Instructions for room booking
This spring, as room bookings were being finalised according to the guidelines that applied before 15 May, new government guidelines were issued allowing more students to be present on campus. All room bookings were consequently cancelled to allow a new schedule to be set up according to new instructions.
These new instructions included a new order of priority and pre-defined time slots for bookings. This way, we can maintain distance, ensure that no more than the maximum number allowed use a room at the same time and schedule more hours in a day. A deadline of 24 June was communicated for informing Room Booking about activities for which a room needed to be booked.
Focusing on period 1
There was limited time before the summer holidays, and to reduce the workload for teachers as well as the room booking team, we decided to start by reorganising the schedule only for period 1 (first half of the autumn semester). Period 2 will be handled later.
Intensive work started on coordinating and prioritising. Plenty of “cross-border” communication was needed to achieve the objective of making the best use possible of our pool teaching rooms to accommodate as many students as possible.
All booking requests are being processed
The room booking team is now busy processing all requests and will confirm room bookings to those concerned as soon as possible. If a big enough room is not available, the room booking team will contact the requester to try and book a room for another time slot or possibly another day. If there are clashes between e.g. two courses, the requesters concerned will be informed and will have to agree between them which course to prioritise or how to assign rooms and time slots. They must then inform the room booking team of what has been agreed.
The aim is to have all bookings confirmed by Friday 3 July. A confirmation email will be sent out to everyone who has asked to book a room. It is then vital that everyone checks all information to ensure it is correct, and immediately informs Room Booking if that is not the case.
After the summer
After the summer holidays, room booking requests for period 2 will have to be submitted in the same way. The deadline for all main campuses is 15 August. There are instructions for the spring semester; they also apply to the autumn semester.
Bookings for distance teaching
Those who continue to teach online but use the schedule viewer in Timeedit can have their schedule registered there. It must be clearly indicated that these classes will be taught online and that no room booking is requested.
Signage and protection
In addition to scheduling, we are looking at what preparations are needed in pool teaching rooms and shared spaces before the autumn semester starts. New signs will be printed encouraging everyone to maintain distance and there will be hand sanitiser stations in the entrance halls and some shared spaces. Reception desks that are staffed will be fitted with protective plexiglass shields and in some pool teaching rooms, the furniture will be rearranged to make it easier to maintain distance. This work till be done during the summer and will be ready when the students arrive the week of 24 August.