Timetabling information for academic staff who organise teaching
It is strongly recommended that staff with responsibility for organising teaching read the , which describes the process of timetabling and the key dates in the production of the teaching timetable.
Unit organisers have responsibility for supplying the teaching delivery plans for their unit. A member of the school administrative team should collect all teaching plans and pass the information on to the Timetabling & Education Officer (TEO) using a web based data collection tool. This tool opens on Wednesday 18 March 2020 and closes on Friday 24 April 2020. It is important that as much information as possible is provided during this period. Information about staff constraints on availability for teaching will be collected separately and need not be included on the teaching plans.
A draft timetable based on the information received will be published on Friday 3 July 2020. The draft timetable must be checked thoroughly by teaching staff and school support staff with responsibility for providing timetabling data.
A final draft timetable, incorporating all changes, will then be published by Friday 7 August 2020. The TEO should be notified of any further changes by Friday 21 August 2020.
Changes to the timetable requested after 21 August 2020 are subject to the Late Change Request procedure. In line with discussion at Senate in 2017, these requests (unless due to illness) will be forwarded to your Head of School for confirmation of approval, but please note that it is not guaranteed a request can be accommodated.
The final timetable will be published on Friday 11 September 2020, when staff will be made able to access their personalised timetables on the portal. Personalised timetables will be made available to students on Friday 18 September 2020.
Activities taught across more than one unit
Sometimes teaching is common across two different units. In cases where all the teaching for two or more units is commonly taught, the unit directors should make a note of all the units the teaching applies to.
Where a sub set of activities are taught across more than one unit, the teaching should be recorded on the teaching plans for all units, and the jointly taught activities should be clearly marked with other units they are combined with.
Late changes to the timetable
Changes to the timetable after the ‘final’ timetable is published are inevitable. The timetable process is designed to capture as much information as early as possible to reduce the number of late changes that are necessary.
The timetabling team expect to deal with late changes such as:
Differences between planned and actual student numbers
Late appointment of teaching staff
Teaching staff receiving late research grants and becoming unavailable for teaching
Problems with rooms or equipment
Changes to student unit choices
Withdrawal of units due to a lack of student interest
Changes that come through late because the draft and provisional timetables have not been checked place a huge strain on the Timetabling Team at a very busy time of year. It can also adversely affect the student experience as multiple changes to the timetable can appear very chaotic and often results in students missing some of their teaching. In line with discussion at Senate in 2017, requests for amendments received after the feedback deadline (unless due to illness) may be forwarded to your Head of School for confirmation of approval, but please note that it is not guaranteed a request can be accommodated.
Programme directors and timetabling
Programme directors should ensure that the structure of their programme is correctly recorded in the unit and programme catalogue. The data in this catalogue is used by the timetabling system to identify mandatory and optional units on each programme. If there are no changes to a programme, the structure from the previous year will automatically be rolled forward. If there are changes to the programme, these should be reflected in the catalogue as part of the approval process. Late programme changes are one of the main contributors to late changes in the teaching timetable.
Unit choices from returning students will be used to minimise clashes during the production of the central teaching timetable. However it may not be possible to accommodate all choice combinations, and for new students the timetable is built before the students make their choices. In these cases guidance from the programme directors may be needed to identify which choice combinations should be prioritised.
