Transcript Student Centered Scheduling

48th Annual ASCUE Conference
July 16, 2015
1:00 pm – 1:45 pm
Charles Smith
ComQuip, Inc
Introduction
 Founder of ComQuip, Inc.
 Engineer by education
 Operations Research
 Solve large scale problems
 Attended conference in 2000
 Asked “why not put all the variables in and solve the
scheduling problem top down?”
A Traditional Approach to Scheduling
 Rooms assigned to Departments
 Departments build partial schedule
 Historical
 Poll Faculty
 Changes
 TBA Instructors
 Rooms opened after cutoff date
 Schedule unscheduled sections into open time slots
 After registration
 Sections under min enroll dropped
 Sections filled are closed
Characteristics of Traditional Approach
 Poor room utilization
 Classes tend to be concentrated at certain times
 Organizationally inefficient process
 Time consuming to try to resolve conflicts
 High level of student complaints
 Do not consider student needs in process
Student-Centered Scheduling (SCS)
 Modern systems enable new way of thinking
about scheduling
 Can collect and process data more efficiently
 Can employ modern management problem solving
techniques


Shadow prices
Sensitivity testing
 Can drive solution that uses demand information not
considered in traditional methods
Characteristics of SCS Method
 Top-down instead of Bottom-Up
 Uses more information, which is generally available
now
 Algorithm used to time-slot sections so:
 Students get courses they need or want
 Faculty preferences and availability considered
 Room availability and utilization considered
 Retention Improves
 Inability to get courses want is no. 1 reason for transfers
Trend to SCS
 Need solution to improve retention and graduation
rates
 Number of articles published since 1998 on SCS has
increased dramatically
 Our clients increasingly stress the need for an SCS
approach
 Our company has been on the forefront of SCS since
2002
How SCS Works
 Retain helpful techniques
 Set-up standard time blocks
 Create blocks for common curriculum courses
 Conflict free scheduling algorithm
 And add new techniques
 When time slotting each section, consider impact of
each option on students who want course
 After initial solution, test if can improve

swap student section assignments to increase percent of
students getting courses want
 Step towards optimal solution
Example 1




Technology oriented institution
10 associate programs and 4 certificate programs
800 students, 150 faculty
How they used SCS
 Set-up courses by program and year
 Common courses across programs
 Put one dummy student in each program each year
 Sections of common courses scheduled to accommodate
all students
 Sections unique to program scheduled when students
available
Results
Example 2
 4-year undergraduate military academy
 900 cadets, 130 faculty
 16 different degree programs
 How they used SCS
 Fixed number of sections
 Balanced section loads
 Set time block standards
 Blocked sections using student data from course registrations
 Considered impact on students when time slotted sections
Results
 Number of courses students unable to take because of
scheduling:
 1,221 when traditional scheduling method used
 1,039 when just block scheduling used
 562 when SCS method used
Example 3
 Multi-campus University
 20,000 students, 600 FT faculty
 500 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree programs
 How they used SCS for exam scheduling
 Set parameters for scheduling exams



Different room, same room
Exam seating
All sections at same time
 Used optimization instead of mapping
 Scheduled exams to minimize number of students with multiple
exams per day
Results
 Reduced number of students with multiple exams on
same day from 1,384 to 792.
 Reduced number of conflicts from 352 to 3
Costs
 Assume use third party software


In-house
 IT resources (1/3 person)
 Licenses ($20,000)
 Implementation Support ($10,000)
 Vendor Maintenance ($4,000 per year)
Hosted
 Subscription ($7,000)
 Hosting fee ($3,600)
 Implementation Support ($10,000)
Benefits
 Improved retention
 More students graduating in four years
 Fewer complaints from students
 No room conflicts
 No faculty conflicts
References
 “Reframing Retention Strategy for Institutional
Improvement: New Directions for Higher Education,
no. 161”, edited by David H. Kalsbeck, John Wiley &
Sons, 2013
 “Student Centered Scheduling”, ISM Monthly Update
for Division Heads, Vol 9 No 10, 2012
 “More Notes on Retention in Relation to Course
Scheduling”, Cathy Anderson, March 2013,
http://www.cathyandersonblog.com/?p=853
Contact
Comquip, Inc.
24 Hagerty Blvd, Ste 1
West Chester, PA 19382
877-266-0847
[email protected]
www.comquip.com