Central Timetabling Support Office

Contact the Central Timetabling Support Office Team

What we do

The Central Timetabling Support Office (CTSO) operations are integral to the College timetabling community. We are responsible for coordinating and supporting the departmental timetabling accesses, processes and systems enhancements. We UAT all systems before launch and ensure to deliver only the best of systems and products to our College departments. With a strong customer focus, our team provides quality assurance services in order to facilitate data transfers and ensure that timetabling data and outputs meet College policies and best practices.

What we do

User training and support

CTSO offer a wide range of training sessions and learning resources to help the College timetabling staff and departmental administrators easily access and navigate Celcat system, tools and products. The training sessions are run by our experienced trainers who tailor each session to meet staffs’ individual needs to carry out their duties. Our trainers have also created learning resources video tutorials and help sheets that staff can refer to after the training session; to help guide departmental timetablers through processes such as, how to create or duplicate events.

Policy and quality assurance

Timetabling support is the heart of what we do, we are passionate about improving College timetabling & space sharing and we are continuously working with other departments for data integrity checks, policy advice and implementation. This is to help create and enforce better processes and practices that will enhance staff and students experience.

Timetabling best practice

Our team are here to support departments in every step of timetabling annual cycle. We provide support to departments from the very start of selecting data to complex data validation, installation and publication of annual timetabling plan. We provide manual and automated timetabling support and at specific periods of the academic year we instate departmental preferred choices of publication windows and products.

System administration

CTSO works to protect departmental resources data, category information and events by providing only authorised staff, access to Celcat. We liaise closely with departmental administrators to update data and ensure data quality to agreed standards. We are also continuously working to enhance college systems by increasing synchronisation across departmental systems such as, interface between Celcat and KX, Celcat and SoV and look to continue our work to create more efficient, reliable and user friendly systems.

Service enhancement

Our core operations focus on

  • Policy
  • Procedures
  • Service Planning & Development
  • Data & Definitions
  • Training & Support
  • ICT/Supplier Liaison
  • Central Systems Liaison
  • Imperial Timetabling Community

We collaborate with Imperial Timetabling Community, ICT and relevant suppliers to collate user feedback and use it to identify opportunities to improve our processes, systems and services. Our ultimate goal is to create a better timetabling experience for departmental staff and students.

 

Meet our team

  • Helena Smith

    Helena Smith

    Personal details

    Helena Smith Director of Central Timetabling

    020 7594 1061

    Background & Contributions

    Helena has worked in higher education for over 20 years and has joined Imperial from another multi-site Russell Group university. Her role is to oversee the work within CTSO to support departments in delivering student focused timetables and to collaborate on the strategic role of timetabling within the College.

  • Tamsin King

    Tamsin King

    Personal details

    Tamsin King Deputy Director of Central Timetabling

    020 7594 2690

    Background & Contributions

    Tamsin has worked in further and higher education sectors for over 10 years. Her role is to support the continuous review of timetabling processes and operational improvements within the department.

    Tamsin is currently on maternity leave until December 2023.

  • Alex Dawson

    Personal details

    Alex Dawson Head of Timetable Modelling and Analytics

    Background & Contributions

    Alex joined Imperial in 2022 with 20 years’ experience of timetabling in higher education. Her role is to offer guidance to aid strategic decision making and continuous improvement relating to the College’s timetabling and space allocation through modelling and interpreting data.

  • Peter Laskey

    Peter Laskey

    Personal details

    Peter Laskey Head of Exam Timetabling

    020 7594 9705

    Background & Contributions

    Peter joined CTSO in Oct 2018. He has over 8 years experience working in Higher Education, specifically within examinations. His current role involves supporting departments in implementing the College’s Examination Timetabling policy and improving the overall exam experience for students here at Imperial.

  • Simon Nesbitt

    Simon Nesbitt

    Personal details

    Simon Nesbitt Head of Timetabling Operations (Acting Planning and Management Lead)

    020 7594 5852

    Background & Contributions

    Simon joined CTSO in March 2019. He has more than 10 years’ timetabling experience in the HE sector.  His role involves co-ordinating with departments across the College to support the annual timetabling cycle and seek improvements for the benefit of students and staff.

  • Anna Valentino

    Anna Valentino

    Personal details

    Anna Valentino Senior Timetabling Officer (Acting Systems Lead)

    020 7594 5890

    Background & Contributions

    Anna is involved in documenting processes, data management projects, timetabling products upgrades and enhancements. She is also responsible for website updates and liase with departments for any timetabling publication matters. Anna also completed a secondment an automation pilot in 2016

  • Geraldine Chan

    Geraldine Chan

    Personal details

    Geraldine Chan Senior Timetabling Officer (Joint Space Lead)

    020 7594 6693

    Background & Contributions

    Geraldine's main role is to work closely with departmental staff from the three SEQ departments (Aeronautics, Civil and Mechanical Engineering) to collate and transform timetabling data to enable the use of automation tools for cross department coordinated timetable construction for students and staff.

  • Katie Toutoudaki

    Katie Toutoudaki

    Personal details

    Katie Toutoudaki Senior Timetabling Officer (Systems – Projects)

    020 7594 0957

    Background & Contributions

    Katie joined CTSO in February 2019. She has been working in timetabling in higher education since 2015. In her role as Senior Timetabling Officer, she assists Maths and Computing in scheduling teaching and examination events using the CELCAT automation engine. In addition she has significant experience with Power BI and reporting capabilities. Katie also supports CELCAT training provided by CTSO to new and continuing users. 

  • Lisa Seath

    Lisa Seath

    Personal details

    Lisa Seath Senior Timetabling Officer

    Background & Contributions

    Lisa joined CTSO in 2021.  She has been working in timetabling in the higher education sector since 2013.  Lisa is often the first point of contact within CTSO, taking a lead on responding to ASK tickets and CELCAT training for new and continuing users.    

  • Tasnima Begum

    Personal details

    Tasnima Begum Senior Timetabling Officer (maternity cover)

    Background & Contributions

    Tasnima joined CTSO in April 2023. Although she is new to the timetabling world, she brings a year of experience working in the higher education sector. Tasnima will provide support to the team and the rest of timetabling community for any timetabling tasks.