Measuring room occupancy
Three years ago, the university introduced the Hubstar system, which measures occupancy in rooms with 60+ seats using Wi-Fi measurements. Although the system has a 25% margin, it proved possible to make a reliable estimate of the actual number of students present. And therefore also whether a room is too large for the number of students.
From capacity problem to cost reduction
Originally, the system was introduced due to the capacity problem: the university has too few rooms for the lecture programme. A welcome side effect was that smaller rooms are also cheaper than larger ones.
Financial boost
Simone van Reij, Saskia Segers, Ingrid Scheffer and Cathelijne Grütters from the FNWI Scheduling and Planning team were the first to dare to move lectures to smaller rooms. "It turned out to be possible and to fit, with a few exceptions. This way we not only created a solution for the capacity problem, but also a financial boost," the team said.
Where does the challenge still lie?
"The system doesn't work yet for smaller rooms. We could still make gains there too. Furthermore, we have no visibility of small work groups. And it's important to cancel a room if you as a lecturer or work group don't need it after all. That can be done up to 5 working days in advance."
Appropriate timetabling
"What we consider very important is appropriate timetabling," the team emphasises. "We hope there will be increasing understanding of this, because this way we all contribute to the university's cost-cutting mandate."