Abstract
Academic workspace is globally witnessing paradigm shift in designs in the contemporary time. This is as a result of the increasing fluidity of academic work in recent time and the requests emanating from industries for commercialisation of research findings. This has prompted the global attempts to standardize workspace designs particularly in knowledge-based work that contained many different activities. Benefits outlined in this new designs underline activity based work environments with outlined space utilisation and effectiveness. This paper expressed the fact that effectiveness of workers in universities depends on the adequacy and effectiveness of workspace provided. Against this background is this compares of the National University Commission (NUC) workspace standard in Nigeria with the International standards. This is with a view to improving the existing designs of Nigerian academic workspace. Data gathered from literature were used as International Benchmark to compare with the National University Commission (NUC) Benchmark. These data were analysed using tables. Findings showed that design of academic workspace in Nigerian universities is both environmentally and technologically below the contemporary time international requirements. This paper concludes that the situation of academic workspace design in Nigerian universities still leaves gap for improvement to meet international benchmark. It recommends that Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) should encourage the adoption of minimum standard of academic workspace facilities that will compare favourably with international standard for better effective international research collaboration and job performance in universities. Managers, authorities of universities, academia, facilities managers, real estate managers, planners, designers, developers and investors in academic facilities to synergise and develop user-friendly workspace that can flow with the fluidity of knowledge work in academia.
Highlights
Space management especially in academics is currently attracting supports in debates of contemporary issues [6] and would for a long period of time be of relevance
This paper expressed the fact that effectiveness of workers in universities depends on the adequacy and effectiveness of workspace provided. Against this background is this compares of the National University Commission (NUC) workspace standard in Nigeria with the International standards
Data gathered from literature were used as International Benchmark to compare with the National University Commission (NUC) Benchmark
Summary
Space management especially in academics is currently attracting supports in debates of contemporary issues [6] and would for a long period of time be of relevance This is because design of workspace is seriously impacted by changing technology and knowledge work requirements. The purpose of developing many academic facilities is to provide effective workspace to improve user performance and increase productivity This often time translates to institutional competency, efficiency, and increased value rating among higher education institutions in the world. Team work and interaction is presently found to encourage and promote innovation and creativity in knowledge work arising from inter-disciplinary needs and knowledge exchange currently common among industry and academia [23] [28] [15] For this reason and many more, importance is given to collaboration and flexibility in workspace design. As a measure to efficiency of academic workspaces, measure of space utilisation becomes inevitable
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