In order to answer this question those managing the teaching spaces must be able to not only know the current demand but also the future demand for these spaces – not always easy information to get hold of, in my experience!

Understanding how the factors that affect teaching demand will change over the coming years is critical, as this can be used to generate future predictions of teaching room requirements by creating models using this information.

This models and the information they provide enables those managing the teaching spaces to focus any capital investment towards evolving the estate in line with the changing teaching space demands. In doing so, this not only ensures that staff and students have rooms that suit their needs – benefitting both staff and student experience – but also ensures that the supply of teaching  spaces reflects the demand – benefitting the space utilisation rate and therefore enabling institutions to get the most out of their space and capital.

Future Teaching Space Requirements

Knowing your future teaching space requirements is the key [Read more…]

Department only teaching space is typically seen as a very positive provision by those departments that have it, providing space that can be dedicated to a departments teaching, personalised to reflect the departments ethos and importantly help to keep students within the departments area so that they can continue to make use of the resources available to them – i.e. staff offices, department specific libraries/study rooms/computer rooms etc.

However, the upside of department only teaching space is also the downside, as “department only space” in its principle limits the number to the teaching activities the department provides. If the demand does not match the available timeslots and capacity that the space provides, then space and capital is being wasted that could be provided and spent elsewhere to improve the institutions provision and positively influence the student experience.

Another point to consider is the effect an imbalance of department and central only space is having on the timetabling teams ability to produce a student experience focussed timetable. Too many department only spaces and not enough central spaces can have the reverse effect an institution is hoping to achieve if the demand for central spaces is too high. In this scenario, the timetable will struggle to accommodate the teaching activities at preferable times for those requiring central times as there simply isn’t the space to accommodate them.

I am not saying that the negatives always outweigh the positives, rather finding the balance [Read more…]

As shown in previous articles, there are many useful techniques for analysing teaching space utilisation data to determine how well space has been used on average during a survey week. However, one aspect these techniques don’t consider is how teaching space frequency, occupancy and utilisation change during the teaching week.

Why do this?

Any fluctuation in the teaching space utilisation rate during the teaching week will affect your ability to reduce/increase the number or size of the teaching spaces available. This is simply because the estate has to be able to accommodate the peaks in demand and in doing so, this equates to large amounts of space being underutilised during the troughs (low utilisation). By creating a timeline of utilisation during the survey week, you can interrogate and investigate the reasons behind the various peaks and troughs during the survey week and determine how to reduce the severity of both.

From a space management perspective equal demand throughout the survey week is the prime target, as this will enable you to amend the state provision to provide exactly the right number, type and size spaces to accommodate all the teaching demands without any oversupply. This in turn, will therefore provide you with an excellent space utilisation rate and ensure you are getting the most out of your teaching space.

How to calculate Frequency, Occupancy and Utilisation Rates by Timeslot?

To calculate your teaching space frequency, occupancy and utilisation rates by timeslot you will need to analyse the data using different methods to that used previously although the general concept [Read more…]

Answering this question is a part of space utilisation analysis that I particularly enjoy as the results can be fantastic, reducing pressure on the timetable and creating more usable teaching space all without spending any investment in changing space or impacting on the students. It isn’t often win/win’s are presented when looking at space utilisation and timetabling together, but I believe this to be one of them.

If your institution hasn’t done this before i.e. compare you actual frequency against your timetable frequency, then I would suggest there is a good chance there is a significant difference, as  I have found that without continual monitoring of whether teaching rooms are actually being used when they are booked, the control and communication over this issue is lacking. If this is the case – then this article should hopefully be of great interest to you and you may well have a great opportunity to improve the available of your teaching space.

I feel this example really helps to frame the problem and also highlight the potential gains that resolving this issue can resolve – If you have 2000 hours timetabled a week and 20% aren’t being used, that’s 400 hours wasted! If you teach 09-17:00 each week (i.e. 40 hours a week), that’s the equivalent of 10 rooms being booked and not used every hour of the teaching week.

That is a huge amount of wasted space, most institutions would snap your hands off if you offered them 10 free extra teaching space! 20% isn’t an inflated figure, I have seen many cases where the percentage of rooms booked and not used is much greater than this. By solving this difference, you are making extra teaching space available without making extra teaching space!

As with the previous articles in this series, if you are unsure of how to compare your timetable and actual (i.e. space utilisation survey) teaching room frequency data it would be worth looking at th [Read more…]