1. SAS006 – Comprehensive Timetable Analysis
Progress as at July 7th, 2017

2. SAS006 – Comprehensive Timetable Analysis
Definition of a Comprehensive Timetable
Following Consultation with Staff and Students:
A Comprehensive Timetable -
Information relating to the core teaching for individual student’s selected courses including Lectures, Tutorials, Workshops, Labs, Practical and Field Events.
Information relevant to the Student connected to core teaching including Personal Tutor meetings, Dissertation/Research Supervision meetings, Class Test dates, Assignment Due dates, Notifications of marks/grades, Exam timetables.
Information relevant to students at the University/College/School/Programme/Course level that are not “mandatory” core teaching including Seminars, Talks, PAL Groups, Discussion Groups, Lab Safety Training, Academic Skills Training, Research Skills Training. Induction programmes, Careers Events, Welcome week activities, various due dates required to enter and progress. There is an extensive list.
University Society Events relevant to Societies that the Student has joined.
From the student perspective – in one place that doesn’t require extensive navigation.

3. SAS006 – Comprehensive Timetable Analysis
Progress Through the Consultation Process
A list of key stakeholders was developed in the PID. To date:
Those who are Staff working in Schools have been consulted in one to one sessions.
Those who are Central Support Staff have been consulted – with VLE outstanding (scheduled 10/07/2017)
Central TTU Staff have been individually consulted.
3 Student Representatives have been consulted and arrangements are being made to meet another 4 (asap)
3 PG Students expressed interest in participating. Meetings are being arranged.
Meetings to discuss data collection, options, change management have been attended.
Meetings reviewing the School of Chemistry Pilot have been attended.
The timetable Operations Group meeting was attended.
Existing CSA and OBC Documents have been reviewed.
The TOM has been reviewed.
Process diagrams covering the current process are in progress.
Process diagrams covering Change and Exceptions Management are complete.

4. SAS006 – Comprehensive Timetable Analysis
Initial Findings
There appears to be a consensus amongst Schools that more information should be given to students in a simpler way.
There is a diversity between Schools over what the non-core teaching activities are that relate to each school. Not all schools, for example, need lab safety training…
There is not much difference between what Schools believe should be presented in a comprehensive timetable compared to what students would expect to see.
“Resistance” to change is perceived to be at the higher levels.
There are various options to produce a comprehensive timetable.
These are currently at the high level “thought about” stage.

5. SAS006 – Comprehensive Timetable Analysis
Overview of the options
Do everything “properly” in Syllabus +
The easy answer constrained by the capacity of the database and performance issues that a large volume increase may cause.
Non-core teaching activities will create timetable clashes between optional, drop in, events and scheduled teaching resulting in a high number of double bookings.
A single O365 calendar incorporating all of the various types of activity would be visually very confusing.

6. SAS006 – Comprehensive Timetable Analysis
Overview of the options
Do everything “properly” in Syllabus +, but use more than one instance.
Have separate instances of Syllabus +; use one for core teaching and other(s) for non-core events.
Benefits from a familiar system enforcing a uniform approach.
Same interface from SITS to populate with Student & Course data.
Same Calsync link to create multiple O365 calendars to be viewed or layered as required by the user.
A lot of work to rationalise processes resulting in a central database.
Possible size, performance constraints.

7. SAS006 – Comprehensive Timetable Analysis
Overview of the options
Do teaching timetable in Syllabus +, but other events in existing methods.
The Schools could more easily retain control in an environment more familiar to them.
Would probably require Schools to standardise their approach in common activity types and change how they use and maintain VLE or other course management systems.
Would require rigid change control to prevent the interface being subverted.
Would require more and varied Calsync interfaces to be built and maintained, but could produce secondary calendars for layering.

8. SAS006 – Comprehensive Timetable Analysis
What other systems are out there?
The UCISA* survey for 2016 (public version) reported the following.
For 116 UK Universities that responded to the Corporate Systems Survey, the following were the timetable systems in use at that time.
Scientia – 61
Advanced Learning CMIS – 25
Celcat – 21
Others – 9 (including in house/bespoke)
There are very few enterprise level systems for this function.
For interest – 57 use Tribal SITS for Student Records, but only 2 use Tribal for Timetables.
*UCISA – The Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association