Ideal Schedule Finder Critique Please!

[PandaMoOo]

The obvious main feature of the new website GradeCalPoly.com over goodbadtenured.com is the Schedule Finder. If used correctly, it can save tons of time and help find the best teachers, and such. I for one have since DAY ONE wanted a automated program to do this function for me. I realize many people have already picked out their fall 2004 schedules, but this applies for ALL quarters here after.

Please give constructive critism as how I may improve the function/fashion/usability of the schedule finder on www.gradecalpoly.com .

As it stands of 9/14/04:
-About One in 10 People view the Schedule Finder Page
-About One in 100 People test the Schedule Finder Page

I recently added a "Illustrate Schedules" ability to the page, so now you can SEE how your classes will be throughout the week, it also counts the breaks breaks between classes you will have.

Again: This thread is for constructive critism on function/fashion/usability of the schedule finder on www.gradecalpoly.com from now until ever ever.

[Admin]

Do you accept constructive feedbacks? I love this feature! Can't wait to take advantage of it for the next quarter.

[PandaMoOo]

Originally Posted by KayCee

Do you accept constructive feedbacks? I love this feature! Can't wait to take advantage of it for the next quarter.

Accept constructive feedbacks? I don't understand your question because I mentioned this thread is for constructive critism. Any features or suggestions or anything someone says relative to gradecalpoly.com I will evaluate and determine how to fix/change/upgrade/add/bake if it's worthwhile.

So... yes I take constructive feedbacks in the sense I want advice and feedback. Was there something else you meant?

[Admin]

I chose the wrong words. I meant, "Do you accept compliments? I love this feature! Can't wait to take advantage of it for the next quarter. "

[Steven]

How did you implement the retrieval of the class schedule information? It seems to be dynamic, but it works even when Bronco Direct does not.

[PandaMoOo]

Originally Posted by Steven

How did you implement the retrieval of the class schedule information? It seems to be dynamic, but it works even when Bronco Direct does not.

The website updates at an interval I set and stores all information locally. Typical intervals are 72 hours, during registration times that will be increased to 6 hours. Perhaps even more as soon as the Unisys gets its act together on hosting it. It takes about 20 minutes on average to update all information, so real time processing is not possible.

NEW FEATURE COMING SOON: Room Numbers will soon be displayed with classes. Sorry for the oversight.

[JPWRana]

PANDA... a feature that I would REALLY LOVE to see is a very much revamped interface.

Does the "Classes You Want in Order Of Importance:" mean classes that you want with the first being your highest priority, etc.?

Something that I think would be awesome, but WAY TOO time consuming, would be if you just put down your major, have like an area where you (just one tedious time) put down the classes you have finished, and it'll tell you which are your highest priority classes, and then you give it parameter restrictions like no MW cuz of work, etc.

[Steven]

Originally Posted by PandaMoOo

The website updates at an interval I set and stores all information locally. Typical intervals are 72 hours, during registration times that will be increased to 6 hours. Perhaps even more as soon as the Unisys gets its act together on hosting it. It takes about 20 minutes on average to update all information, so real time processing is not possible.

NEW FEATURE COMING SOON: Room Numbers will soon be displayed with classes. Sorry for the oversight.

When conducting updates, is the Bronco Direct interface used?

[PandaMoOo]

Originally Posted by JPWRana

PANDA... a feature that I would REALLY LOVE to see is a very much revamped interface.

Does the "Classes You Want in Order Of Importance:" mean classes that you want with the first being your highest priority, etc.?

Yes, its meant to be for classes you want to take FIRST. The short answer is: it only matters if my system can find over 300 schedules and then it stops looking. It uses the classes in the beginning of the list to find those 300 schedules, it then sorts those according to the sorting parameters.

Originally Posted by JPWRana

Something that I think would be awesome, but WAY TOO time consuming, would be if you just put down your major, have like an area where you (just one tedious time) put down the classes you have finished, and it'll tell you which are your highest priority classes, and then you give it parameter restrictions like no MW cuz of work, etc.

Wonderful suggestion! I would be willing to implement it under 2 conditions:

1) I could design an interface that is not too hard to use, thus people would use it. (I would even have it store peoples information in a user account, thats an easy one.)
2) (The BIGGEST PITFALL) I need a way to automate the system, a place to get all the needed information. Is there any non-PDF based list of classes that I could pull from for all majors? With different majors for different years... it still could be done, but I can not reasonably enter all the information myself. I need a way to automatically grab the classes required, and of course the prereqs/coreqs for those classes.

WONDERFUL IDEA! I know a lot of the information is hidden within PDFs... I'm not sure if I can get perl to dig through it good enough... and if i could automate the process. I'll look into how much work it'd be... THANKS!

[PandaMoOo]

Originally Posted by Steven

When conducting updates, is the Bronco Direct interface used?

Yes. Broncodirect is the source of all the information, and thus when it is down, my information can not be updated.

[JPWRana]

Originally Posted by PandaMoOo

Yes, its meant to be for classes you want to take FIRST. The short answer is: it only matters if my system can find over 300 schedules and then it stops looking. It uses the classes in the beginning of the list to find those 300 schedules, it then sorts those according to the sorting parameters.


Wonderful suggestion! I would be willing to implement it under 2 conditions:

1) I could design an interface that is not too hard to use, thus people would use it. (I would even have it store peoples information in a user account, thats an easy one.)
2) (The BIGGEST PITFALL) I need a way to automate the system, a place to get all the needed information. Is there any non-PDF based list of classes that I could pull from for all majors? With different majors for different years... it still could be done, but I can not reasonably enter all the information myself. I need a way to automatically grab the classes required, and of course the prereqs/coreqs for those classes.

WONDERFUL IDEA! I know a lot of the information is hidden within PDFs... I'm not sure if I can get perl to dig through it good enough... and if i could automate the process. I'll look into how much work it'd be... THANKS!

I can help you out with atleast some I guess... I already had made a flowchard for my major because the one the department provides COMPLETELY SUCKS!!!!

Yeah... it will be VERY TEDIOUS!!! especially for one person taking care of ALL the majors... If you were to just have 1 person from each major help you out here... then 1/2 the work willl be done.

I have the MFE one if u want... hehe. I can do the IE and ME one also.

But remember... user interfaces are a high priority!!! Sadly, ppl care more for how a thing looks than how it functions. So dare I say having a "flash" enabled interface will blow ppl away... but then u have the problem of user requirements... ugh!!! HOW DO U DO THIS!!! :P

[PandaMoOo]

Originally Posted by JPWRana

I can help you out with atleast some I guess... I already had made a flowchard for my major because the one the department provides COMPLETELY SUCKS!!!!

Yeah... it will be VERY TEDIOUS!!! especially for one person taking care of ALL the majors... If you were to just have 1 person from each major help you out here... then 1/2 the work willl be done.

I have the MFE one if u want... hehe. I can do the IE and ME one also.

But remember... user interfaces are a high priority!!! Sadly, ppl care more for how a thing looks than how it functions. So dare I say having a "flash" enabled interface will blow ppl away... but then u have the problem of user requirements... ugh!!! HOW DO U DO THIS!!! :P

Setting up the data aspect of it seems relatively simple, it's a matter of getting all the data I want in the right places.

The more I look at it, the more it seems doable. The interface... can always be a work in progress, I just need a group of people telling me what to do with interfaces so I can find the best design to do.

Anyway: It seems like most majors, maybe all majors have their information saved in PDF files. I can use a perl extension called "PDF-API" to grab the text information out of the PDF files and put them into a database. I also need a place to grab Corequistes, and prerequistes and put those into a database.

Once I have the above data, suggesting schedules will be easy. I may not be able to get all majors, so one of the first things a user would do with their user account is select "their major." I don't think right now i'll worry about making flowcharts for the information, although I might do something of that nature later.

I am sorry but I do not know flash and have no intention of learning it. Most reasonable things that can be done in flash can be done in html and javascript ... at least provide the same functionality.

I may need assistance locating PDFs of majors, and finding out what year they are for... and maybe also finding a defintive guide to coreqs/prereqs, besides broncodirect... that is the biggest painful place to grab anything off of. Anyhow... Thanks for the advice and feedback... I will look more into the usefulness of this feature, after i setup user accounts.

[Steven]

You may be able to use the University Catalog. It has all the neccessary information. The information is only in PDF format, unlike the previous versions of the catalog which were in HTML and PDF formats.

By the way, what is your major?

[PandaMoOo]

Course catalog ain't working yet. Damn this broncodirect system, making all my changes hard.

Hopefully the format of the new and old style are easy to parse, uniform between colleges, and the same as previous years. Anything else would make my life difficult.

I'm going to need to grab the last 4-5 years of majors, because I know they change... so it'll be interesting to say the least If I can pull this off.

Also, have you used the graduation evaluation on broncodirect yet? I just tried it, it's a pretty nice feature... good enough? I don't know.

I am a Mechanical Engineering Major.