Mosaic Space Blog

Mosaic Space have implemented Webinar technology to allow online demonstrations of its RUIS room utilisation analysis software. Using Teamviewer desktop sharing software, those with an interest in room audit and utilization data in their university or college will be able to view a presentation of RUIS from the comfort of their own office.

Key Benefits Of RUIS

• Latest web-based technology allows multi-user access
• Integrated with popular timetabling and space database systems – no need to enter data
• Sophisticated table and chart generation engine
• Powerful Filter Wizard – create and store data filters to report on any aspect of your space
• Reports and charts export directly into MS Office
• Compare room utilisation between multiple years (or semesters or terms)
• Compare timetable data with room audit or attendance data
• Flexible licencing and great support

RUIS Webinars are presented by John Pryzibilla, Executive Director of Mosaic Software, who has extensive international experience in the fields of campus masterplanning, space planning, and space utilisation at universities and colleges. A standard RUIS Webinar takes about 20 minutes.

Agenda

• Using Multiple Planning Periods – Year On Year, Timetable, Attendance, Audits, etc.
• Setting Utilisation Targets – Funding Council Benchmarks, Institution Targets.
• Focusing Your View: How To Filter The Data.
• Creating A Simple Space Utilisation Report And Chart.
• Comparing The Room Utilisation Results Between Different Planning Periods.
• Extra Features.

To book a RUIS Webinar, please click here.

While most institutions struggle to maintain the classroom space that they have, there is often little time or energy left to analyse how space is being used and whether they are using space efficiently. There is no set template for doing this sort of work at the tertiary education level, so each institution has been left to devise its means of figuring out how to best use the space that they have.

However, PRP Architects and Mosaic-Space have come up with an idea to solve some of these problems for universities. It’s called the Effective Learning Places Health Check. The idea behind this concept is to bring together a number of different disciplines such as Architecture, Masterplanning, Space Planning and Sustainability to provide a wide-ranging analysis of space utilisation at higher education institutions.

The key to their approach is the ability to go beyond the surface characteristics of space measurement and to look at how the space is actually being used currently, and how it might be used in the future. The idea is to work with the institution to create a better student experience while providing space efficiencies integrated with technology and new learning techniques.

There is a website where this service is detailed:

http://www.learninghealthcheck.com/

In order to effectively monitor space utilisation, there should be some sort of benchmarking regimen in place. The first problem to face is what is it exactly that universities should be measuring. Separating academic teaching space from research space and administrative space is the first obvious division, but what about the subdivisions within academic, or teaching, space? Are there some categories that can be selected that will provide a useful basis for comparison?

In Australia, TEFMA (Tertiary Education Facilities Management Assoc.) has come up with a list of eight types:

1. Lecture Theatres

2. Teaching (which includes, large flat floor teaching, classrooms and tutorial rooms)

3. Computer Laboratories

4. Laboratories

5. Workshops

6. Studios

7. Practice Rooms

8. Meeting Rooms

In choosing these eight types, the authors admit that “the Space Types used in this table are intended to be broad/generic descriptors”. This is hardly surprising. Most universities have their own scheme for dividing space according to a variety of principles and standards. However, it would be useful if universities could come up with a common set of room type descriptors which would allow for some comparative benchmarking.

The other problematic aspect of setting benchmarks is deciding on what hours make up the academic day. This can be complicated by a number of features. A start time of 8am may not suit every institutions, even though most have their teaching space available at this hour.

Next is the question of a dedicated or nominal lunch hour - should this be left out of utilisation calculations? And some universities have a weekly student common period when classes are not scheduled to allow for special student events. And, of course, the close of the academic day is even more problematic. Is is to be 5pm or 6pm? What about Friday afternoons? And then what about evening classes?

These are just a few of the questions that need to be examined in more depth as a part of the process of measuring space utilisation in any meaningful way.

The use of the tools of automated timetabling and space utilisation measurement provide universities and other higher education institutions with some very sophisticated ways of managing teaching space. However, these are just tools and on their own will not necessarily improve space. Before these tools can be usefully applied the institution must develop a coherent space management strategy. There have been some universities that have already done this - even if to an only limited degree. There is a paper by the University of Reading which outlines the steps that it is taking to try to get control and map out a future for space management:

http://www.fmd.reading.ac.uk/docs/strategy/EstateStrategy.pdf

There is some interesting discussion in this paper. Worth noting is the decision to drop the penalty charges for the use of excess space that had been in place in favour of a more comprehensive approach. Space charging is regarded by many and a simple and effective way of getting some control over the usage of teaching space. But in many instances this control does not necessarily deliver better educational outcomes, even if it appears to offer better utilisation rates.

A comprehensive space strategy is one that looks at all the different aspects of space and its usage and finds ways of establishing benchmarks and targets. Then the tools of timetabling and space measurement can be applied which allows for a more coherent use of space that is defined by genuine needs rather than simply using the big stick of space charging.

In order to tackle the problems of space management at universities and other higher education institutions one must examine the basic requirements of making things better and the obstacles that stand in the way of meeting those requirements. One of the very first of these is reliable and coherent data.

While universities generally have mountains of data floating around the various academic and administrative units, it is not always the sort of data that is really useful when trying to tackle the problems of space management. There is a paper written back in 2002 by the University of Wales Swansea where the authors state that problems arise when there is a “. . . Lack of comprehensive, reliable, accurate, up-to-date and accessible information [which] can seriously inhibit improvement in space management and use. As an example, there may be a lack of agreement between academic and estates staff concerning the rooms that make up the current stock of teaching space.”

Lots of data can sometimes be more of a problem than too little data. Especially when large administrative units such as estate management and academic services and university asset management cannot agree on just what sort of space the institution actually has. This is inevitably exacerbated by poor communication between the different parts of the institution and an unwillingness to create a data warehouse where different data sets can be reconciled.

The article entitled: SPACE MANAGEMENT A GOOD PRACTICE GUIDE can be found at: http://www.smg.ac.uk/documents/swanspace.pdf

There is an increasing move to the introduction of attendance tracking at universities in North America, the UK and Australasia. One driver is the long-held view that encouraging university students to attend classes, by whatever means possible, is one way to improve the likelihood of them performing well in the course. Some universities have expressed the view that class attendance is - or should be - part of the ‘contract’ that students make with the institution that, in return, undertakes to offer classes of guaranteed quality and frequency.

Another driver of attendance tracking, particularly in relation to international students, is a desire to ensure that such students are in class rather than working or engaged in more questionable activities.

An additional opportunity exists for space planners to get a better understanding of the nature of classroom use over time. It is beyond the resources of most institutions to use surveying or auditing of classrooms for more than one or two weeks of the academic year. The new tracking systems will provide a whole-of-year data set which will enable us to build up a better picture of the space use over time. Such information may drive a range of new planning decisions, and prompt thought about new ways to improve classroom space efficiency or to address sustainability issues.

However, automated attendance tracking is not without its critics:

http://badgerherald.com/news/2010/05/04/ariz_college_to_posi.php

Some students have reacted negatively to what they consider to be a “Big Brother” approach to student attendance. Students like to feel that it is their choice whether they decide to attend a particular class or not. The institution already has a record of performance through grading and the notion of attendance tracking seems like an unnecessary interference into students lives. But some teachers argue that attendance tracking can be a useful guide when making decisions about borderline students.

There is also the issue from the perspective of the academic staff that attendance tracking may be used as a method of assessing teaching performance. Low attendance figures may be used as a measure of how effective a particular staff member may be as a teacher. While universities have become very conscious about measuring research performance levels, there are not any real tools for measuring teaching performance and attendance tracking may be one way of doing this.

As can be seen, attendance tracking is likely to be more of an issue than it might otherwise appear at first glance. Many institutions will need to weigh the pros and cons of this before entering into an expensive tracking program.

One of the features of space re-organisation in universities around the world has been the move towards creating more open or collaborative spaces. A story from the The Time Higher Education looks more closely at these developments:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=411534

The experiences reported in this story, and others like it, are often encountered by university space planners. They highlight that all exercises to improve space utilisation and efficiency are ultimately about changing human behaviour - something that requires sensitive management and consultation.

According to the article some claim that “when people are taken out of their offices, more interactions take place and they become more productive.” But the article points out that things are never quite that simple. It is often more than just a simple loss of privacy. “For academics, there are worries about the confidentiality of research projects, including issues such as the secure storage of documents and the privacy of phone interviews.”

The move towards open office space is fraught with issues that have yet to be fully investigated and their impact thoroughly assessed.

The biannual international conference on the the practice and theory of timetabling (PATAT) will be held in Belfast on from the 10th to the 13th of August in 2010. Those who are interested can register for the conference at:

http://www.cs.qub.ac.uk/~B.McCollum/patat10/index.html

There will be keynote speakers from universities around the world including the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The aim of the Conference is to align the needs of practitioners and the objectives of researchers through the presentation and application of leading edge research techniques.

While many universities complain about the lack of space at one campus or another, it is interesting to survey the actually use of space on a used periods per day basis. This often reveals that there are certain pressure bulges at certain times and on certain days, while there are other times when there is little or no use of the available space. Friday afternoons are the best example of this. As a general trend, no matter how great the pressure may be on the peak Tuesday to Thursday periods, there is often a significant drop-off on Fridays, particularly Friday afternoons. This can be the result of preferences expressed by both staff and students.

In some higher education institutions, the week is effectively just four and a half days, with considerable utilisation valleys at lunchtimes and poor utilisation at the beginning and end of each day, and even worse utilisation at the beginning and end of each week. The result of this sort of usage pattern is that many more rooms are required to service the higher peaks that occur during mid-week. In institutions that have changed their profiles over the past decade, it usually means that any real expansion tends to be stymied by an apparent lack of space.

Upon closer examination, and utilisation measurement, it becomes clear that in real terms that institution is servicing more rooms that it really needs to. This means added recurrent costs as rooms are kept clean, powered and refurbished even though their overall utilisation rate is quite low. Of course, the institution may decide that these costs are an inevitable result of servicing the desire of students for a more ‘compact’ week. However, institutions may find that a better space usage policy may help to find rooms during a “space crisis”, or that it may be possible to limit the costs of maintenance by shutting down some classrooms - or re-assigning them to a more useful purpose.

One of the problems encountered with specialised space, such as labs or studios, is that when the usage tipping point is reached, it becomes necessary to build entirely new facilities. These can be prohibitively expensive, and so this usually becomes the choke point for further expansion. At least, until there is a decision to make a big push to the next stage.

A first stage solution has been to move to utilising weekends and thereby expanding the usage possibilities. But this isn’t always a very popular option and can have some other consequences that are unwelcome.

In the state of Oregon in the US, another avenue has been created. A community college has come up with the idea of presenting “graveyard classes”. These are classes which are held in valuable lab/studio space that is completely booked out during the normal class hours. One program, starting out at two nights a week, was expanding to four nights a week due to the popularity of this format. It tended to be sought out by mature age students looking for new or further qualifications, who were unable to attend daytime classes in any case. The new time provided an attractive option.

The full article can be found at:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/12/09/midnight

The ARC Timetabling Practitioner Group had its inaugural meeting on Friday the 26th of February at the University of Liverpool. A number of different timetabling issues and concerns were discussed. One of the more interesting papers was one delivered by John Pryzibilla, a director of Mosaic|Space Consulting which operates in the UK and Australiasia. This paper was on timetable benchmarking and it discussed the various ways in which a timetable implementation might be measured based on key performance factors. Some of these include measures of Student Convenience and Student Choice. The importance of Staff considerations are also addressed. There is a very interesting section on Timetabling Degree of Difficulty, which looks at the various factors that impact upon the creation of any timetable.

The paper highlights the difficulty in trying to measure the performance system that contains so many variables. It is very astute in demonstrating that simple space efficiency is not the only goal when one is trying to build a timetable for a university or technical institution. It provides a terrific foundation for continuing discussions on the nature of effective timetabling.

The following link will take you to the page where the paper can be downloaded:

http://www.mosaicsd.com/downloads.htm

The download site also contains some other papers that might be of interest to anyone with questions about timetabling a tertiary institution.