Schedule Finder & Open Classes Disabled Forever

[PandaMoOo]

Dear Students & Friends,

In the Summer of 2004 I independently started gradecalpoly.com to bring revolutionary services to help students. At first the schedule finder helped students fit all their classes together, and into their lives. Then six months later I brought "Open Classes" notification to students, saving hours of checking to see if that "one class" opened by letting students know by text message if it had. Sadly, all things that have a beginning - have an end - these features were no longer available as of March 2007, and will never be offered by GCP.com again. Because the data required for these services is no longer available publicly and eight months of pleading with I&IT has not produced anything but “miscommunication and mismatched expectations” to get the data, I have lost all hope.

I have been communicating with the I&IT department since Dec 2006. They will be bringing Open Classes to the university community Fall 2007. What took me two weeks part time to make, took them 9 months. They are in the process of deciding if they will bring a feature like my "Schedule Finder" to Cal Poly Pomona. Do not expect it anytime soon, if ever.

I used to be optimistic and understanding about the situation. I met with the leadership of I&IT, and even offered to share code for free. But after 8 months of being treated with disdain, having direct questions ignored, or whole e-mails unanswered; I am no longer willing to support these people. I would have given up after one month, had not thousands of students been depending on me. In many ways I feel mislead and taken advantage of because they took these ideas and offered nothing in return. When I requested a link to the website next to the new services to regain a small portion of the lost traffic, they offered only to put my name.

It has been a pleasure serving the Cal Poly Pomona Community for the last three years. With every problem, there is opportunity. I will renew my focus on professor reviews and the book finder.

Thank you for your support,
Matthew Dwight
GradeCalPoly.com Admin
Cal Poly Pomona Alumni

[Talon]

Hi Panda-

I read your post and I do thnk what I&IT did sucks. However, as you metioned, I am still grateful for the professor reviews and the bookfinder. I want to thank you tremendously because your website has helped me greatly in my class selection and in buying my textbooks. You made gradecalpoly.com extremely helpful.

Take Care-
Danielle

[Admin]

The Schedule Finder and the Open Classes features were extremely useful during the pre-registration period. I was able to register a prerequisite class that got full very quick via the open classes text-message service. And since the IT&T department would not cooperate and help out, students are at a great loss. This will surely hurt the current students that took advantaged of gradecalpoly.com.

But on the bright side, we still have the professor reviews and the book finder!