Multi-site in higher education

Multi-site is a capability available from the Standard plan upwards (disabled only in Lite); the general principles are described in Sites, classrooms, resources, multi-room. This page lists the specifics frequently seen in higher education, where multi-site is almost the norm: engineering schools across several campuses, business schools with regional locations, multi-site universities.

Note that in Omniscol, the campus is an organizational notion distinct from the site. The two often overlap (one campus per site, with its dedicated classes). When you need to manage a time grid, classrooms or travel times, model the location as a site.

These scenarios also apply in primary and secondary education when the school is geographically distributed (a separate middle school + high school, a school with a preschool annex, etc.).

Typical case: a main site + regional branches

A frequent case in engineering and business schools:

• 1 main site (typically the headquarters),
• 1 to N regional branches where off-site cohorts follow part of the curriculum,
• instructors who shuttle between the sites.

Omniscol modelling: one site per location, travel times declared per pair (the high-speed trains / flights / car journeys between the sites). See Multi-site policy for the exact mechanics (blocking constraints to the minute, lunch break reduced by the travel time, etc.).

Separate timetable per site or global timetable

Two philosophies depending on the internal organization:

• Consolidated global timetable — a single timetable covers all sites. Suited when the planning teams are centralized and the instructors move around a lot. The diagnostic cross-checks everything in a single pass.
• One timetable per site — thanks to multiple active timetables in parallel, included in the Premium plan. Each site has its local team, its own timetable active over the same weeks; when viewing, the views are merged dynamically for the students or instructors involved with several sites.

Virtual sites and remote lessons

Special case: a lesson streamed by video link from a main site to a fully remote cohort. Possible modelling:

• create a virtual site “Remote” with no travel time to the broadcasting site, which lifts any travel-related time constraint,
• place one “Video” room per remote cohort in it,
• attach that room to the lesson in multi-room together with the original lecture hall.

This modelling stays limited if you have many remote cohorts: multiplying the virtual “Video” rooms becomes heavy to maintain and managing their capacity does not really make sense. In that case, document the need as specific and prefer the videoconference link directly on the lesson (or, on Premium, as a default on the class), without creating one virtual room per cohort.

See Multi-room exams for the multi-room mechanics, and Videoconference links per course for the associated Zoom / Teams / Meet links.

Filters and statistics per site

Omniscol screens expose per-site filters, to isolate a physical location. Useful for:

• displaying the timetable of one specific location,
• monitoring a branch's classroom occupancy separately,
• generating per-site statistics (hours taught, occupancy rates).

Display panels per site

A display panel can filter on a specific site, which generally corresponds to a panel installed in the lobby of one site. See Configuring a panel for a lobby or corridor.