FAQs on 25Live and CollegeNET Scheduling Initiative

(This is a work in progress. We will update periodically as we field questions from campus colleagues.)

Table of Contents

What is CollegeNET (25Live)?

What peer institutions are using 25Live?

When will we begin using 25Live?

What's happening now, during Summer 2016?

What are the benefits of 25Live?

What does 25Live look at for the placement of your classes?

How does 25Live Work?

What can you and your department do to enhance the placement of your classes?

How will we know how well 25Live is working for us?

Still have questions?

FAQs on 25Live and CollegeNET Scheduling Initiative

(This is a work in progress. We will update periodically as we field questions from campus colleagues.)

What is CollegeNET (25Live)?

25Live is a sophisticated classroom-management software applicationowned by CollegeNET. As NAU has grown, we have found we must be better stewards of our finite classroom spaces—and 25Live is the tool we will use.

25Live assigns academic spaces/facilities for classes and final exams. Its intelligent database prevents “waste” by pairing class sections with rooms that best match their size and need requirements—keeping in mind departmental “preference partitions.” (Seebelowfor more details.)

What peer institutions are using 25Live?

All 17 of the ABOR-designated peer institutions for NAU use 25Live or similar applications to manage their room inventories. More than half use products in the 25Live family.

Around the world, 1,300 colleges, universities, and non-profits use the web-based administrative services provided by CollegeNET—including:

Stanford / Princeton / University of Michigan / University of Oregon
UNLV / Columbia / Fordham / University of Washington

And thousands of other institutions use similar classroom space-management tools, such as Ad Astra,EMS Campus, Infosilem, etc.

These systems have been highly effective tools for other institutions and will prove to be effective for NAU as well.

When will we begin using 25Live?

At the direction of the President’s, Provost’s, and Associate Vice Provost’s offices, we will begin using 25Live for the Spring 2017 Term, for all FLGMT in-person or blended classes. The process will be managed by the Registrar Schedule of Classesarea.

What's happening now, during Summer 2016?

  • We are reviewing Spring 2016 (1161) and Fall 2016 (1167) classes that have been approved by the Vice-Provost forAcademic Affairs, as legitimately requiring full or partial exclusion from centralized classroom scheduling. These include chemistry labs, piano studios, commercial kitchens, the dental hygiene clinic, electron spectrometer lab, etc.
  • We are currently testing 25Live using the Spring 2016 schedule.
  • We are comparing what facility IDs were manually entered into the Schedule of Classes for Spring 2016 and what 25Live would have recommended for optimal space utilization.
  • We are double-checking that all the classes that have qualified for exceptions in the past have been captured in 25Live.
  • We are looking to see if other classes might qualify for an exception but had not previously been identified.

When we have completed the testing, we will meet with each department and share our results.

What are the benefits of 25Live?

  • Helps students by minimizing room changes after they have planned their schedules.
  • Allows the Flagstaff Mountain Campus to best utilize our finite classroom space.
  • Reduces headaches at the department/college level (can save weeks of scheduling time, eliminating scheduling conflicts and logjams).
  • Creates potential utility savings.
  • Provides useful data analytics and reporting capabilities.
  • Pinpoints usage patterns and helps predict where new inventory is most needed.
  • By using the 25Live reporting features, important decisions about construction projects and buildingpurchases can be based on the reality of how space is currently used.
  • Identifies where bottlenecks are occurring and spots meeting times that can be better utilized.

What does 25Live look at for the placement of your classes?

  • 25Live looks for optimal matching, according to room features, section size, location, and time of day. It also looks at classes that are ready to be scheduled by the pre-set deadline. Classes that are submitted late will have a more limited set of rooms to be matched with.
  • 25Live will try to find a room in your department’s first preference building.
  • If there is no inventory in that building, the system will seek space in the 2nd, and then 3rd choice preferences.
  • If there are still no rooms available, it will check campus sector preference.
  • If no rooms are available during the dates/times of the class, the class will be flagged for review by the Schedule of Classesarea.

How does 25Live Work?

  • We have built our 25Live system to assign classrooms based on Academic Department preferences (preference partitions).
  • Each subject area has been assigned 2-4 building preferences as well as a campus sector preference (north, central, or south)
  • Preference Partitions were built for each subject area. For example, the first partition selection for Anthropology (ANT) classes is, naturally, SBS–Raul H. Castro, building 65; the second partition selection is SBS West, building 70; the third partition selection is SW Forestry, building 82, and the fourth partition is South Campus. Each subject has been assigned between two to four partitions, depending on needs.
  • Needs were identified based on course-required equipment/facilities, adjacency to non-movable assets required for the course, safety, size, etc.
  • 25Live’s advanced algorithms will always start looking in the first partition, moving outward only as needed.
  • Just as now, under the manual system, if no rooms are available, the program will select the closest available room outside the partitions or flag the class for review by the Schedule of Classes department.

What can you and your department
do to enhance the placement of your classes?

  • Plan your class schedule in advance! If your classes are not built by the established deadline, the pool of available classroom spaces will be smaller, thus putting you at a disadvantage.
  • Schedule your classes across the full range of class times:
  • 8a.m. to 10p.m. (Monday–Friday).
  • Saturday options are becoming available.
  • Schedule your classes within standard meeting times (unless approved for non-standard time)—and within regular sessions.
  • [Dynamically dated classes are discouraged unless they have been (a) reviewed and (b) judged to have a legitimate justification.]
  • Dynamically dated classes have proven confusing for students and have unintended consequences, such as negatively impacting financial aid or drop/add deadlines.
  • Be aware of scheduling faculty with back-to-back classes, since such classes may not be able to be assigned to contiguous classrooms.

How will we know how well 25Live is working for us?

25Live offers robust reporting features that the Registrar’s Office and Provost Offices will be actively reviewing. They will make further recommendations based on space utilization and best practices revealed through 25Live’s algorithms and historical comparison functions.

Still have questions?

Please feel welcome to contact:

Bonita Switala

Academic Scheduling & CIE Grade Memo Processing Oversight

Registrar Schedule of Classes

or 523-1751.