The Education Space Scheduling and Modelling (ESSM) project was initiated by the Programme Board for Education Space to procure a space modelling tool for the University.
This will enable users across the University to model their needs against available educational space, both for immediate needs (e.g. allocating rooms for next year’s teaching) and for planning projects in the medium and long term (e.g. understanding the impact on teaching of a new building, or of a refurbishment project).
The tool will be used to make the central room allocation process currently managed by the Student Registry, which is cumbersome and extremely time-consuming, faster and more efficient. It will also be used to help inform University strategy around education space.
The project team has conducted extensive research into the needs of Cambridge users and is currently investigating potential software systems.