Class and Classroom myths vs. data

[John_Marlow]

Here are some data to digest regarding classes and classrooms.

I can’t tell you whether we have enough classes, but I can tell you how many we have. I can tell you we either don’t have enough classrooms or we need to consider how we use them.

Background information about the data:
(1) Pulled from the “new” Calendar system (thanks @AlexRhodes!)
(2) Only actual data from 8/1/2016 through 10/31/2017 are included - the “new” calendar should have been stable by then and this also will EXclude “projections”
(3) My primary analysis regards room availability and utilization. For the most part, I included all scheduled items - both completed and cancelled - in the analysis. (I called this item BOOKINGS). If a room is booked, even if the class/event is later cancelled, that room isn’t available for any other classes/events so this impacts availability.
(4) Rejected bookings are all excluded.
(5) I won’t guarantee that each line item is correct. As I perused the 9000(ish) lines of data I see some things which are suspect. So - the big picture is accurate but the fine digits of accuracy are questionable.
(6) Lots of what we’d probably like to know can’t be extracted automatically. Feel free to do a manual compilation of the data if you’re so inclined.

Topic 1. Class costs
2134 classes in the time period. 78% of Classes had zero fees on the Calendar system. This should be adjusted down by 2% (see the footnotes on the graph). 89% of our classes had fees of $5 or less.

(EDIT: Reloaded graph which had an error in one data label).

Topic 2. Classes vs. Membership
Hours of classes have increased over time. So has membership. The data show a high statistical correlation (R2=0.74 & 0.78).

Topic 3. Classes vs. Events
As class hours have increased, event hours have decreased. There was a notable shift in composition around May 2017. Since that time period, events comprise an average of 28% of the scheduled times.

Topic 4. Cancellations vs. Completions
About 15% of the classes and events that schedule are later cancelled. Can’t analyze how timely the cancellations are … but last minute cancellations mean that a valuable room could go empty.

Topic 5. Classroom Availability
I analyzed only the four general-use classrooms: Conference Room, Interactive Classroom, Lecture Hall, and Purple Classroom. I included both classes and events. Here are data for the 15 month period (average), and also for the most recent month (October 2017). There are some time periods where utilization is >100%. This means that there was a cancellation and a rebooking; driving the scheduled hours above 100%.

The rooms are all busy. The October one month snapshot shows that at the current class and event load all the rooms are close to fully booked during prime time - not a lot of excess capacity.

Fifteen month Average

Current month Snapshot

[Kriskat30]

Thank you for your analysis Chris. I appreciate the time you have taken to create it.

[Lampy]

She blinded me with science (or charts)

[Nick]

@John_Marlow,

Being the lay person I am, I have no clue what to pull from this information. Would you share what you feel this data proves or dis-proves? If this doesn’t interest you, could we meet up and chat about the data you pulled so I might be able to better describe some conclusions that can be made from the data.

Thanks for pulling the data and sharing it.

[bpamplin]

A while back I offered a Saturday 2-4PM class with the previous hour reserved for setup for folks who had not done the installation requested in the class announcement. I later decided that it wiped out other availability all afternoon. I now plan to run any weekend afternoon classes from 1-3 or 3-5 with no setup time. Anyone that does not prepare before class can use the first ten minutes or so of lab time to prepare.

Posted on this string because I see it as a way to improve classroom usage.

[John_Marlow]

Being the lay person I am, I have no clue what to pull from this information. Would you share what you feel this data proves or dis-proves?

Well, I didn’t want to lead anyone to any conclusions …

But since you asked, I’ll tell you what I was after.

Topic 1. Class costs. I have seen some concern on Talk that many of our classes are expensive and/or have hidden fees. The data disprove that, with nearly 80% free, and 90% costing $5 or less.

Topic 2. Classes vs. Membership. The data from this one just substantiates what we all suspected - that classes have increased as membership has increased. Nothing earth-shattering here but it ties into my conclusions at the bottom.

Topics 3, 4, and 5. I wanted to understand the full “availability” picture of our four general use classrooms, mostly because it seems to be tough to get a room. This is causing a lot of concerns and squabbles:

• People are using non-classrooms (like eLab or CA) for unrelated classes.
• Sometimes a person reserves a room for a private event and it causes a public uproar.
• There is discussion about whether classes do or should trump events (let’s not restart that discussion please).
  These concerns would be moot if our room utilization were still low, but now it is high.

I also wanted to understand when is “prime time” and just how full are the rooms during “prime time”.

So in the spirit of trying to find more room availability:

• Topic 3 shows that about 27% of the time scheduled in the 4 “classrooms” is for events (last 6 months). We are all reluctant to limit events, but if we wanted to, this shows the potential “gain”.
• Topic 4 shows that cancelled classes/events account for about 15% of the time scheduled in those four rooms. If we could reduce cancellations, or somehow make those rooms more readily available in the event of a cancellation, that would be “free” room capacity. For instance, would a change in the honorarium criteria somehow allow us to use a cancelled room?
• Topic 5 shows how our utilization has grown over time. The first four graphs show the utilization by hour of the day for each of the rooms for the fifteen month period. Each of the larger rooms peaks at about 80% booked during “prime time” (and in the data details I can see exactly which hours constitute “prime time”). The second set of charts with just this past month shows that the utilization has gotten substantially higher. It shows a situation with essentially zero “prime time” availability.

We have 22 Skill & Interest Committees and 3 Functional/Operational Committees, plus an unknown number of external groups, vying for about 30 hours of prime time space (per room). Since we have four rooms, this would average out to about four hours per week per committee, with nothing allocated to external groups.

Topics 3, 4 and 5 suggest the following take-aways to me:

• We’re full
• We could possibly get additional capacity through reduced cancellations or events
• We need procedural or other means to ensure an equitable share of this scarce resource - some entities use a disproportionate share
• Without some measures taken, we are at capacity limit in the classrooms. We will be unable to keep adding classes as we add more members.

[Photomancer]

Suggestion: Be sure to add it to the class warnings when you create the class. Students must click on it acknowledging they read it. If they haven’t then it’s on them.

[bpamplin]

Thanks for the very logical suggestion. I have tried to take responsibility for having everyone prepared including using the Warnings box once without success. My not necessarily accurate observation is that prepared folks come early and unprepared folks come late. My current position is that folks should read the description and prepare before class. Those that do not do that can recover by doing the work in the first ten minutes of lab time. It does not seem like too big a price to pay.

[Photomancer]

Agree. But there should be no tears or woe is me I don’t have it. You were told to have it, where to get it, and acknowledged you know this. I can’t imagine a professor, my work, or a seminar cutting me any slack and expecting the class to wait for me being unprepared. I don’t think we should lower expectations especially given our classes are short.

Thanks for teaching!

[Bill]

Topic 4 shows that cancelled classes/events account for about 15% of the time scheduled in those four rooms. If we could reduce cancellations, or somehow make those rooms more readily available in the event of a cancellation, that would be “free” room capacity. For instance, would a change in the honorarium criteria somehow allow us to use a cancelled room?

Do you have information about how far in advance the cancellations are? If they come too late, the room is wasted no matter what we do.

[Photomancer]

@John_Marlow Chris explained the other night after the Membership Meeting that she didn’t have that information, which is unfortunate.

But any cancellation less than 239 hours means a class can’t be scheduled - unless non-honorarium.

[bpamplin]

I should have mentioned that after my Five No-Shows, a Late Cancellation and No Honorarium class, I have started sending out a reminder a couple of days before class with a request to cancel early if they will not be able to make it… For classes that require preparation, I will include a reminder that preparation is required and described in the class announcement. I will include a link to the announcement.

I’m not big on the check box. What do we do if they acknowledge but do not prepare? Refuse entry to class. Shaming. Clearly I’m just joking.

PlasmaCAM has clear message warning on clothing but you and I as well as probably every other teacher has folks that do not prepare.

I am greatly appreciative to all the teachers, chairs, maintenance folks, board and many other volunteers. We all do what we are willing and able to do. We often make requests, like preparation, and it can be disappointing when students do not cooperate. The 58 replies to the following post illustrate another frustration that teachers face.
https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/five-no-shows-a-late-cancellation-and-no-honorarium/28055

Students often express appreciation and we can always feel good that we have helped others! It makes it worth while.