Developing utilisation surveys at Newcastle

1.43.1Teaching rooms, including laboratories.

A survey of 154 teaching rooms, 56 lecture theatres and 68 laboratories, together with 27 common user teaching rooms in 31 buildings was carried out on an hourly basis for one week in February. As surveys are disruptive to teaching, especially when carried out each hour over a period of time, judgement was used to ascertain approximate occupancy, ie full, 3/4 full, 1/2 full, 1/4 full etc. The surveys were carried out by the porters in each building.

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  differences in frequency between timetabled and actual use.
  
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  differences in utilisation between timetabled and actual use.
  
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  utilisation figures of timetabled use.
  
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  utilisation figures of actual use.
  

The survey shows that the use of all types of teaching room at Newcastle University fell short of recommended targets and there are substantial opportunities for increasing efficiency by improving utilisation. Pooled teaching rooms achieved higher frequency rates than rooms that are timetabled by departments or faculties.

laboratories 2:0pm to 4:0pm

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  there is a surplus of teaching rooms and laboratories
  
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  more rooms should be centrally timetabled
  
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  some rooms are used more then timetabled. This use could be by small groups of students who gather in an empty room. The survey did not specify that rooms in use should be being taught by a lecturer
  
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  rooms may not be used due to the absence of the lecturer at that time
  
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  students may be on field study trip
  

Research has shown that such reasons account for only a small percentage of under usage, the main reasons are overbooking and failure to notify timetablers that the room is no longer required.

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  rooms are booked for reasons other than matching class size
  

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  rooms are booked on a ‘custom and practice’ basis rather than size
  
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  a room may be booked for 20 students but only 50% attend the lecture
  
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  a specific room may have special facilities that are necessary regardless of group size, e.g. audio visual aids, mobility access
  
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  staff or student preferences are taken into account, rather than room size.
  

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  the location of a teaching room dictates its booking
  

1.43.2Survey of specialist rooms:

The number of specialist rooms is estimated to be in excess of 450. After discounting all off site facilities and non-teaching spaces, e.g. direct works workshops, the number reduces to 400. Of these a sample of 150 rooms was selected. This sample includes computer rooms, reading rooms, studios, laboratories, workshops, language facilities, drawing offices, music rooms, dental and medical facilities.

There are several ways to ascertain the capacity of specialist rooms, a necessary precursor to assessing occupancy. In cases where a laboratory has chairs, then the number of seats indicates its capacity, but more often the space is divided by the recommended space allocation to calculate its capacity. For example:

	Sq.m. per person
Heavy engineering	11
Light engineering	9
Arts studios	5
Computer rooms	3
Language studios	2.5

A utilisation survey of specialist space was carried out for a week in mid November 2001. The rooms were surveyed every two hours, viz. 9:30am, 11:30am, 1:30pm and 3:30pm. The analysis is not yet available.

1.43.3Research Space

A desktop audit of research space, including both laboratories and offices, is being undertaken in order to compare space allocated and space costs with research income generated. It uses existing space data and will result in performance indicators, which will enable analysis of current space performance and inform future planning.

1.43.4Office accommodation:

A desktop audit of all office space, both academic and administrative, will be carried out to calculate the amount of space allocated to each department. The space figures will be divided by the number of FTE staff to produce an average floorspace per person.

1.43.5Further analysis

From survey data currently available it is apparent that some teaching rooms are very heavily used, whilst others show low frequency of use. Further analysis is required to ascertain which factors cause the variations. Issues to look at include location, each room’s facilities, room sizes, fitness for purpose etc.

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