Learning and Teaching Committee

Subject: Timetabling and Room Allocation

The University is unusual in the sector in undertaking timetabling at departmental level and then allocating rooms using a largely manual process (with information entered into an electronic resource schedule package). Although unusual the process has been seen to be successful with changes in processes over the years making the system as efficient as possible.

There have been various points in time when central timetabling has been discussed, most notably the timetabling project undertaken just over ten years ago. More recently discussions have taken place about the potential benefits but there have been concerns about:

the risks associated with loss of local departmental control,
whether the end result would be any better,
the cost of implementing the system (money and time),
other pressures on departmental administrators as a result of other systems being implemented (LUSI, Agresso).

It is also the case that the data required to feed into a timetabling system has not been readily available prior to the LUSI developments.

Discussions at Faculty Directorates and amongst administrators have largely resulted in either negative or agnostic views.

Recently the Science Faculty Directorate indicated that they felt that the time had come for the University to move to using central timetabling.

This comes at a time when there have been problems for some departments as key administrative staff leave and with them their knowledge of some of the key aspects of timetabling. This year has also seen the highest number of failures to allocate rooms and a non insignificant variance between size of requested rooms and actual numbers accepted. The current processes mean that there is not the time to allocate rooms after the student intake numbers are known.

In some cases there are requests for more rooms of a particular size than we actually have rooms available across campus. This is because the timetable has been left the same as group sizes have increased.

Data provided last year showed that we had quite a disparity between requested size of room and actual numbers of students in semester one and this year it is worse.

Some lectures simply could not be accommodated in rooms available for this semester because once they had failed they could not be allocated elsewhere for the whole group.

There is a meeting of administrators to hear about what happens at two other institutions (Kings College London and at UEA) and this will also give an opportunity to discuss the problems we have experienced this year. This meeting is being held on 30^th October and a verbal report will be provided to Learning and Teaching Committee.

The Joint Information Systems Committee of the HE Funding Bodies are undertaking a timetabling project. JISC have appointed Oakleigh Consulting Limited to conduct a study into the administrative processes and challenges around timetabling and resource scheduling for learning opportunities, and the way in which these link with curriculum and session planning. The objectives of the study are:

To describe the common processes involved in timetabling and resource scheduling for learning opportunities.
To outline the extent to which these processes are supported by technology.
To identify where in current processes common problems arise.
To identify how re-engineered processes could be effectively supported by technology.

Clearly this study can feed into discussions at Loughborough. There are a number of consultation days which have been promoted through JISC and the AUA and there is representation from Loughborough at these.

Author - Dr Anne Mumford

Date - October 2008