About Timetable Services

Timetable Services and University Timetables are part of Student Progress Service operating under Student and Academic Services.

Management of rooms and room bookings on campus

There are some 380 rooms on the scheduling database at Newcastle University that can be broken down into the following room types and management:

Room Manager Teaching rooms (Lecture theatres and seminar rooms) Specialist rooms (Laboratories, clusters etc) Non-teaching rooms (Meeting and conference space) Total
Centrally Supported 127 22 30 179
HaSS Faculty 55 40 21 116
Medical Faculty - 11 1 12
SAgE Faculty 10 55 9 74
Total 192 128 61 381

Annual production of the academic timetable

The Academic Timetable is centrally produced annually, and published provisionally in early August, then in its final form at the start of September. The University has approximately 20,400 students, 2,000 teaching staff, 2,000 different academic programmes, 3,300 different academic modules and some 320 teaching rooms. All of this makes the timetabling process an extremely complicated one which requires the active co-operation and input of many different members of the University. Timetable Services sets a programme of monitored deadlines stretching from February through to September which guide all parties involved in the timely and accurate production of the academic timetable and to ensure that our students are able to take appropriate modules at appropriate times in rooms which have the necessary facilities and capacity.

In order to achieve this, Senate and the University's Executive Board have agreed the following guiding principles for timetabling:

  1. The University is committed to delivering a student focussed timetable
  2. The University's academic model is underpinned by degree programme structures and module offerings that result in an effective and student focussed timetable
  3. The timetable should support a positive student experience
  4. The University aspires to deliver an effective timetable for staff.
  5. Timetabling is a collective good and should be owned by staff
  6. All teaching activities must be managed in the corporate database (Scientia Syllabus Plus) to facilitate effective management information
  7. Sustained investment in the University's teaching estate and infrastructure to ensure that it remains fit for purpose and accommodates the evolving needs of students and staff

Timetable construction is complex, informed by both programme and module requirements, and dictated to some degree by the availability of resources (staff, space etc). Given this, we have to construct a timetable from scratch each year and after pre-registration and module approval is complete in May - the process and rules governing the production of the academic timetable are laid out a University Timetable and Room Booking Policy approved by the University Teaching, Learning and Student Experience Committee

Further information: