Publishing
Timetables on campus digital signage
Screens showing yesterday's schedule are worse than no screens, because people stop trusting them and then ignore the one time it matters.
Why signage timetables go stale
Most campus signage runs on general-purpose digital signage software, with timetable content pasted in as a slide or an image by whoever remembers. The timetable changes; the slide does not. Within a month the screens are unreliable, and within a term nobody reads them.
The fix is structural rather than procedural: the display has to be generated from the live timetable, so there is no manual step that can be forgotten.
What to display where
- Building entrances: a departure-board listing of the day's sessions by room, which is what most people are looking for.
- Outside individual rooms: what is happening in this room now and next, which prevents the common interruption of a class in progress.
- Library and study areas: which rooms are free right now, driven by live bookings rather than a static plan.
- Department offices: staff availability and consultation hours.
- Examination venues: during assessment periods, seating and room allocation.
Practical considerations
Displays are read at distance and in passing, so they should show less than a web page rather than more. A screen attempting to render a full weekly grid is unreadable from three metres.
Run them on standard displays and media players rather than proprietary hardware, and drive them from the same source as every other channel. See digital signage output.
Want to see this working?
Book a 45-minute online presentation and we will walk through it against your institution's own scheduling problem.