Definitions
Space management covers both internal and external space belonging to the university. A discussion of external spaces, sport and accommodation is outside the scope of the following guidance.
Teaching space is defined as lecture theatres, seminar rooms and specialist teaching rooms such as laboratories.
There are HE sector definitions for key space measures that have been established by the Association of University Directors of Estates (AUDE). They collect annually a range of measures called the Estates Management Statistics (EMS) which are available to subscribers of HEIDI - Heigher Education Information Database for Institutions.
Space Measures
Three key space metrics are:
- Income per square metre net internal area (NIA)
- Core teaching space per student full-time equivalent (FTE)
- Total non-residential NIA per student FTE.
Teaching Space Utilisation Measures
Four EMS measures pertain to teaching space utilisation and are defined as follows:
- Centrally timetabled = Net internal area (NIA) centrally timetabled / Teaching NIA x 100
- Room occupancy = Total occupancy / Hours used x Room Capacity x 100
- Room frequency = Total Bookings / Total bookings Available x 100
- Room utilisation = Occupancy x Frequency x 100
Refer to HESA for further details.
SUMS uses a different definition of centrally timetabled, rather than adopt the EMS definition (because timetablers think of rooms and not NIA). SUMS definition is:
- Centrally timetabled rooms = Number of centrally timetabled rooms / Total number of teaching rooms x 100
In EMS the room frequency can be given as the booked number or the actual number of times a room is used as recorded by space survey. The former represents planned use, the latter actual use. SUMS preference is for the latter and SUMS recommends measuring the discrepancy between bookings made and those used.
This measure is defined as:
- No show = (Total bookings made – total bookings used) / Total bookings made x 100