The study of differences between timetabling research presented in conferences like PATAT or published in Annals of OR and commercial timetabling software used in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is essential for the discussion about innovation in both higher education and in commerce. In the field of planning and scheduling, a lot of developments are made and it is important to recognise that these developments are of influence on HEIs through their use of timetabling software. A main objective of the work presented here is to provide up-to-date information about timetabling in HEIs and see to what extent they adopt and implement timetabling developments. This is crucial because of budgets of institutions being strictly limited and remaining resources like rooms having to be shared more and more. Developments in HEIs have caused planning processes in higher education to deal with more limitations than ever, while at the same time the demand towards flexibility and availability is increasing. This paper gives the results of a systematic literature review in which differences and similarities in theory and practice of timetabling in higher education are described and discussed. We looked at state-of-the-art timetabling research for HEIs, at innovations in the field of timetabling and at changing requirements in Higher Education. The aim of this paper is to motivate the discussion about both the differences and similarities and bring timetabling application development closer to educational requirements. B R. A. Oude Vrielink r.a.oudevrielink@utwente.nl

This paper studies the suitability of classrooms for higher education. We propose a model to quantify the suitability, which allows measuring and optimizing the fit of classrooms for a given curriculum event. This model is unique, as there is no such model yet in literature that provides insight into the variables and interrelationships that are relevant when assessing classrooms and their allocation in the timetables. We also present a case study in which we apply the model to the timetable allocations at the University of Twente, for both assessing the suitability of its classrooms, and assessing to what extent its timetables take the classroom suitability into account. We compared the measurements of the suitability to the perceptions that both teachers and the support services have towards the allocations of suitability, as a reference of the extent to which the measurements are recognizable in practice. There are two main contributions of the research in this paper. First, we make the suitability of classrooms for education quantifiable and measurable, enabling the allocation of suitability to be transparent, to improve it and to optimize it as a performance indicator of the timetables. Second, this research goes beyond the current dominant way of timetabling which tries to fit class sizes to room capacities, by introducing the maximization of value adding as a new way for optimizing the allocation of classroom-based education. The research in this paper describes a method with which the suitability of classrooms can be made measurable. By using this method, insight will be gained into the performance of timetables on the aspect of suitability. CCS Concepts•Human centred computing • Interaction design • Interaction design theory, concepts and paradigms.