Timetabling Operations Group20th July 2015 – H.R.B. Lecture Theatre, Robson Building

Agenda

1. Action Points from previous meeting

2. Location Allocation update

3. Student Allocation update

4. 1516 reports

5. Start of semester system support

6. Centralisation of Services update

7. Website update, new look and feel

8. A.O.B.

Action Points from previous meeting

ACTION POINT NUMBER

ACTION POINT DETAIL STATUS

AP1 Publish list of schools who use student allocation In progress

AP2 Meet with Economics and LLC to go over solution to Semester 1 / Semester 2 splits (benefits for student allocation)

Done

AP3 Publish online times of data feeds In progress

AP4 Circulate list of 90+ locally allocated general teaching rooms that TTU will allocate into as part of MAP

Done

AP5 Circulate WIKI link Prior to start of term – when exception reports are generated

AP6 Report performance issues to Scientia Upgrade to 3.12 Oct 15

AP7 Feed back performance issues to IS Apps to test performance in different locations

Upgrade to 3.12 Oct 15

AP8 TTU to continue to investigate how to introduce travel constraint functionality

Offline testing in progress

Location Allocation Update

Dates Planned and actual

ProcessData Review and allocation period

Challenges

Reduced space, more activities than ever before

Tough decisionsHolyrood will be more heavily used

StatisticsHeadline numbers and advice

Location Allocation - DatesPlanned and actual

STAGE PLANNED DATE STATUS

Official Timetabling Process Launch 4th February 2015 As planned

Deadline for School submission of core teaching activities

29th May 2015 As planned

Data Review and allocation period 1st June 2015 – 5th July 2015 Period extended to 20th July 2015

Confirmation of initial allocations to Schools by Timetabling Unit

6th July 2015 Delayed until w/c 20th July 2015

On-going allocations and whittling of outstanding teaching allocations

6th July onwards, building up to start of Semesters 1 and 2

w/c 20th July onwards, building up to start of Semesters 1 and 2

Web Room Booking allocations Summer/Autumn 2015 Being done as and when possible re. core teaching allocations

Location Allocation - ProcessData Review and allocation period

Following the 29th May deadline for School submissions, the TTU has been conducting the following work in advance of this week’s announcement email:

Checked and tagged all core teaching activities requiring centrally-allocated locations

This year - almost 8000 activities were worked with by declaration dayLast year - A little over 6500 were worked with by D-Day

Tagged and batched-up activities into relevant scheduling groups

This year 43 different scheduling groups have been usedLast year - 31 were used

Ran multiple offline scheduling exercises for Central Area, King’s Buildings and Holyrood Campuses

This year up to 10 full-run offline exercises have been conducted to inform the live exerciseLast year - Fewer than 5 offline exercises were required

Some of this year’s offline modelling exercises have tested the flexibility of allocations for each campus

Location Allocation - ChallengesReduced space

Location Closures

Central Area CampusDavid Hume Tower (Ground Floor and up) = 22 locations

Old College (Phase 1) = 14 locationsAppleton Tower (Level 2 and up) = 7 locations

King’s Buildings CampusAdditional general teaching locations closed around campus due to university directives = 5 locations

Holyrood CampusCharteris Land (all General Teaching spaces) = 13 locations

Thomson’s Land (G9 and G10) = 2 locations

Location Allocation - ChallengesMore activities than ever before, Holyrood to the rescue

More activities

• General growth in the quantity of activities created by Timetablers

• Some Schools’ activities have also increased as a result of splitting-up semesters – actually offers a better chance of finding space

Holyrood Campus

• Holyrood Campus will be more heavily used than ever before, coping with a greater number of Central Area activities

• Allocations going to Holyrood have been carefully selected in the first instance to focus on 2+hour activities, thus limiting travel constraint problems

Location Allocation - StatisticsDeclaration Day headline numbers

ACADEMIC YEAR

TOTAL ACTIVITIES(declaration day)

Allocated Activities

Unallocated Activities

Allocated to 1st Preference %

**1516 7417 6393 (86.19%) 1024 (13.81%) 79.75%

1415 6686 6190 (92.58%) 496 (7.42%) 86.46%

1314 6005 5693 (94.88%) 312 (5.12%) 87.32%

** 1516 numbers are rough, will change a little for declaration day but still give an indication of the shifts for this year

Location Allocation - StatisticsFrequency of use by teaching slot

Location Allocation - StatisticsFrequency of use by teaching slot

Student Allocation Update

• Bulk, “whole-class” allocations commenced 16/07/15

• 8,500 Students with timetables so far

• Student course enrolments updated daily

• “whole class” allocations updated daily

• Student timetables (via MyEd) updated instantly

Sub-Group Allocation by School

School Level of allocationBiological Science Full

Biomedical Science Full

Business School PGT

Divinity Full

ECA Partial

Economics UG

Education Partial

LLC Partial

Sub-Group Allocation by School

• Training workshops delivered as required

• Carole-Anne Marshall/Marianne Brown lead TTU support

• Schools determine timing of sub-group allocations

Student Allocation – Project Update

• Project proposal to deliver:– Student self-sign-up system– Office 365 calendar feed of timetable information– 2015 -2018 implementation timeline

• Did NOT receive approval for sponsor funding

• Proposal will be re-submitted in 2016

1516 Reports

TIMETABLING DATA REPORTING REQUIREMETNS

SCHOOLS TTU

BI SUITE Reports

SSRS Reports

SPACE UTILISATIONReports

SSRS Reports

Student Sets Double

Allocated

Student Sets Double Booked with 2nd Activity

Class List Reports:Attendance sheet by Course Code

Class List Reports:Attendance sheet

by Activity

Accessible by Schools via: BI Suite Tool

Accessible by Schools via:Timetabling WIKI page

https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/TIM/Timetabling+Unit+Reports

Module size exceeds Room Capacity whole Class Sessions

Room Accessibility Report

EXCEL Extract

Accessible by Schools via:email on request

Accessible by Schools via:email on request

Module size exceeds Room Capacity whole Class Sessions

EXCEL Extract

Accessible by Schools via:email on request

Accessible by Schools via:email on request

1516 Reports

1. BI Suite Report – Class Listhttps://www-test.bobi.is.ed.ac.uk/BOE/BI

2. SSRS Student Sets Double Booked with 2nd Activityhttps://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/TIM/Timetabling+Unit+Reports

3. SSRS Module Size Exceeds Room Capacity Whole Class Sessions https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/TIM/Timetabling+Unit+Reports

1516 Reports

4. SSRS Student Sets Double Allocated

Start of semester system support

Lessons learned from 14/15:– Rebuild database during w/c 17th August to minimise risk of data

corruption– Quick switch to manual data updates in event of data interface failure– Keep large write-backs and refreshes outside business hours

Coming soon (Oct 15):– Enterprise v3.12– Introduces the “forced refresh”

Centralisation of Services update

Centralisation of Services update

Timetabling Data Location Allocation Student Allocation0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

School Preferences

PrimaryTier 1Tier 2

College Timetabling Centralisation

CSE • Not interested in additional “timetabling” support at this stage

• Agreed to recommend pilot with one School to determine possible long-term position

• Has agreed to resource transfer to cover “rooming” element of proposal

• May consider additional funding to secure modelling support as part of KB Masterplan

HSS • Provisionally in favour of full support service proposal

• Business case to be considered at Oct 15 PRG

• Would prefer consistent support model across colleges

MVM • Interested in full support service – pending further gap analysis and pilot scheme work

Centralisation of Services update

Timescale for change:

Timetabling Unit Website UpdateNew look and feel

Any other

business?