Academic Delivery
Most Universities and Colleges buy a scheduling system in response to a management issue which needs to be resolved. In general, the three most common issues are problems with academic delivery, introducing more choice but maintaining or improving resource usage.
Semesterisation and Modularisation introduce a host of management problems in co-ordinating activities across the University and setting out timetables which allow students from multiple courses to attend the same module whilst maintaining a clash free timetable.
The only way that this can be done is to use a central source of data which is used across the University so that a truly pan-institution solution can be formatted. Facility CMIS is designed to provide this service with integral security so that Departments view and control only the appropriate resources. This has knock on effects to the business processes but with expert advice from Serco consultants in the implementation phase, best practice from other Universities can be shared to minimise the risk and disruption. In most of our implementations, the University or College has found the implementation of Facility CMIS to be an ideal opportunity to review and improve their processes and have welcomed the project management and change management guidance in helping to achieve this.
Academic Benefits
In view of the changing nature of education to a more ‘client based’ and competitive environment, offering increased choice and customer service to students is seen as a necessity for the new education businesses. The benefits of more module choices available to students and a guaranteed clash-free programme are an essential part of this that can be provided using software such as Facility CMIS. Universities have show efficient course delivery to help meet validation targets, staff preferences were easier to accommodate and student constraints could be more easily met, encouraging a higher rate of attendance.
Space Management Benefits
The benefits in space management from using Facility CMIS include a better match of group and room sizes, more efficient maintenance, better occupancy, sharing of teaching space and the ability to model future requirements. Information about any course or rooms could be obtained easily. This was helpful in resolving clashes during timetabling or unexpected problems at other times. Producing accurate statistics for room usage was also possible which has helped many Facility CMIS institutions to plan teaching space more efficiently.