How Wageningen University Enhanced Timetabling Efficiency and Classroom Utilization

Each day around 6,500 members of staff and 10,000 students from over 100 countries work hard in the global domain of healthy nutrition and living environments at Wageningen University & Research Centre (Wageningen UR). Wageningen Campus is set up as a place where researchers, entrepreneurs and students can meet.

And it’s been a great success; for the last 11 consecutive years, University Catalogue has chosen Wageningen University as the best university in the Netherlands.

As Head of the Integrated Facility Management department within Facility Management (FM), Joris Fortuin is responsible for all facilities regarding teaching and education. “Wageningen UR’s Facility Management has as an objective to create an inspirational, functional working and learning environment. Within this objective, FM wants to distinguish itself from other knowledge institutions by taking the position of a frontrunner and trendsetter.”

More students, decreasing capacity

Wageningen UR is experiencing a vast increase in the number of students. “However, there are no plans to extend in terms of education locations at this point, so it is important for Facility Management to focus on optimising the current capacity. In 2007 and 2013, two large education buildings were completed: Forum and Orion. They will need to suffice for now,” Fortuin states.

HubStar and PIE

At the end of 2014, Joris Fortuin was introduced to HubStar, which was at that point still a young start-up, its name inspired by the rooftop terrace where it all began, due to a lack of office space. HubStar has started developing a technology which can calculate building occupancy based on WiFi signals. Based on signals originating from mobile devices, their PIE platform (Position Intelligence Engine) calculates the position of these devices in the building and translates these to the number of people. Next, the data from PIE is made accessible through the API for various types of applications and systems.

Smart use of the Orion education building

From the sessions between HubStar and Wageningen UR, it soon became clear that there are many relevant connections between the intended technology and the Wageningen UR objectives, specifically better and smarter use of classrooms. It was decided to go ahead with the implementation of PIE in Orion. It was an obvious choice, since the entire building is used for education, which requires insights into the use of the classrooms.

“It was an exciting project but also a bit risky, as it was a mutual experiment with a young company and a new and unique technology, and the outcome had yet to be determined,” Fortuin describes the actual start of the project. “Key stakeholders who were closely involved in this projected included location managers, the IT department, and of course our legal department.”

Compliance with privacy regulations

In order to ensure that everything was covered within the framework of privacy regulations, the involvement of the Legal Affairs department in this project had proven indispensable. Their job? To thoroughly review the technology and the way data is stored. “An important aspect that we are very strict on,” says Fortuin, who soon was given the go-ahead for the implementation.

“HubStar developed an anonymizing script that automatically anonymizes data before it enters PIE. This ensures data cannot be traced back to an individual person, so we fully comply with data privacy laws and regulations.”

Swift implementation due to a flying start

Whereas the IT department was initially hesitant in view of the possible impact on the operational network, their scepticism soon vanished when Cisco also advised them on the possibilities of LBS (Location Based Services) on the existing wireless network in Orion. “The fact that Cisco provides this type of advice and actively supports HubStar – who by now even earned the status of Cisco Solution Partner – is very important to us. It ensured the IT department had considerable confidence in the solution; they considered it crucial that PIE would not affect network bandwidth. Since the technology only uses the ‘listening mode’ on WiFi Access Points and does not transmit anything, there will be no additional impact on bandwidth.

In addition, our IT organization benefits from the variety of innovative applications being developed on top of ‘their’ network, allowing them to provide even more additional value to the organization,” said Fortuin.

The big advantage of PIE is that it primarily uses the existing infrastructure that is already present in the organization: the WiFi network. “From the moment all stakeholders were onboard, we were able to quickly shift into higher gear,” said Fortuin. “Without the additional investment of equipping a building with all types of sensors, PIE ensures that accurate data can still be gathered about how a building is being used.” The biggest advantage? The full implementation only took a few weeks

24/7 insights into occupancy

The implementation gave Fortuin’s team access to the Building Intelligence Dashboard which e.g. provided them insight into the historic, real-time and expected occupancy. The dashboard is currently used by the location managers to gain better insights into building occupancy and utilisation. The team is also able to make a better estimate of how many people are present at each location.

Fortuin has this to say: “Within the university, there is a great need for reducing classroom vacancy. The dashboard shows detailed occupancy at a glance and reveals undetected vacancies in the building. This was exactly what our location managers were waiting for. Everybody acknowledges that this will lead to smarter room utilisation. For us, this constitutes yet another reason to connect the Forum and Leeuwenborgh buildings to PIE later in 2015.”

Advanced insights, enhanced timetabling efficiency

Joris Fortuin saw the involvement of the timetabling team as an important step in the process, which led to the inclusion of Fred Jonker. “As a policy officer for Information Services, Fred holds final responsibility for the timetables. In addition, he also serves as an advisor to FM on how rooms are set up, so he has an important role in translating all this new data and insights into actions,” Fortuin concludes.

“Since education is the primary function for universities, it‘s obvious that the immediate improvements in utilisation of space can be made in more efficient scheduling,” Fred Jonker adds.

Smart integration of Syllabus+

Each semester, the Wageningen UR timetabling team has the huge task of planning all lectures. “We are aware that we will soon hit the maximum of our education capacity if we do not find smarter ways to handle our rooms and schedules,” Jonker says. “The timetabling team often had the idea that many lectures consistently took place in rooms with overcapacity or that some lessons eventually did not take place at all – these are known as no-shows. The problem was that this could not be supported with timely and accurate data. Without conclusive evidence, there were no options to discuss alternatives with lecturers.

In the past, we attempted to randomly conduct manual headcounts in lecture halls. That was a time-consuming job and only provided a snapshot of that moment. In addition, you only had the option to manage the situation based on hindsight.” The potential benefits of linking the classroom occupancy data in the Position Intelligence Engine to the data from the Syllabus + timetabling system were clear to everyone, and so we decided to go ahead with this. “HubStar managed to integrate the timetabling data and, with the help of our input, build a separate tool for that. That is how the Clocks application was created,” Jonker explains.

No-shows and underutilized classrooms

By now, the tool has become an integral part of the timetabling team activities. “By pressing a single button, my team gains insight into which lectures consistently have too much capacity and how many ‘no-shows’ have taken place in a certain period for a certain lecture. That is where we can start optimizing,” Jonker says about using Clocks. “We are primarily focusing on no-shows, since we can gain the quick wins there. When Clocks detects no-shows, the scheduling team sends an email with a screenshot of the overview and the lecturer is asked to explain the deviation.”

Based on the feedback, the scheduling team made the decision to clear that lecture hall for the rest of the semester for that specific lecture. “These rooms can for instance be used to reschedule other classes, for staff member meetings, or use as a backup location.” Jonker and his team have plenty of options for such use. “In addition, the schedule for that specific lecture will also be modified in the next semester based on actual occupancy.” In a later stage, the timetabling team will also take more direct actions to address lectures that consistently have overcapacity and therefore can be planned in smaller classrooms going forward.

Enthusiastic responses from lecturers

The capacity challenges and need to use classrooms more efficiently is well understood. The timetabling team receives predominantly positive reactions from lecturers. “What helps is that we notified lecturers through email about the occupancy measurements, and also provided an explanation on how these measurements take place.”

In this email, teachers are asked to pro-actively return classrooms that they are not planning to actually use. Whether that happens is then checked by the scheduling team based on the actual occupancy data on that lecture. “When we still notice that there are too many no-shows, the lecturers will have to come up with an explanation for that,” says Jonker.

Optimize education capacity

Jonker has noticed that using Clocks has led to a number of positive actions which have increased scheduling capacity at Wageningen University. “Adjusting assigned classrooms where we determined no-shows,, scheduling more efficiently for each new semester, and engaging in discussions with lecturers have already led to a positive impact. One of the best validations that proves that we are on the right track is that we are starting to see a preventive effect on the lecturers.

They have already started to pro-actively indicate that their lecture could be scheduled in a smaller room. That would not have been possible without this data and these insights,” Jonker states unequivocally. It is clear that education capacity increases by using Clocks, but the extent of the increase will become clear at the end of the 2015-2016 academic year. Fred Jonker and his team will then process these analyses into a report and present it to the Executive Board at Wageningen UR.

Next Steps

Jonker is convinced that most Universities and many other Educational institutions deal with similar problems, and he is well aware that Wageningen UR is leading-edge with this solution. The policy officer is ambitious and has a clear view on what the next steps should be. Currently, almost all classrooms in the education buildings are included in Clocks. The next step is to gain insight into the smaller seminar rooms and workspaces.

“We will probably start adding sensors for those specific rooms so PIE can correlate the data from WiFi and those sensors to get an even more accurate, complete result on the occupancy of those rooms.” He would prefer to have the entire campus and each type of room connected to the Position Intelligence Engine. Only a complete overview will allow the timetabling team to implement more optimisations and therefore make it possible to accommodate more students within current capacity in the next 2 to 3 years.

Smart Campus

From his position, Joris Fortuin sees a wide range of applications which could run on the PIE platform. “For administration, we will soon start with a specific solution for concierges and the reception desk,” he says. “Just consider making a faster and more efficient closing lock- down round or managing support for students during low-occupancy periods. For instance, we would rather have people remain on the lower floors in the evening instead of spread out across the entire building, which means we can save on energy and maintenance.” The location managers also see numerous options, such as providing a clear overview of queues and waiting periods in restaurants, as well as a smarter way of cleaning rooms based on actual use.

The implementation of PIE and the accompanying efficiency measures that have already been taken are just the beginning. The data, which can easily be accessed through the API, enables continuous improved adjustments in any field. Wageningen UR has taken the first steps in that direction. The establishment of a special taskforce is intended to safeguard the process, ensuring that systematic solutions will be designed for a variety of innovations and applications that will run on the platform. The desired outcome? A Smart Campus incorporating numerous valuable applications, which will continue to make contributions to the innovative, sustainable nature of Wageningen UR.