Not sure of exact factual accurateness of staff statements

[Stuart_C]

Bit of a tircky one this. We've got a bit of a computer issue here, in that we've got a lot of computers but don't seem to be making best use of them. One area I was looking at is our Language Lab which is a full class set of comptuers but exclusivly for use by the language department (Which is odd in itself as I could have sworn that when we isntalled that it was meant to be bookable by any member of staff, but I digress).

 

Now it's technically a teaching room so for some lessons it's timetabled. That ammount to about 8 periods of 39. Now if I look at the timetable they've got on the door it says that it's actually booked for 18. That I can live with if they've reserved it for some classes as it would leave 21 lessons free for general use which would be a help.

 

When our Director of Studies asked the Head of languages about it they said it was only free for 3 periods a week. Combine this with the fact that I've been down there and seen it empty on a number of occasions causes me some issues. I don't really want to say "you are making that up". but by the same token I'd like some more justificatiuon of where they got that figure from but it's not my responsbility to chase them over this, neither do I have the power too.

 

We need to get the best out of our resources but I fear that they are just saying that it is "in use" for every lesson that there is a language class in case they need to use it rather than it being actually used. I wouldn't have a problem with them having first refusal so they could have it when they wanted it but to say it's always in use I'm not convinced. Having said that I could be wrong and it is in use all the time (not convinced though).

[CyberNerd]

We have similar problems. Some of the staff blatantly lie about their usage so that they get priority on certain rooms.

 

Your just going to have to record the actual usage and present it to your management team.

[pete]

Just pull the security logs to see when people were logging into those machines over the last 2 weeks. If no-one's logging in during a period then either the room is empty or they're holding conventional lessons in a computer room, which needs nipping in the bud if there's a spare conventional classroom.

[mattmoo]

Create a room booking system and then add timetabled lessons to it. Anything outside of that is bookable and if they are seen to be booking it and not using it, make a note of it and then bring it up in management convos.

Thanks

Matt

[AngryTechnician]

The only way to get movement on this is to get someone senior to them onside. As others have said, gather evidence, and present your case to a sympathetic member of SMT. My Director of Studies recently raised this in a whole staff meeting and it worked wonders, because all the staff who had been disadvantaged by people overbooking were able to chime in and back him up, which made it very difficult for any of the culprits to argue against him and shamed pretty much all of them into changing their ways. Edited October 2, 2010 by AngryTechnician

[Andrew_C]

Having worked in the languages dept, I've seen this from the other side. We have classes scheduled to use the lab on a fortnightly basis, and even then the timetable is almost full. Some slots having 3 classes trying to use them. However, not all the slots are used, very much as above. This is often due to the teacher needing to do more work on the written side rather than listening/speaking. It isn't easy to predict how the usage pattern is going to play out.

 

I would be wary of freeing the LL for general use too far in advance, but do sympathise with the wish to free up time in a resource!