• Overview
• Projects Underway
  • Capital Projects Process
  • Classroom Scheduling and Utilization
  • Facilities Maintenance and Upkeep
  • Food Service Planning
  • Research Space Management
• Guidelines
  • Capital Project Guidelines
  • Office Space Guidelines
  • Target Goals for Classroom Utilization
• Resources and Tools
  • Utilization reporting and information
  • Building and space information
  • Utilities information
  • Additional resources
• News and Events
• Contact

classroom scheduling and utilization

• Overview
• Scope
• Goals
• Project Sponsors
• Project Team
• Advisory Groups/Individuals
• Estimated Timeline
• Current Status
• For More Information
  

Overview

Currently, classes and their associated rooms are recorded in the M-Pathways Student Administration system for the purpose of class registration each term. Other non-class activities, such as departmental meetings, student organization activities, and other activities or events are recorded in various unit and departmental systems and tools, such as paper logs, calendaring tools (e.g., Meeting Maker, MS Outlook), or other systems. As a result, classroom, lecture room, and auditoria data are stored in various locations, making it challenging, both at the unit- and institutional-level, to:

• Document the usage of our classrooms, lecture rooms, and auditoria based on quantitative data.

• Identify rooms with needed configurations, capacities, or amenities that are available for scheduling, within a unit or with other units across campus.

• Identify rooms that may require additional investment or could be repurposed to better meet the needs of the University.

The Central Scheduling and Utilization System project involves recording and/or maintaining scheduling data in a central system for all classrooms, lecture rooms, and auditoria. It also involves examining and defining business processes and recommending institutional guidelines or policies where needed to optimize classroom utilization. A central, campus wide scheduling system will be designed, implemented, and phased in over a period of time to be determined.

Scope

This project affects academic units and the Office of the Registrar on the Ann Arbor campus only.

Goals

The goals of the Central Scheduling and Utilization System project are to:

• Provide comprehensive classroom utilization information to enable units and the Office of the Provost to manage classroom space more effectively and to optimize classroom utilization at the unit and institutional level. This includes:

  • Defining institutional key performance indicators for classroom utilization that enable the Office of the Provost to view classroom utilization across the institution and unit-by-unit.

  • Defining an organizational model and business processes that streamline classroom scheduling and support, eliminate redundancies on the Ann Arbor campus, and consider the needs of faculty and students.

• Strengthen the University's ability to identify available classroom space needed to support departmental moves that are needed during construction or renovation projects.

• Enable units to view classroom seating capacity and amenities and to request to use classrooms outside the buildings they occupy.

• Provide units the ability to request technical support for centrally scheduled classrooms.

Project Sponsors

• Phil Hanlon
  Vice Provost for Academic and Budgetary Affairs
• Laura Patterson
  Associate Vice President for Administrative Information Services

Project Team

This project is being led by Michigan Administrative Information Services (MAIS), in collaboration with the Office of the Registrar, Office of the Provost, and academic units.

Advisory Groups/Individuals

• Space Utilization Initiative Steering Committee
• Space Utilization Initiative Faculty Advisory Committee
• Tim Slottow
  Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
• Terry Sullivan
  Provost and Executive Vice President
• Budget administrators from various schools and colleges
• Curriculum managers and course schedulers from various schools and colleges

Estimated Timeline

Project initiation: November 2007

Phase 1 Form Phase 1 project team. Determine appropriate institutional scheduling processes, system requirements, and policies	Est. duration: 3-6 months; completed April 08.
Phase 2 Includes the following sub-projects:
Utilization Data Analysis and Recommendations	Est. duration: 3-6 months; began May 08
Scheduling Optimization Modeling and Recommendations	Est. duration: 3-6 months; began May 08
System to Capture Non-Class Events in Classrooms	Est. duration: 6-12 months; began July 08

Current Status

8/08:  Analysis of utilization data and scheduling optimization modeling continues.
For updates on the “System to Capture Non-Class Events in a Classroom”, please refer to that project page.

7/08:  Office of the Registrar, Office of Budget and Planning, and LSA have partnered to explore how currently available software can further optimize course scheduling placement. Various scenarios are being modeled to see how utilization and room placement/preferences are affected. A separate subproject has been initiated to determine how non-class events contribute to classroom utilization data. Please refer to “System to Capture Non-Class Events in a Classroom” for more information on this sub-project.

6/08:  Analysis of utilization data is underway. Data is being looked at for all schools and colleges on the Ann Arbor campus. The purpose of this analysis is to identify anomalies, better understand trends and patterns in course schedule practices, and to identify opportunities to improve utilization.

For previous status reports, see the Classroom Status Archive page.

For More Information

Please refer to the following for other relevant information:

1. System to Capture Non-Class Events in Classrooms
2. Classroom Utilization Reports and Data Warehouse
3. Target Goals for Classroom Utilization

For more information on the Space Utilization Initiative, contact space.utilization@umich.edu.

 

Last updated: 9/3/08