Question of the Month: October
Timetabling
This report relates to October’s Question of the Month. Responses were collected over a period of three weeks using Survey Monkey. The present report analysesthe results for this survey by College. As a Union, we set out to assess what issues students experience with timetabling and to propose solutions to reduce their effect on students’ lives.
The questions were proposed by the Student Affairs Committeeafter being approached by students having issues with timetabling. Question 1 was as follows: “My timetable was sent to me early enough to allow me to organise other aspects of my life such as transport, childcare and work shifts.” Question 2 looked at how often students experienced changes in their timetables (“How many times has your timetable changed since teaching started?”) in order to understand the scale of the changes.
Students were also asked to provide further details about their experiences and as such, the report will look at both quantitative and qualitative data.
The survey responses were reasonably spread across the different year groups:
Survey Findings
A large number of the respondents (65.6%) agreed that they received their timetables in enough time to plan and organise their lives.
“My timetable was sent to me early enough to allow me to organise other aspects of my life such as transport, childcare and work shifts”Answer Options / Response Percentage / Response Count
Strongly Agree / 20.4% / 195
Agree / 45.2% / 433
Neither / 12.2% / 117
Disagree / 16.3% / 156
Strongly Disagree / 5.9% / 57
Despite the high number of respondents agreeing with this statement, there was a substantial number (22.2%, n=213) who disagreed/strongly disagreed, indicating that students’ experiences are not consistent across the university.“Timetable release in July would be amazing. We can apply for part time jobs this way and be calm and ready for uni to begin.” / “It's great that timetables are sent out quite early, but there's basically no use in that because they always change a ridiculous amount.”
Responses to the second question wasmore negative with only 25.8% (n=247) claiming that their timetable had not changed and 29.3% (n= 281) of respondents claiming that their timetable had changed three or more times.
“How many times has your timetable changed since teaching started?”Answer Options / Response Percentage / Response Count
Once / 23.2% / 222
Twice / 21.2% / 203
Three times / 15.1% / 145
Four or more times / 14.2% / 136
Not changed / 25.8% / 247
It is therefore clear from the results that the issue is not the timeliness of the distribution of timetables, but their accuracy. If students are being given timetables that are being changed multiple times, it can be concluded that they aren’t able to plan and organise other aspects of their lives around their studies.
Findings by School
When analysing the results by School, we can see that in some instances there were low numbers of respondents and so it is difficult to draw accurate conclusions about those schools. We can see however some schools with a high number of respondents that received a higher percentage of negative responses than the institutional averages for both questions, including: Business, Lancashire Law School, Languages and Global Studies and particularly in Nursing where 65.3% of respondents claimed their timetable had changed three or four or more times.
Responses broken down by SchoolCollege / School / Number of respondents / Q1 %Disagree and strongly disagree / Q2 % of respondents selecting 'Three' or 'Four or more'
BLSS / School of Business / 89 / 24.0% / 34.8%
School of Management / 18 / 27.8% / 33.3%
School of Social Work, Care and Community / 25 / 12.0% / 24.0%
Lancashire Law School / 50 / 38.0% / 32.0%
Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching / 1 / 0.0% / 100.0%
CBS / School of Dentistry / 7 / 0.0% / 0.0%
School of Medicine / 15 / 0.0% / 13.3%
School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences / 71 / 21.1% / 22.5%
CCI / School of Art, Design and Fashion / 67 / 14.9% / 13.4%
School of Journalism, Media and Performance / 98 / 24.5% / 26.5%
School of Humanities and Social Science / 44 / 11.4% / 27.3%
School of Language and Global Studies / 51 / 27.5% / 35.3%
H+W / School of Community Health and Midwifery / 21 / 38.0% / 47.6%
School of Health Sciences / 7 / 0.0% / 0.0%
School of Nursing / 95 / 31.6% / 65.3%
School of Sport and Wellbeing / 57 / 8.8% / 24.6%
S+T / School of Engineering / 34 / 29.4% / 35.3%
School of Forensic and Applied Sciences / 64 / 17.2% / 15.6%
School of Physical Sciences and Computing / 51 / 23.5% / 15.7%
School of Psychology / 93 / 17.2% / 21.5%
Despite having a centralised timetabling unit within the University, work needs to be done with regard to reducing the number of disruptions and changes to students’ timetables as this is causing disruption not only students’ lives but affecting the way in which they perceive the institution. Analysing the open comments allowed us to gain a better insight into these issues and students’ perceptions of UCLan.
Open comments
Of the 958 respondents, 40.60% (n=389) left open comments. Despite receiving some positive comments (56) and some that were neutral (92), most comments provided were negative (241). The key issues that were brought up were: lack of communication; constant room/building and time changes; module clashes and groups; child-care, work, and transport arrangements;lack of support from Hubsandhaving lectures on sports/societies day.
1.Lack of communication
Students showed worries regarding the lack of communication in regards to timetabling changes. This seems to also be putting a constraint on academic staff who have to clarify timetables.
“Timetable is wrong and I have to rely on course leader to provide the correct times so I just don't look at what is online.”
“My timetable changed but the changes were incorrect according to my professor. It made lecture and lab times confusing and I had to constantly communicate with my professor about start times.”
“Changes to the timetable are not being communicated to students at all.”
2.Constant room/building and time changes
Students find it difficult to keep up with the constant changes, meaning that sometimes sessions are missed. Furthermore, students pointed out the difficulty in having to walk to different buildings in-between sessions.
“I was expected to get all the way across campus in 10 minutes which, as a disabled student, is impossible. […] I've not been at all happy with the way timetabling has been handled.”
“Please fix the timetable it clashes at lot, and it would be good if we had lectures in one side of the campus and not all over the campus.”
3.Module clashes and groups
Changes in modules have been done too late into the year meaning for some that modules/electives they had previously picked out were now clashing with compulsive modules. For some students, this caused them to miss sessions and not be able to do the modules they were expecting.
“I had to drop my optional module 1st choice and pick another, even though it didn't originally clash with my core modules but then my timetable changed.I considered dropping UCLAN over the summer due to this.”
“In one of the classes I am in group A whereas in other class I am in my proper group B. This is quite disturbing me as I do not get exactly information on my classes and changes which may occur.”
“Too many different groups for each module and I am in different groups for each. Would prefer consistency.”
4.Child-care, work, and transport arrangements
A great sample of comments was focused on this theme. As previously discussed, sending timetables early on is beneficial only when those timetables remain accurate once teaching begins. Below, we can observe the scale of the problems caused by timetable changes.
These changes implied extra costs on transport and child-care:
“I am the mother of two children, and because my timetable […] changed many times, it affected my childcare arrangements and now I am paying more for it than what I expected.”
“It costs me an extra £15.50 to buy new tickets on both Tuesdays and Wednesdays (£31 in total) to accommodate to timetable changes.”
Furthermore, it put students in difficult situations where they risked their planned income:
“Seminars have changed from Fridays to Mondays multiple times - I am now having to miss these seminars as I have pre-existing work commitments.”
“It's changed enough times that I've had to mess work about, risking my contracted hours”
5.Lack of support from Hubs
When faced with issues such as clashes and module changes, students have found the Hubs not to be supportive and helpful.
“Hub has not been helpful whatsoever, I was told different things every time I spoke to someone. I know everyone has had similar difficulties.”
“Classes weren't known by even the teachers, and whenever there was a slight problem it took a very long time to fix, and people at the Hub didn't know what was happening either.”
“I had to chase the people at C&T Hub up three times, and my timetable wasn't sorted until three weeks into term. Not good enough.”
6.Having lectures on sports/societies day
Being involved with clubs and societies is a crucial part of the university experience for many. Despite previous agreements of leaving Wednesdays afternoon free of teaching to allow students to participate in these activities, this seems to still be a recurring issue.
“Having lectures on Wednesday afternoon is a nightmare for extra curriculum activities.”
“Would appreciate if timetable took into account the possibility of people being involved in sports- lessons clashing with training or matches.”
“When needing a change of timetable to allow me to represent the university in sports, my hub needed a form filling in to even begin sorting it out. This is after a conversation with the module leader who agreed that the change was possible and that they had no problems with it happening.”
Recommendations
After analysing all data, the Union suggests the following recommendations:
-For the University to communicate accurate timetables to students by no later than August for courses starting in September.
-For the University to ensure consistency in the experiences of students with regards to timetabling and changes to take place no more than once.
-For the University to communicate any timetable changes clearly and as soon as possible, ideally within 24 hours, via at least two of the following methods: email, text message, or Blackboard.
-To keep Wednesday afternoons free from teaching to allow students to participate in activities such as sports, societies and volunteering.