Most institutions survey their teaching space at least once a year in order to collect data on how the teaching rooms are being utilised. This data is then typically used to build strategies for making the most out of the teaching space available. However, usage typically fluctuates significantly throughout the semester and therefore similarly so will you results depending on which week you chose.

Therefore, when deciding on when and how many weeks to survey you want to clearly define what it is you want to get out of carrying out a survey. I have given some examples below of the different objectives and options, as well as the week(s) I would recommend as a result. I would be interested to know how you choose your survey week and if you have anything to add so please feel free to leave your comments at the bottom of the article.

• What is timetabled and what is booked

I start with this one, as I feel it is one of if not the most important objectives of a Teaching Space Utilisation Survey. This survey provides you with an opportunity to not only find out how well the teaching space is being used but also compare the [Read more…]

Office space is a core component of every institution and its availability is typically a very hot topic with demand often outstripping supply and departments very resistant to releasing any space that they know they aren’t using efficiently. This can create an environment where everyone wants more space but at the same time aren’t prepared to release space they aren’t utilising efficiently.

‘Build more space’, is something I have heard often as the ‘solution’ to this problem. Admittedly this would create more space……. but the huge investment and maintenance costs associated with creating additional office space would have to be found from somewhere and ultimately this would mean funds having to be moved away from other projects that would have also brought their benefits. The big pot of money typically doesn’t exist. Institutions can’t meet all their demands without running themselves into the ground and therefore have to decide which of the demands bring the greatest rewards.

As with any project, there is a need to assess whether there is truly a demand, what the demand is and what the solutions are. In this case, assess whether the institutional demand for more office space actually exist and if so, how much office space is required and what the potential options are for solving this shortage. This isn’t to say the demand doesn’t actually exist – but it must be tested, to not only indicate whether additional office space is required, but also determine how much, what type and who for.

In order to do this, an institution needs to know how each department is utilising the current office space they have assigned, what their current space requirements are (typically not the same thing!) and what the future demands on this space will be. This information [Read more…]

To start this article, I will quickly explain what I mean by “space type”. Teaching space is a space type that in definition differentiates itself from other space that can’t be used for teaching, such as office and circulation space. Teaching space is then typically broken down further into other space types, to help those using/requesting/managing the teaching space(s). For example, computer labs, art studios, seminar rooms as well as many other permutations.

Once teaching space is further defined by space types and those requesting teaching space can specify the room or type of room they would like to use, the demand for teaching space begins to be effected by the availability of space within each space type.

This in turn, will cause the teaching space utilisation for each space type – and the institution as a whole – to be effected.

For example if you have 4 teaching rooms that are available 180 hours in total per week and 135 hours’ worth of timetable requests, then on average you could determine that there should be a 75% frequency rate (135/180). However, if one of these teaching rooms is a computer room and of these 135 hours of requests, 10 hours require a computer room – the utilisation of the spaces change. The seminar space should now have a 92.59% frequency rate (125/135) whilst the computer lab only has a predicted 22.22% frequency rate (10/45).

The difference is critical, as the first example indicated that by removing one of the teaching rooms all the remaining teaching activities could have been accommodated in the remaining 3 rooms. However, the space types (3 seminar [Read more…]