Academic central timetabling and room bookings policy, responsibilities and processes

This policy aims to support the following outcomes:

• Contribution to the delivery of a high-quality learning experience for students
• The efficient use of UoD resources including space
• Provision of timely, accurate data stored in one central system
• The minimisation of post-publication changes to timetables

Guiding principles

Academic timetable construction will seek to support the delivery of high-quality teaching and enable students to learn effectively, in appropriate accommodation, seeking to account for the various teaching methods used across Schools and Directorates.

All UoD teaching activities, regardless of where they take place or the extent to which their timetables are constructed centrally, should be recorded and kept live and up-to-date in the central timetabling and room booking system, to ensure that the central system is a data repository of all UoD teaching, and resource clashes can be avoided.

Access will be provided to a timely and accurate timetable and room booking information. Personalised timetables for staff and students should be made available wherever possible, and published via designated means (for staff, online timetables and personal Outlook calendars; for students, eVision, and possibly, in due course, Outlook calendars: all of which should be automatically updated when changes are made to the central timetable system).

Teaching space will be maintained and refurbished to ensure they remain high-quality facilities accommodating the needs of students and staff, and used in a way which seeks to maximise utilisation, thus making a contribution towards the efficient use of the University’s estate.

Equality and Diversity

Academic timetabling is carried out in line with UoD’s Equality and Diversity Policy and will seek to ensure that the needs of disabled staff and students, and those staff and students with caring responsibilities, are considered. Staff or students requiring particular arrangements are urged to make their needs known in advance of the main timetable construction period wherever possible.

Glossary of terms

• CTS – Central Timetabling Service
• DUSA – Dundee University Students’ Association
• Module Diets – The sets of compulsory and optional modules which make up each level of a degree programme
• Scientia – The company which produces UoD’s chosen timetabling/room bookings software
• Syllabus Plus (‘S+’) - The University’s chosen timetabling/room bookings software
• UoD – University of Dundee
• WDC – Web Data Collector (web browser used by Schools/Directorates to submit their upcoming session timetable, room and staffing requirements)
• White/Grey Space – ‘White’ space: centrally-managed and-bookable. ‘Grey’ space: School/Directorate-managed and-bookable
• WRBs – Web Room Bookings – the online facility to check availability and request the booking of a white space (and in due course to book grey spaces direct)

Policy Statement

Teaching dates and times

While UoD teaching takes place all year round, it mostly operates over two semesters, the first in September-December over twelve weeks and the second in January-March over eleven weeks. An enrolment/induction week runs in the week before the start of semester 1.

Through variations in some areas are recognised, the typical undergraduate academic year is structures as set out below. The pattern common to most undergraduate programmes has led to the formation of week number references which are routinely used in timetabling. The events of the academic session and their week number references are detailed below.

While this is not yet universal policy, many UoD Schools have a reading week in week 6 of semester 1, when no teaching is formally scheduled. Schools which may be considering the introduction of a semester 1 reading week are encouraged also to use week 6 for this: a common reading week would then allow the scheduling of other large scale activities such as open days, prestigious events and conferences. Some Schools have also adopted a further induction week in week ‘X4’, before the start of semester 2 (particularly for taught postgraduate students), and a reading week in week 20 of semester 2.

Some programmes (for example the Graduate Diploma in Education), have an earlier start date. In these cases, separate timelines will be arranged for the construction and publication of the relevant timetables. Some programmes (for example in Nursing and Health Sciences) also have teaching outside of the mainstream semester weeks detailed above.

Core teaching hours are required to provide space hours for teaching and to enable the complexities of multi-module degree programmes. The parameters of the standard teaching week are:

• Monday to Friday (inclusive)
• 0900 to 1800 (inclusive), in hourly units, starting on the hour (but see paragraph 15 below)
• Wednesdays: Undergraduate teaching will not normally be scheduled after 1300, to allow students to take part in sport and other experience enhancement activities. Exceptions to this will be with the agreement of the relevant School and may include (for example) the scheduling of small group tutorials which run at multiple times during the normal teaching week so that students have a choice of whether or not to attend the Wednesday afternoon session. Postgraduate teaching, and activities relating to academic support, may be scheduled after 1300 on Wednesdays if no other viable alternatives appear to exist.
• The 1700-1800 slot will not normally be used for scheduling of teaching unless no other time during the teaching week appears to be available.

Evening teaching may be organised for part-time students, for Adult Education courses but also for some undergraduate nodules where the relevant School is seeking greater integration between full-time and part-time students and efficiencies in teaching. Such sessions will tend to finish no later than 2100 because of evening building access. Evening (and weekend) events will normally be consolidated in the Dalhousie building; if other buildings are specifically required then the booker must arrange for security cover on the building for the duration of the event through the Head of Security: a charge will be liable for this.

The normal class /booking hour comprises a start time of five minutes past the hour and a finish time of five minutes to the hour. This is to allow ten minutes of travel time to subsequent activities. This structure enables the rule that any part of the City Campus is navigable from any other part, meaning that travel time does not need to be specifically added in when constructing the City Campus academic timetable.

• For staff and students having to navigate between the City Campus and the Ninewells site, travel time of one hour will be built in where this need has been identified.
• For staff teaching at both the City Campus and the Kirkcaldy campus, timetables will be constructed seeking to avoid to teach on both campuses on the same day.

Staff availability

Staff are required to confirm their availability to teach in the upcoming academic session via the agreed data collection system (currently the WDC) and by published deadlines. Before the start of each timetabling cycle, the availability of all teaching staff may be reset to UoD core teaching hours (see paragraph 3 above), in which case this requirement would be annual.

Full-time teaching staff will be expected to be available to teach during core teaching hours (see paragraph 3 above) unless flexible working arrangements have been put in place, or the staff member must attend regular UoD meetings or external meetings with relevance to UoD. All exceptions to full-time availability, and in addition the available days of part-time staff, must be approved by the School Manager (or Dean, or depute) by the published deadline.

Adjustments recommended for staff which have an impact on timetabling should be communicated by CTS by the agreed deadline before timetable construction begins

Requests to be made unavailable for the teaching of travel distance from home to work, travel costs, consultancy commitments, social plans and commitments to students at other universities will not normally be approved.

If any teaching staff are to have a day per week free of teaching commitments for research, the specific day left free will be selected by CTS, and may differ from week to week. This is partly so that relatively minor individual contributions to a team-taught teaching activity do not create undue difficulties when constructing the timetable with such research days built-in.

Effort will be made to accommodate requests from Schools/Directorates to ring-fence times in the teaching week when staff can meet as a group to discuss relevant business issues. However, these will not be met if they place significant constraints on timetabling; Wednesday afternoons should always be considered in the first instance.

Timetable construction

The academic timetable should be demand-led where possible, allowing ‘live’ student module selections submitted in a timely way to guide clash-free construction.

Where student module selections are not available (for example, Level 1 UG programmes, TPG programmes), timetables will be based on Module Diets, seeking to ensure that compulsory modules are kept clash-free. Optional modules will also be kept clash-free where possible while recognising that some degree programmes have a range of options which cannot all be timetabled compatibly. In these cases, the School/Directorate owners of these programmes would confirm in advance of timetable construction which module combinations should be guaranteed.

Any timetable represents a balance between a huge number of requirements, some which may well conflict with each other. While the aim to have clash-free timetables for staff and for students’ compulsory modules, and as far possible students’ optional modules, inevitably some preferences may not be possible to accommodate, particularly where students’ optional module selections have not been submitted in good enough time to inform timetable construction. Students’ selection of elective modules will be subject to availability in the timetable.

Timetable construction will seek to ensure that space is used in as efficient a way as possible, maximising frequency (how often spaces are used) and occupancy (how full spaces are against their capacity). When semester-long teaching activities take timetabling and room allocation precedence over irregular and ad hoc events, this will tend to result in the most effective use of space. In general terms, large lecture classes involving whole module cohorts will be scheduled before smaller-group teaching.

All teaching activities will be recorded in the central system, regardless of whether they are scheduled for ‘white’ or ‘grey’ space. This enables a complete timetable to be made available to staff and students and reduces the risk of inadvertent clashes. Details of the pool of white spaces and the affiliation of grey spaces to Schools/Directorates will be maintained by CTS and available in online room catalogues and published timetables.

Schools/Directorates are responsible for the design and delivery of the teaching activities for each of their modules, including their semester and start date; the number of weeks for which they will run; the number of activities per week; their duration and format; the staff who will deliver them (where known: in the case where new staff are awaited, ‘A N Other’ profiles are available in the web browser, which should be selected until the confirmed staffing allocation is known); their room requirements, including AV/IT equipment and whether white or specific grey space is to be used; any sequencing requirements; and an initial estimate of class size. The latter must be realistic in order to aid effective space utilisation and fair room allocations.

Reasonable adjustments will be made to the timetable in order to accommodate staff and students with disabilities. Priority will be given where required to activities which involve staff or student member with a disability. Required arrangements should be made known to the CTs as soon as possible in order to minimise the need for post-publication timetable changes.

Where they run across multiple weeks, teaching activities should have a standard delivery pattern (be scheduled for the same day/time each week or alternative week) unless there is a compelling reason otherwise. Where multi-week activities are ‘team taught’, have different teaching staff across different weeks, it is expected that the scheduled time of the activity will remain consistent and not change according to the different staff involved.

Requests for ‘fixed’ days and time for activities are not guaranteed unless there is a compelling reason, for example, part-time courses, highly limited availability of specialist staff or the needs of visiting lecturers. Individual staff preferences for the timetabling of teaching activities will not be prioritised above the timetabling constraints imposed by room, student and staff availability. Some Schools, whose teaching required less in the way of central co-ordination, and is largely held in specialist accommodation, may construct their own timetables: these nevertheless must use space as efficiently as possible, and be part of the University’s central teaching data repository.

Where classes run for two hours in the morning they will normally be scheduled at 0900- 1100 or 11-1300, rather than 10-1200, as there is a more efficient fit to core teaching hours. Teaching staff overseeing any multiple hour teaching events, in particular those which have to span a lunchtime, are asked to ensure that a break is built into the activity.

Timetable construction needs to strike a frequently difficult balance between the best fit of class size to room capacity, in order to maximise utilisation, and the allocation of ‘local’ teaching spaces where possible to increase students’ of identity and community with their home School.

The Schools of Education and Social Work (SESW)and Nursing and Health Sciences (SNHS) will have the first call on teaching spaces within the Dalhousie, replicated from the Gardyne campus which it used to occupy, which makes practical the allocation of all its teaching activities there. SNHS through Tayside NHS made a financial contribution to the cost of the building, the return on which was initial room allocation priority. Both Schools also have non-standard patterns of teaching delivery which are best contained to a limited set of teaching spaces rather than dispersed through spaces across the entire City campus.

Where CTS has sufficient time, it will seek to ensure that staff and students are not required to be in classes involving more than one module continuously between 1200 and 1500; that they have not more than 4 hours of continuous classes at any time; and that an 1800 finish on one day will not be followed by a 0900 start on the next.

Unless specifically agreed otherwise, CTS will take initial responsibility during timetable construction for the allocation of students to small group activities. Thereafter Schools/Directorates, through being given developed access to the central system, may more students between groups on the latter’s request; however they should be mindful of the subsequent size of the classes and the possibility that they will outgrow the space currently allocated.

Field trips which take place during teaching weeks can cause particular timetabling complexities. Where these are half – or whole-day events, they will wherever possible be scheduled in different weeks, on the same day of the week, to allow unconstrained timetabling of staff and students’ remaining non-fieldwork courses over the rest of the teaching week.

Staff who have evening teaching commitments should have their remaining teaching commitments scheduled in a sympathetic way, including no early start on the day of, or after, their evening slot.

Requests for changes to published timetables

Requests to change any part of the published timetable must be approved by the School Manager (or depute) and submitted through the School Timetabling contact via the designated method.

There can be no guarantee that specific requests will be met.

CTS will refrain from making amendments to the published timetable when the specifications of the original request were met in timetable construction and a third party’s booking may be affected by the change.

Post-publication changes should be avoided unless essential to the delivery of a programme or module, because of the risk to the student experience. Valid reasons for lodging change requests may include:

• Unforeseen student clash with another module which is compulsory or optional in their degree programme
• Unforeseen staff clash with another teaching commitment
• Additional activities required to address growth in numbers during the admissions process, or student enrolments on the module
• Contingency circumstances such as staff absence or turnover, or temporary building or room problems
• Long term room insufficiencies, such as access requirements not known previously, group size overtaking the capacity of the room allocated or lack of required AV/IT facilities
• Recommendation of an external examiner or inspection body reviewing teaching delivery
• Cancellation of activities for a module which is no longer to run.

The following reasons will not normally be accepted for making post-publication changes:

• The staff commute to work, where this information was not made available at the agreed time prior to timetable construction
• Staff’s regular school drop-off and/or pick-up, where this information was not made available at the agreed time prior to timetable construction
• A preference for an alternative time when the original time scheduled appeared to be suitable for the students, the staff member and the room specification
• Dislike of an allocated room which fitted the requirements of the activity as submitted during the data collection exercise.

Schools are urged to note that the published timetable will cover both semesters. They should review the timetable for both semesters as soon as possible after publication. Change requests for semester 2 modules which are not submitted until the end of semester 1 or later will be more difficult to implement and could adversely affect staff and student plans already made for semester 2.

Timetabling processes and timelines

Although the UoD academic session runs from September to May, the planning cycle for academic timetabling starts in January. The table below details a typical annual cycle; the specific dates for each session will be confirmed in December each year. The week references shown are cross-referenced in the teaching dates and times section.

Roles and Responsibilities

Central Timetabling Service

• Issue guidelines to Schools and Directorates setting out the process and timelines for construction of the academic timetable.
• Plan and construct the academic timetable, adhering to publication dates where accurate and timely timetabling data has been submitted by Schools and Directorates
• Ensure that timetable construction results in efficient use of teaching space.
• Maintain and develop UoD’s timetabling and room bookings system, S+, referring technical issues to IT or Scientia as appropriate
• Provide access and support to devolved School/Directorate users of timetabling software (including S+, WDC, WRBs, Report Manager, online timetables).
• Undertake (where agreed) the first-time allocation of students to small group activities, to enable personalised student timetables and the attendance monitoring system.
• Provide a timely and professional room bookings service to staff and students.
• Manage the Central Timetabling/Room Bookings website including the catalogue of white spaces (and in due course grey spaces), the online timetables and the WRBs service.
• Administer the Registry and Schools Working Group on Central Timetabling and Room Bookings.
• Liaise with Estates and Camus Services and IT in relation to the refurbishment of teaching spaces.

School Timetabling contacts

• Serve as the first point of contact for staff and students in the School with timetabling queries, and liaise with CTS on such queries, including the need for any adjustments for those with additional requirements.
• Liaise with teaching staff about the accurate and timely submission of timetabling and room data, so that the highest-quality timetable can be constructed at earliest possible time.
• Check the accuracy of timetabling data before and after timetable publication.
• Advise staff and students of timetable changes made at short notice.
• Liaise with CTS on any special requirements for staff or students in their School with a disability.
• On student request, to undertake the post-publication swapping of students between small group activities.
• Contribute to the minimising of wasteful booking practice, such as unnecessary block booking and retaining bookings that are no longer required.

Teaching Staff

• Submit, on an annual basis when requested, their availability to teach for the upcoming academic session, so that any periods of non-availability can be built in when the academic timetable, including any teaching activities which they take, is constructed.
• Submit on an annual basis when requested, the timetable and room requirements for any programmes, modules or activities for which they are responsible, and otherwise respond promptly to other requests for timetabling information (for example relating to Module Diets).
• Check carefully draft timetables when they are published and let their nominated School Timetabling contact know as soon as possible of changes which need to be made, including instances where they have been scheduled for more than four consecutive hours of teaching involving more than one module.
• Adhere to agreed availability, and published timetables and room bookings.
• Contribute to the efficient running of the timetable by ensuring that they adhere to agreed start and finish times of their classes (normally five minutes past and five minutes to the hour respectively).
• Ensure that they adhere to the Good Practice Guidelines which are posted up in all white (and in due course grey) spaces, which refer to maintenance of boards, AV/IT facilities and cleanliness, any movement of furniture which they undertake, and fault reporting, so that rooms are left in good working order for their next bookings.
• Maintain attendance records at the classes which they run.
• Inform their nominated School Timetabling contact as soon as possible if classes and/or room bookings are to be cancelled, so that the central database can be updated as appropriate.

School Managers/Deans

• Oversee management of their School’s input to the timetabling process.
• Ensure that their School’s input to the timetabling process is completed in a timely and accurate way, including sign-off of their School’s timetabling data submission on the agreed deadline.
• Sign off the availability of their teaching staff by the published deadlines and in accordance with the Staff Availability section (see page 4 above).
• Ensure that the new academic developments which will feed in the timetable for the upcoming session are submitted to and approved by the Quality and Academic Standards Committee at its February meeting, and thereafter to ensure that further changes are kept to a minimum.
• Ensure that their School’s agreed timetabling contacts are the sole source of timetabling/room bookings communication with CTS.

Students

• Ensure availability (where full-time) to attend classes for all specified weeks of the academic session (see Teaching Dates and Times section on page 3 above).
• Check regularly and through the academic session, in order to identify any changes to their activities. For new students, their finalised timetables including their allocation to small group activities for semester 1 modules may not be available until the first week of teaching.
• Returning undergraduate students (i.e. those going to Levels 2,3 and 4 in the upcoming academic session) are urged to submit their module selections for that upcoming session by the deadline set for that task by their School.
• Contact their School in the first instance in the event of any clashes of their timetabled activities, or if they find that they have been scheduled for more than four consecutive hours of teaching involving more than one module.
• Attend the classes to which they have been allocated, or otherwise to approach their School about a formal move between small-group activities.
• Students wishing to change modules after the academic timetable has been published should ensure that they select an alternative module combination which is making that change.
• Alert Disability Services and their School as soon as possible so that any special requirements can be built when constructing the timetable.
• Contribute to the efficient use of teaching rooms by helping to keep them clean and tidy and by arriving punctually and leaving promptly.

Estates and Campus Services

• Ensure that white teaching spaces and the fixtures and fittings therein are maintained in good working order.
• Address calls to its Helpdesk relating to white and grey teaching spaces in a timely manner.
• Agree with CTS the formal capacities for white teaching spaces.
• Liaise with CTS and IT in relation to the refurbishment of teaching spaces.
• Manage the annual utilisation survey of teaching spaces during semester 1.

IT

• Undertake technical support of all timetabling/room booking software.
• Manage the AV/IT facilities in white spaces (and where agreed in grey spaces), communicating any changes to CTS.
• Address calls to its Helpdesk relating to the AV/IT facilities in white and grey spaces in a timely manner.
• Manage the AV/IT facilities and the PCs in centrally-managed IT suites.
• Undertake training in the use of AV/IT equipment in centrally-managed bookable spaces.
• Liaise with CTS and Estates and Campus Services in relation to the refurbishment of teaching spaces.

Teaching and Meeting Rooms

UoD’s teaching and meeting rooms are divided into two categories, referred to in this policy for brevity as white spaces and grey spaces. The Space Management Group confirms the designation of space as white or grey:

• White spaces are centrally-managed teaching and meeting rooms, including fixed/tiered lecture theatres, flat floor lecture and seminar rooms, and IT Suites;
• Grey spaces are School-managed rooms, including specialist facilities such as wet and dry laboratories, studies, general teaching spaces and IT suites.

All white and grey spaces with their timetables are to be included in central timetable/room bookings system, including ongoing ad-hoc bookings of grey spaces which Schools/Directorates are required to make using the WRBs service. This is to allow transparency of use.

CTS’s allocation of white spaces will seek to balance as fairly as possible the requirements of all School/Directorate users. Schools and Directorates will have first call on the use of the grey spaces but the same principles which apply to the efficient use of white space must also apply to the use of grey spaces: where these are not specialist facilities not suitable for multi-use, these should be shared with other Schools and Directorates when available. Similarly, grey spaces not normally used for general teaching may be used to accommodate classes in instances of unusual requirements or demand.

All white spaces will be equipped with a PC, data projector (or large monitor), a touch screen control panel, a writing surface and cleaner, and an internal phone, via which problems can be reported to Estates and Campus Services or IT. Users are required to bring along their own non-permanent dry marker pens for the writing surfaces. The online room catalogue will display full details of available white spaces and their facilities. Grey spaces will, in due course, also feature in an online catalogue.

All flat floor white spaces will have a defined furniture type and a default layout to which room users must return the room at the end of their event if furniture is moved. The layout will be displayed in the space.

A small number of white spaces are set aside for non-teaching activities such as UoD meetings and Talent and Development courses. This is practical because such events can be difficult to schedule within the typical usage pattern of teaching spaces.

Some white spaces have specialist facilities (such as pianos, which are owned by a School0 which are not available for general use, and require a specific process when booking.

A utilisation survey will be conducted annually on white and grey teaching and meeting rooms during semester 1.

The availability of bookable spaces is driven by the opening hours of the buildings in which they are situated. If bookings are required for specific venues which are not open beyond core teaching hours, additional security cover will be required for which charges will apply.

Room bookings - staff

Non-teaching activities may utilise un-booked slots in teaching rooms during core teaching hours; where this occurs they shall normally adhere to the timing conventions set out in the Teaching Days and Times section (see page 3 above0. Possible booking hours span 0800 and 2200 depending on the day of the week and the availability of the building.

Ad hoc room bookings during core teaching hours will not normally be confirmed until the academic timetable has been finalised, or at least in a state where major changes are not anticipated.

UoD’s requirements for room and facilities will take priority over those of external groups. Significant changes to academic timetables will not be made in order to accommodate external use.

Conflicts between UoD teaching needs and prestigious ad hoc events will be referred to the Vice Principal for Learning and Teaching for adjudication about priorities. The judgement

will be based on the balance between the potential reputational benefit of accommodating the ad hoc event and the scale of temporary arrangements that have to be put in place for affected teaching.

Prospective student open days will be organised in such a way that causes minimum disruption to teaching. These, along with development activities such as Academic Skills and CTIL events and Talent and Development Team courses, and formal UoD committee meetings will normally have priority over other types of ad hoc booking.

Bookings made by UoD staff will be free of charge unless (a)there are security implications, for example by being out of normal hours; and/or (b)they are on behalf of an external party; and/or (c)it is an event which requires an attendance fee. In the case of (b) and (c) the arrangements including the booking of rooms will be organised by Hospitality Services, to whom initial enquiries should be addressed.

Staff wishing to make an ad-hoc booking of white space which does not relate to module- based teaching should use the WRBs service. These should be treated as provisional requests until CTS has scheduled the event and an automated e-mail confirming the booking has been sent. Requests for bookings relating to modules should use the online form available or be e-mailed to CTS at timetabling@dundee.ac.uk. Other ad hoc bookings with complex requirements should be e- mailed to CTS at roombooking@dundee.ac.uk. Ad hoc bookings should not be used for teaching activities, or as cover for ‘just in case’ scenarios.

All ad hoc bookings must conform to the Good Practice Guidelines displayed in the space booked.

Users of white space who wish to provide catering for their event must book the catering through Hospitality Services (email: campuscatering@dundee.ac.uk) or through DUSA. External catering companies are not permitted to provide catering in white spaces. Catering in tiered lecture theatres is not provided.

Requests to book ‘grey’ spaces will be managed by the School/Directorate with responsibility for the space in question.

Room bookings – students and Student Societies

Student use of rooms for self-study

White spaces have the definition of ‘Informal Learning Spaces’, which means that when they are not in booked use, students may ‘drop in’ to these rooms for self-study without needing to make a formal booking themselves. However, they are required to give way when a formal booking made through CTS needs the space that they are occupying. Bookings for the current week are normally posted outside rooms on the Friday afternoon of the week before: thus, while students have local access to the booking picture for each room, they should be aware that it is possible for the booking sheets not to portray bookings for the current week which have been made at short notice.

In the immediate run-up to and during examination diets, students may find that they need to share use of such spaces, and are therefore asked to work quietly.

Student use of rooms for presentations/group work/study group

Students may book a white space for practicing or giving presentations, for doing group project work, or for participating in a study group as part of their course. This should be declared at the time of making the booking request. A maximum span of 3 hours will usually be applied and bookings may only be made for single weeks. No charge will be applied.

Student bookings on own behalf or that of an external organisation

For students wishing to book a room for a talk or meeting on their own behalf, or on behalf of an external organisation, these will be treated as external and chargeable, and therefore managed in the first instance by Hospitality Services.

Student Societies

A separate policy for Student Society use of bookable spaces is available in a separate document.