Hi, everyone! I hope you've all had an enjoyable first day back at Case, and I hope to perpetuate the good vibes by unveiling a project on which I've been working for the past few weeks: Case Scheduler. As of this moment, you can log onto the Case Scheduler site (http://scheduler.case.edu) using Case Single Sign-On and test out its features. The alpha version testers have all given the thumbs up, and so I hope that you all can give the beta build a shot.

I am putting the finishing touches on a module to export schedules to .ics format so that students may easily add their schedules to iCal, Mozilla Thunderbird, Google Calendar, etc., and I aim to have it running by the end of the week. Search will also be updated in the immediate future to give the options of toggling the display of full classes, permit-only classes, and grad-level classes.

If you have any questions about the web service or comments on how it may be improved, PLEASE email me at ttc5; I'm open to each and every suggestion!

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About Case Scheduler

The Case Scheduler service provides an efficient interface for all students of Case Western Reserve University to more easily plan their academic endeavors. Case Scheduler works on every operating system that supports text-based web browsing and an Internet connection, making it the ideal choice of a student population which utilizes Windows, Mac OS X, and *nix in its computers.

Special Features

Case Single Sign-On
Don't worry about needing to remember another password to manage your schedule; Case Scheduler makes use of the Case Single Sign-On Service, just like Blackboard, Case Forum, and other Case websites.

It's Fast!
Case Scheduler's layout makes searching for classes and preparing a schedule a breeze. With Case Scheduler, there's no waiting for data to load. No ambiguous search boxes. Just simplicity.

Share Schedules
Want to make sure you're planning your schedule along the same lines as your friends? No problem. At the bottom of every schedule is a link which can be used to view your schedule in Share mode. Share mode allows you to let others view your selections without having to log in as a user, and people using Share mode won't be able to make any changes to your schedule, either.

One Version
Since Case Scheduler is a web site at its core, never again will you have to update your scheduling software. Just type in the web address and you're ready to go. When we update or add features, you'll have access to them automatically.

iCalendar (.ics) File Export (Added 1/17/07)
Easily use Case Scheduler's iCalendar File Export Utility to save a copy of your schedule directly to your computer. This file may be used with most popular calendar applications and services to automatically add courses and locations into your daily planner!

How It Works

Case Scheduler makes use of dynamic web scripts with a database and quickly delivers results based on current course offerings, all while maintaining a visually-appealing layout. A special program was written so that the Case Scheduler course database is continually kept up-to-date when compared to the Case Searchable Schedule of Classes. By storing the classes in a database, Case Scheduler is able to provide a significant speed increase when compared to other alternative methods of schedule composition.

Case Scheduler Statistics

As of the time of this posting, Case Scheduler currently has 6532 courses in its database, spanning 3 semesters of data. Course data is updated on the Case Scheduler server every 6 hours (12am/6am/12pm/6pm Eastern). Case Scheduler has 11 schedules currently stored on its servers.

About the Developer

Case Scheduler was developed entirely by Tommy Cusick, a current first-year Computer Science major, in order to provide an all-encompassing course schedule solution to the entire school. Please write him (at ttc5) with any questions or suggestions you have about the Case Scheduler service.

(EDIT: We've moved to http://scheduler.case.edu; updated the links)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit was 2007:01:25:01:54:56 by Thomas Cusick.

Great work! Clean and simple-- the way I like it. If you feel like putting a little extra work in, it would be awesome if course evaluations could be displayed as well.

Basic instructions for course evaluation parsing is available at http://blog.case.edu/gps10/2005/05/20/better_course_reviews_interface

If you want the source code for my course evaluations interface (includes PHP to grab and parse the evaluations as well as generate graphs), let me know.

Again, great job. It is a shame the future Peoplesoft system will be closed and won't allow creative individuals like you to exercise their talent.


EDIT: I hope you don't mind, but I put the content from your post into the Case Scheduler article in the Case Wiki.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit was 2007:01:17:03:19:31 by Gregory Szorc.

Great work! I was a developer for Scheduler Jones but this blows it out of the water. We made it back in our freshman year for ENGR 131 so it had to be C++ but this interface is superb.

Any promises on upcoming features? Things I would love:

1) An API or just raw access to the XML.
2) A way to make a schedule (or even individual courses) public or private.
3) View everyone who has scheduled a specific course (by CRN) and has made their schedule public so you know who is in your class before going.
4) View everyone who has schedule a specific course (by course number) and has made their schedule public so you know who you can study with.
5) Manual insertion, to let people add work or strange classes (like Music Lessons, which are schedule in Solar and then personally scheduled by you I believe).

I like it a lot. Excellent work. Some quick and minor comments/suggestions:

* Is it/will it be open source?

* It'd be nice if the full course information box was already popped open when there is only one search result.

* I have an evening class and I can only see the first half of its "block" in the calendar view. That's fine, but I wonder if a class later in the evening would show up at all. (I didn't try it - perhaps you already handle that.)

* I expected clicking on a class's "block" to do something... maybe search for other sections of that class?

* When there are search results on the page, the sharing URL is missing.

Edit:

* Overlapping courses.

* I probably shouldn't be able to add the same CRN more than once.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit was 2007:01:17:09:28:07 by Andrew Witte.

Thanks for the feature requests and bug reports. Andrew, you're absolutely right, and that's at the top of my fix list; I expect the CRN multiple-add issue to be rectified by this evening (I thought I pushed that fix to live already), and the overlapping in the next week.

After a course is added, there is no way to easily few all those great details that were visible while searching. Maybe you should be able to click on an event to view the details like number of students, professors name, etc.

Wow! Very easy to use, plus it spits out a nice, clear, color schedule. As a Mac user, I love the fact that it's cross-platform. The sharing feature is great, too; very useful for sending your schedule with your family.

Thomas, would you mind if I put a link to Case Scheduler on http://start.case.edu?

Not at all! I am currently working with Simon Kuhn to get the site hosted on Filer and running from scheduler.case.edu, so maybe we should wait until it's over there? If it's easy enough to change later on, go ahead and use the tomathy address for now.

Thanks for the opportunity!

Tommy

No problem - I'm happy to help spread the word! I linked to the tomathy address for now; it'll be easy to change later.