Centralised Timetabling Project

Welcome to the home page for the Centralised Timetabling project. On these pages we hope to provide more detail on the University's plans to move from a devolved teaching timetable set-up to centrally co-ordinated timetable and room booking management.

More content to be added to this page in due course.

What is happening?

The University has agreed to move from a devolved timetable set-up - where Schools generate their own teaching timetables in-house and request centrally-bookable teaching space where required - to a system where a single co-ordinated teaching timetable is designed by Central Timetabling Services (CTS), including the allocation of teaching activities to time slots and venues. The aim is to implement such a timetable for the 2010/11 academic session.

Definition of Centralised Timetabling

The centrally co-ordinated allocation of teaching times and space based on the University's known constraints of availability of staff, students, modules and rooms.

How will this be done?

The CTS will be collecting a range of information: programmes of study (confirming the compulsory and optional modules for each level of each degree scheme) and modules will be imported from SITS; details of the teaching activities for each module, the staff involved in the teaching of each activity, and the availability of those staff will be collected from Schools; confirmation of the School-managed spaces which must be used for teaching in specialist subjects will also be received from the Schools. The Space Management Group will confirm which centrally-managed rooms will be available for teaching.

It is intended to use this data to generate a complete, co-ordinated timetable which is clash-free in terms of:

• - staff attendance of their teaching activities;
• - student attendance of the compulsory elements of their degree schemes;
• - and, as far as possible, student attendance of the optional elements of their degree schemes.

To whom will this apply?

We envisage that the teaching of all Schools will be recorded on the central timetable system. This means that Schools will be required to keep a live, up to date record of the ad hoc bookings which they make of their own School-managed rooms on the central system. However it is recognised that the complex delivery of the teaching in some Schools will make it difficult to implement this for them in time for September 2010.

What are the benefits of a centrally co-ordinated timetable?

• A single central record of all teaching undertaken in the University
• A timetable which remains clash-free and optimises student module choice but which also uses teaching space and the full teaching week more efficiently
• More efficient use of high quality teaching spaces and less reliance on rooms in relatively poor condition
• The potential to produce teaching timetables for individual staff members
• A more integrated and efficient room booking process
• The release of academic staff time through reduction of administrative burden
• The potential to model new developments such as new degree programmes, changes to student numbers, changes to the University estate etc

E-mail Address for Centralised Timetabling enquiries

timetablingproject@dundee.ac.uk