Education Space Consultancy

Providing expert timetable and space management consultancy services within the education sector

The Absence of Class Sizes Within the Timetable

By

The Problem

One problem that we as space management & timetabling consultants regularly encounter when working with timetable data exports, is the absence of class sizes within the data. The class-size field is a key piece of data that is used to determine the sizes of classrooms required by each department, therefore its absence can be a primary cause of numerous problems for timetabling staff and can even lead to problems within the space-planning process.

To many, this problem can sound like an innocuous omission, however in our extensive experience within the sector, we frequently observe the very real problems and inefficiencies within the timetabling and space-management process that can be traced back to timetable data that lacks a full set of class sizes.

Effects on the Timetabling Process

One of the primary issues with a timetable dataset that has incomplete class-size data, is that human input is then required in order to manually determine and then allocate an appropriately sized teaching space for the activity/activities in question. The need for human intervention inevitably has the consequence of [Read more…]

Audit Your Timetable – Using Your Space Utilisation Survey Data

By

An institution’s timetable is the tool that determines where and when all teaching activities are taking place. Therefore, the timetable should also be the ideal tool to determine how well your using your teaching space – right?

Unfortunately, not. We have found that the accuracy of the timetable can vary significantly, with the number of timetabled activities taking place and the size of the classes occupying the rooms, often being significantly different to that timetabled.

Why does this happen? The reasons are varied; however, the bulk of inaccuracies are typically down to issues with the processes and practices connected to timetabling. Some examples of this include;

• Inaccurate and/or inefficient process for predicting planned class sizes, during timetable planning stages. There can be different processes per department or sometimes even by module, for doing this.

• Over estimation of the number classes required and the size of these classes, just in 

[Read more…]

How to Improve the Accuracy of Your Planned Class Sizes

By

For this article, I am going to take a look at some of the methods we would typically recommend institutions use to improve their planned class size accuracy. If you are unsure over the importance of planned class sizes, then I recommend you also take a look at the article posted last month “Impact of Inaccurate Planned Class Sizes on the Timetable, Students, Staff and the Institution“.

Are your planned class sizes accurate?

One of the first steps is to determine whether your planned class sizes are accurate. In order to do this we recommend two approaches

1) Compare the activity planned class sizes with the activity real class sizes

For a lot of institutions the majority of timetabled teaching activities now also include individual student data, so as to create [Read more…]

The Impact of Inaccurate Planned Class Sizes on the Timetable, Students, Staff and the Institution

By

Timetable activity class sizes are a critical element required for producing both a working timetable and a timetable that effectively utilises the teaching space that is available. The direct and indirect impacts of inaccurate or missing class sizes can be severe, to the students, staff and the institution. So what are these impacts?

Timetabled activity class size, smaller than required?

The impact of this is typically very noticeable, as if the timetable activity class size is smaller than the number of students that will be attending, there is a risk that this activity will be timetabled into a room with a smaller capacity than is required. The outcome of this is [Read more…]

The Timetable Says One Thing, The Survey Data Another…..Timetabled Class Size Vs Surveyed Class Size

By

The difference between that timetabled and surveyed can be very significant, with often 100’s if not 1000’s of hours booked and not attended per week. This can equate to a huge waste of teaching space; an hour booked and not used could have been made available for someone else who needed it,  been used to create an improved student/staff timetable or even resulted in extra teaching space having to be provided when in real terms it wasn’t required.

The number of hours booked and not used is however not the only the issue that is worthwhile investigating when comparing the two data sets….

Over the last year we have carried out numerous teaching space utilisation surveys for HE institutions and for some a low occupancy rate has been recorded, with rooms often being used by classes that are significantly smaller than the capacity of the teaching space they occupy.

Why is this happening?

The survey data alone tells us that teaching activities are being booked in rooms that are much larger than required, perhaps suggesting that the solution would be to simply timetable these classes into suitably sized rooms – hurray, occupancy rate resolved, right?

Unfortunately, not, as with a lot of things the solution isn’t typically this simple.

Those in charge of creating the timetable are likely to be already attempting to fit activities into [Read more…]