Department(s) / colleagues involved

Central Timetabling, IT Services, Academic Departments.

Our aim was to …

One of our key aims was to provide students and staff with their timetables electronically, conveniently displaying all their lectures and small group events in one place. Previously students would be issued with printed copies of their module timetables and would have to manually enter events into their calendars.

What we did …

The Central Timetabling Team worked closely with IT Services to develop Tabula functionality so that departments could allocate students to seminar groups in accordance with their local policies. Systems integration combines this information with lecture allocations so that students and staff can view their fully personalised timetable in one location.

The outcome has been …

Now all staff, UG students, and PG students, who are taught across the campus, have full personalised timetables accessible through MyWarwick which they can access via their mobile phone or PC. The information is refreshed regularly so that any late changes to or cancellations are displayed. Most events have a room link to the campus map so that students can find their session. If students and staff want their timetable show up on their own calendar they can also download an iCal feed.

This supports the Education Strategy by …

Giving students a consistent way of accessing timetables whether they have taken modules from their home department or any other. This helps facilitate the delivery of interdisciplinary programmes by providing a seamless and coherent presentation of their timetable.

The response of students / staff has been …

The feedback from students has been positive. In a recent timetabling survey, students made the following comments:
“It is so helpful! Compared to first year, organising myself is so much easier now”
“Tabula is really useful, I check it several times per day”
“I think the best part of the Tabula timetable is the electronic map feature which has helped me to check where lectures/seminars are if the room changes or if I am unsure”
“The use of the personalised Tabula table is very new in Life Sciences, it would have been nice if it was available in my previous two years of study.”

Our next steps will be …

To introduce earlier module selection for returning students and provide departments with student experience measures. This will help reduce the number of clashes and provide student-friendly timetables.

To find out more, you can contact …

Joey Micklewright, Timetabling Manager
https://warwick.ac.uk/services/spg/spa/centraltimetabling/tip
https://warwick.ac.uk/services/spd/spi/msp/