Lab Renovations -- CSCF Workflow

The CS Space Committee is to be involved whenever the look, feel, or use of a space, or the potential for that, is involved.

The "evergreen" of teaching labs is usually driven by CSCF's need to replace computing equipment, as well as meeting new accessibility, health, and safety requirements. While doing that, it makes sense to consider an evergreen of the physical aspects of the labs.

Planning

CSCF consults with the users of the labs. In practice ISG is considered to be the primary representative of the users of teaching labs, however a more complete list would be:

• ISG
• instructors
• CSCF Advisory Committee
• undergraduate representatives (as chosen by the current Math Soc and CS Club executive)

• Safety Office
• AccessAbility Services
• Plant Operations

The extent to which meetings and broader consultation are required will depend upon the magnitude of the desired changes. Lab renovations happen at best every 4 years. So, a typical renovation can involve:

• physical changes required by the choice of new IT equipment
• multiple years of accumulated client feedback
• repairs/updates to the deteriorated non-IT equipment (chairs, keyboard mechanisms, walls and flooring)

Once we have agreed upon the functional requirements for any lab update, we will consult with Plant Operations, as they will be completing the non-IT aspects of the work. This will require a work requisition (with account number) to be signed. That will be handled by Space Committee support (Sherry Hartung as of 2014-03). The work requisition number will be used for the implementation phase.

Regardless of whether a physical update is deemed necessary, we will involve Plant Operations so that they can determine if there are necessary changes in order to comply with campus and government regulations.

Once approximate costs are understood, student endowment funds may be approached for any of the needed updates that are judged to be of potential interest to them. Traditionally that's the Math Endowment Fund.

The Plant Operations consultation will involve the Chair of the Space Committee (Ed Lank as of 2014-05) at their discretion, along with administrative support (Jackie Hilts as of 2014-04). It is envisioned that this could happen when Plant Operations visits the space in question to discuss the changes.

It is noted that Plant Operations has significant expertise in furniture choices, design of spaces, colour choices, building codes, and safety / accessibility regulations. They have a large pool of furniture manufacturers to draw on for specific requirements.

Approval

The end result of the Plant Operations consultation will be a practical plan for the changes. It will be submitted to the Space Committee for approval. Given the prior involvement of the Chair of the committee, we might hope that significant changes to the plan won't be required.

Implementation

Once there is an approved plan, Plant Operations will be told that they can proceed with implementing the work request, in conjunction with CSCF implementing the computing equipment aspects.

In general, Plant Operations wants a single point of contact. For the implementation phase, that will be Dan Hergott.