An assessment of the current status of computerized scheduling of secondary school classes

A school applications questionnaire and a technical information questionnaire were sent to 393 school systems listed by State Departments of Education as users of computerized scheduling. Matched pairs of questionnaires were received from 183 school systems currently using computerized scheduling. A third questionnaire was developed to collect information from personnel in school data processing installations using the three predominant scheduling systems. Visits were made to three school systems to develop case studies describing their scheduling environment.

Major findings of the study were:

1. Sizes of schools using computerized scheduling varied widely, ranging from under 500 to over 100,000 students per system. Of 183 systems, 131 used computerized scheduling for five to twelve years.

2. Over one-half of the schools funded scheduling through the general budget. About one-half owned or leased the computer used for scheduling; 21.9 percent of the 183 systems used the computer facilities of an intermediate school district, regional unit, or state-owned consortium.

3. Most schools followed a fairly traditional pattern in scheduling. Students were scheduled into modules in only five systems, with 19 to 27 modules in a school day. The majority of the remaining schools had a school day of 5 to 7 periods with 46 to 55 minutes per period.

4. A variety of options for scheduling was available in most scheduling packages. The most often-used options in this study were balancing by sex, semester, and section balancing; lockout restrictions to prevent student overloads and to group students by ability, grade level, and prerequisite courses; and restrictions of school resources such as teachers, rooms, meeting times, and special facilities.

5. Additional records were generated by scheduling packages for most school systems. In addition to the student schedules, which were used by students and various offices within the school, records of grade reporting, attendance, academic transcripts, room utilization reports, and curricular research were generated.

6. The most widely used brand of computer for school scheduling was IBM (51.9 percent of 183 school systems). The remaining schools were divided among seven other brands. About one-half of the systems classified their computers are large; about one-fourth, as medium; and about one-fourth, as small systems.

7. About one-half of the systems used mostly computerized scheduling systems, with 71.6 percent using the computer to help in building the master schedule. Only 17.5 percent used the computer to build the master schedule.

8. The majority of school systems used scheduling packages supported by IBM. SSS/360 was the most widely used package, followed by SOCRATES and NCR's SCHOLARS packages.

9. Three systems used as case studies scheduled with SSS/360, SOCRATES, and SCHOLARS packages.

10. Personnel involved with scheduling were the principal and guidance counselor at the school level and a technical representative at the data processing center. A major problem in scheduling was. communications among those personnel, which was alleviated by the use of special forms to facilitate the scheduling process. Timetables, Gantt charts, and student request and master schedule data forms were used as communications tools.

Major conclusions of the study were:

1. Computerized scheduling can be used in a variety of school environments in schools of varying sizes with widely differing scheduling needs.

2. Scheduling can establish a data base for other school records and functions.

3. A crucial factor in computerized school scheduling is the working relationship between school personnel and data processing center personnel.

4. Major cost factors in computerized scheduling are the number of computer scheduling runs and the number of forms printed. Costs can be controlled by limiting these factors.