Right on schedule: thank goodness for technology: sophisticated classroom-and-facilities management software is fast replacing manual scheduling - Technology

University Business, April, 2002 by Tom Warger

Keeping track of meetings, classes, and audio-video equipment was never an easy task for instructors. And now that faculty members vie to have their classes meet in the (still scarce) "smart classrooms" that are packed with computers and gadgetry for electronic presentations, scheduling academic facilities is an even tougher proposition. Then there's distance education, which contributes its own set of urgent scheduling needs. (Students who may never even see a classroom, still need to be scheduled for exams.)

With so many new factors now in play--and with colleges and universities trying to rein in operating costs at the same time--it's no wonder the perennial quest to make efficient use of instructional and meeting spaces is more complex than ever.

RIGHT CLASS, RIGHT ROOM

When it comes to course scheduling, fuller and more efficient use of classrooms is a primary objective for schools. A target often mentioned by school administrators is 30 hours per classroom per week, which represents a 75 percent rate of occupancy--a substantial improvement over current rates. The problem in reaching that level of efficiency is often attributed to the reluctance of faculty and students to schedule classes throughout the available hours and days. (Classrooms may be available in late-afternoon and evening hours, for instance, but commuting professors prefer to Leave campus earlier than that. Those same rooms are often vacant at 8 or 9 a.m. because students prefer late morning classes.) But a faculty committee at Northwestern University Looking at the issues involved found that--contrary to generally held beliefs--it is room characteristics, class size, equipment requirements, and working around "low-tech" Limitations (such as poor acoustics) that are actually the key factors in good scheduling. In other words: getting the right class into the right room. Fortunately, classroom/facilities management software with the sophistication to factor those different needs and criteria, and create optima[ assignments and schedules, is beginning to replace manual and older automated methods that were unable to cope with the competing demands for choice rooms.

SCHEDULING ONLINE EVENTS

And now a new kind of scheduling need has taken shape: the "electronic event." Online discussions, teleconferences, and exams can entail almost as much administrative overhead as in-person events. Not surprisingly, where distance education has flourished, clerical time spent on scheduling has been surprisingly high. But that's where self-scheduling software comes in: The Center for Distance Learning (CDL) at City Colleges of Chicago has found that the Web-based, self-scheduling system they implemented in February of 2001 (TimeTrade from TimeTrade Systems, www.timetrade.com), has since enabled 85 percent of their students to schedule their own exams online--an estimated savings of $100,000 annually in clerical costs. (TimeTrade's application service provider model costs $600 per month and up, depending upon features included and resources managed.)

CHOOSING THE RIGHT SYSTEM

Of course, saving that kind of money in your own institution isn't possible unless you have the right system for your needs in place, and that means covering all the bases when you set out to evaluate and choose a classroom-and-facilities scheduling system.

Identify purpose. Before you even begin to draw up a short list of potential vendors and products, make sure you have carefully evaluated your needs, say the experts. Understanding the basic types of products available will help you to see which category your needs may fall into. The three basic product types:

* Batch-oriented scheduling modules are included in comprehensive administrative information systems such as Datatel's Colleague (www.datatel.com), SCT's Banner (www.sct.com), and PeopleSoft (www.peoplesoft.com). They are best at optimizing and assigning rooms campus-wide, for a semester at a time.

* Event-oriented systems include CollegeNET's Series25 (www. corp.collegenet.com), Steltor's CorporateTime (www.steltor.com), and TimeTrade. These products directly enable scheduling of lectures and special events by the sponsors.

* Meeting-maker systems include Facility Innovations's Time and Place (www.facilityinnovations.com), MeetingMaker (www.meetingmaker.com), and Microsoft's Outlook (www.microsoft.com). These products are designed to facilitate the scheduling of meetings and meeting spaces.

System requirements. Campus selection committees, usually consisting of department-level staff from registrar and events-scheduling offices (and sometimes complemented by IT staff), typically specify technical and usage criteria when evaluating software solutions for scheduling and facilities management. As in all IT product choices today, the desire to stay in the mainstream of evolving standards is paramount, given the complex environments in which these systems operate, and the need to make them accessible to a variety of computer operating systems and modes of connecting to the campus network. Two years ago, the technical preference for software systems was for client-server architecture, but these days, most users favor Web-centered solutions. LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is now required for networked directories, and Java and Visual Basic applets are well regarded. Compatibility with emerging Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards such as Calendar Access Protocol is also a common purchase requirement; these are functions that should be carefully discussed with any vendors whose products you are considering.