets and manual Banner data entry.
"We were sending Excel files around campus," recalled Juan Gilberto Garcia Jr., Associate Vice President of Student Success.
Although the university had developed sophisticated spreadsheet processes, maintaining them remained time consuming.
"We took advantage of everything that Excel can do. We created a very nice Excel sheet, with a lot of colors and drop-down menus and things like that… but then we still had to move the data to Banner and do our cross-checks and cross-referencing, which led to errors," said Garcia.
As enrollment and faculty continued to grow, the scheduling process became increasingly difficult to manage.
"It became very hard for one person to do the scheduling," said Garcia. "We wanted to remove ourselves from the data entry. And we wanted to reduce our time to create the class schedule from six weeks to four weeks."
CourseLeaf CLSS provided the flexibility and automation TAMIU needed to streamline scheduling while reducing manual work and improving data accuracy.
Creating More Time for Students
Reducing administrative work was only part of the benefit. Completing the schedule earlier created more opportunities for advisors to work directly with students before registration.
"Our students benefited the most from our adoption of CLSS," said Garcia. "And their advisors. Reducing the schedule creation timeline by two weeks means those two weeks can be put to better use, with students and their advisors meeting during that period."
Those additional two weeks translated into meaningful advising opportunities.
Reflecting on the impact, Garcia said, "We were neglecting the human side of advising. But now, two extra weeks to schedule our students across campus… that's 10 extra working days, and that represents a lot of advising appointment opportunities."
Instead of spending time managing spreadsheets and correcting scheduling data, staff could focus on helping students plan their academic paths.
Responding Quickly to Change
The value of connected scheduling became even more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the university shifted courses from in-person to online instruction, CLSS enabled scheduling decisions to be made in real time while staff worked remotely.
"We had hoped to re-open our campus for the fall," said Garcia, "but we couldn't, and we had to make changes to the class schedules. With people working from home, having CLSS helped us tremendously as the ones who were making scheduling decisions were able to make changes right away, in real time, without waiting for a middle person to do it."
The university managed an unprecedented number of scheduling changes without relying on manual processes.
"A lot of faculty members decided or asked to teach from home. A lot of classes changed from face-to-face to online. Because we were already live with CLSS, we were able to manage the unprecedented number of schedule changes forced by COVID," recalled Garcia.
Using Data to Improve Scheduling Decisions
Today, TAMIU continues to use CLSS to support strategic scheduling decisions that improve operational efficiency and the student experience.
"CLSS allows us to prioritize the needs of our students, which is key, because that improves both student retention and rate of graduation," said Garcia.
The university also uses scheduling data to better understand classroom utilization and enrollment trends.
Looking ahead, Garcia noted, "Currently, we only have two rooms on campus that can hold more than 100 students. We've monitored online enrollment in large classes to make sure that, as we more fully transition to in-person learning, we won't have five different sections of popular classes, with more than 100 students, being offered at the same time. CLSS lets us do that easily."
Supporting Continued Growth
By connecting catalog publishing, curriculum management, and academic scheduling, TAMIU replaced manual processes with connected workflows that improve collaboration, reduce administrative effort, and provide greater flexibility.
Faculty and staff spend less time managing data and more time supporting students. Advisors have additional time to meet with students before registration, and university leaders have better information to make informed scheduling decisions as enrollment and instructional needs continue to evolve.