Heidelberg Campus OnlineFAQs - Lecturers and Employees

Are old courses imported from LSF?
From the coming summer semester 2024, no courses will be imported from LSF. These courses will be newly created by you and your institution. Older courses that are linked to examinations will be imported from LSF to heiCO by your institution's course data migration or have already been imported. We generally recommend that you do not use imported course data for future courses, as LSF and heiCO are not directly compatible and experience has shown that the data may be transferred incorrectly. 

Is the input of Semester hours per week a mandatory field?
Unlike in LSF, entering the SWS at various points in the system is mandatory and not optional. Without this entry, an error message is generated and you cannot create a course.

What is the "supervising organization" and what is the "examining organization"?
When you create a new course in the “Course administration” application, the "responsible organisation" and the "examining organisation" can be found in the "Course parameters" (basic data of a course). Both organization types are already preset to your organization. The "responsible organization" is the organizational unit where the course is located and is therefore also visible to students via heiCO. Unlike in LSF, it is not possible to assign a course to several organizations in heiCO. Accordingly, the "examining organization" is the organizational unit where the exam is located. As a rule, these organizations should be identical.

When and where are courses assigned to modules of a study and examination regulation?
You can link a course to a study and examination regulations (SPO) template as soon as the course has been created. To do this, you must have access to the “SPO Management” application with your authorizations. You will find the corresponding click instructions called “Linking a course to a template in the study and examination regulations (SPO)” on SharePoint (Our SharePoint instructions have not yet been translated and are only available in German). This process is also discussed in the training block Courses - Advanced. You will also find an overview of the processes for creating courses on Sharepoint.

How is the “course number” for courses put together? 
Each course has a unique ten-digit course number that you assign yourself. Our recommendation is to take the first four digits from your organizational unit (service key). You can choose the other six digits freely and either think of a logical sequence within your organization or click on the "next free number" button if the number does not fulfil an important function for you. However, the old LSF numbers cannot be adopted, as the limit of ten digits was often exceeded. 

Can only digits be entered for the course number?
Theoretically, you can also use letters, but we do not recommend this. The use of letters can lead to problems, e.g. with subsequent or existing exports or reports, particularly in external systems. The extent of the associated problems and the resulting workload, including in the decentralised areas, is difficult to estimate at this time, so our urgent recommendation is: Please only use numbers.

What is the difference between the “Report course” and “Approve course”?
Reporting a course is an internal organizational process that is a preliminary step to publishing and releasing the course. As a rule, once a course has been reported (meaning registered), the course has been created and contains all the important data (lecturers, content, room, times, days, etc.). In accordance with the four-eyes principle, another person can now check whether all information is correct and complete. Only then can a course be "approved" by a person with the appropriate function (authorization). The course is only visible to students once it has been "approved". This was previously done centrally by LSF for all subjects; in heiCO, the courses are activated by you and are therefore visible to students from the moment the courses are "approved". 

Are "tags" linked to certain functions/rights so that not everyone can assign "tags"? Is it possible for one person to create a "tag list" for the entire organization?
“Tags” can be created and edited by all those who are authorized to edit courses. A "tag list" can currently not be created automatically, as "tags" are entered at the level of each individual course. However, you can manually create such a list yourself after searching through each course. Students have the option to search for tags (through the "Courses" application). Students can search for tags within both an organizational unit as well as for the entire university.

Is it possible to specify dates for a course without already having a classroom for it?
Yes, this is possible. You can create both individual and series dates for a course and select “Room not yet known” for the room. You can add a room later. 

How do room bookings via heiCO work?
All rooms at Heidelberg University will be displayed in heiCO once your subject has been integrated and can then also be booked there. Independently of heiCO, the role and authorisation concepts of Heidelberg University still need to be defined and implemented for this purpose. 

I don't see my organization's rooms in the "Resource Management" application. What could be the reason?
There may be several reasons for this:
1) Each room is assigned to an organizational unit. If a room is assigned at "Faculty level" but you have the "VLM-Raummangement" function (authorization) at institute level, you will not be able to access the rooms that are located at faculty level.
2) If you have not yet found rooms that you need for teaching, you can use the “Resource Management” application to “create/select new resource". For this purpose, you will find the corresponding step by step instructions in “Create authorization profile” on SharePoint (Our SharePoint instructions have not yet been translated and are only available in German).

Are rooms imported from LSF?
Rooms with their basic data (e.g. room code, room size, number of seats, etc.) come from Heidelberg University's central room management system (CAFM) and are imported centrally into heiCO or synchronized with heiCO. You can view this basic data university-wide in the "Rooms" application.

In the "Resource management" application, I do not see any people for selection in the contacts. What could be the reason for this?
You will only see people in the selection if you have previously assigned people to the “Administrator” profile (people who are responsible for room management) in the "Authorisation profiles". You will find the corresponding click instructions “Create authorization profile” on SharePoint.

How do I find out whether I have been allocated a requested room?
As soon as the person responsible for room management from whom you have requested the room allocates the room to you or rejects your request, you will receive a corresponding e-mail. This topic is covered in the training block “Rooms and resource management - Processing room requests”.