Large room (several simultaneous lessons)

A large room is a classroom that can host several different lessons at the same time, with different teachers and groups unrelated to each other. You declare it by filling in the Maximum number of classes field on the room: this number sets how many classes can be there at the same time.

Typical examples: an exam room, a hall, an outdoor space (courtyard, theater, sports field, museum...), a gym, a swimming pool — all places where several independent activities coexist.

Reserved for specialised rooms

The Maximum number of classes field only appears on a room that has a specialisation. You therefore first give the room a specialisation (sports, exam, swimming pool, outdoors…), then set its maximum number of simultaneous classes. This is consistent: a shared large room is always a space specialised for a particular activity, and the specialisation also serves to steer the right subjects to it.

How Omniscol uses it

In each time slot, the solver and conflict detection count the classes present in the room. A lesson of a group of groups counts for each of its classes. A class counts only once, even when two of its groups use the room at the same time.

The capacity applies to each lesson: a lesson must fit within the room's seats. The headcounts of the lessons sharing the room are not added together.

Omniscol reports a conflict in two cases:

• the classes present exceed the Maximum number of classes;
• a lesson exceeds the room's capacity.

Classes are counted week by week and minute by minute. Two lessons placed one in week A and the other in week B do not meet; neither do two lessons that follow one another.

A room left without a Maximum number of classes behaves like an ordinary room: one lesson at a time.

One lesson in several large rooms

A lesson assigned to several large rooms spreads its classes across them. Conflict detection and the room picker check that a distribution exists, taking into account the classes already present in each room. An ordinary room assigned to the same lesson hosts one of its classes.

The solver and automatic classroom assignment count each class of the lesson in each of its large rooms. They may therefore rule out a distribution that conflict detection accepts: assign the rooms to that lesson by hand in that case.

Large room or multi-room?

The two notions play on the room ↔ lesson pair, in two opposite directions:

• a large room gathers several lessons in a single room;
• a multi-room lesson conversely occupies several rooms for a single lesson (its capacity is then the sum of the assigned rooms).