W-PPS: Web-Based Program Planning and SchedulingPart I, Database Considerations
6/15/01
Background.
If a WNCC student wants ready access to current information about programs/degrees, courses, the master schedule, class schedules, open sections, instructors, and online course materials, this information is already available via several media, or we have the infrastructure to provide it. Centralizing this information such that via the Web the student can interactively "jump to" what s/he most needs and desires is a trend among Nevada's higher education Web sites and has been an informal goal for WNCC for about a year. Helping students plan a course of studies easily and determine the upcoming term's schedule for which to register are interests shared among many academic, administrative, and support services in the college.
For lack of a better name and to easily refer to this improvement in services for students, W-PPS has been initiated--Web-based Program Planning and Scheduling. This document addresses the first steps in bringing W-PPS live, the matter of a database, or the integration of databases and their tables.
Other Institutions.
Other Nevada institutions have the same goal and are working on related tasks, and they have realized them to one degree or another. Here is a brief summary of their states-of-the-art.
TMCC. TMCC has perhaps the closest approximation to what some at WNCC have been considering. At http://www.tmcc.edu/admissions/catalog/ the following appears.
Go To: Student Information, Program Worksheets, Course Descriptions, Appendices, Campus Maps, Faculty/Staff
Other Links: Admissions and Records, Financial Aid, Class Schedules
From the Go To links, the student can get general information, student services, Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files of each degree and certificate program, an alpha listing of courses, and appendices, which are policies, procedures, requirements. Faculty/Staff is a directory look-up.
Other Links takes you to class schedules, and from there you can get further details of the schedule for a given class.
Courses are read from a database (db) as is the schedule. You cannot go from schedule directly to the course description or instructor. However, this is a very good and user-friendly scheme for degrees/programs, courses, and schedule--plus easy access to instructor information.
CCSN. The schedule has a search feature. There is also a seat availablity feature in registration.
GBCC. The catalog is provided as PDF and .zip files.
UNR and UNLV. Extensive use of PDF. The schedule is on paper and in PDF, and these are deemed official.
Where we are.
WNCC combines PDF and "bulk" schedule information. The college also offers instructor look-up and links to their home pages. However, these are not fine-grained for the most part and not integrated. WNCC can evolve toward a better model, building upon the design and approaches represented above, what the college already has, and some basic questions that an integrated information access feature could address.
Registrant's Questions.
It is assumed a student is typically interested in one or more of the following.
1. What program/degree do I wish to pursue?
2. What is this course/class about?
3. Is it offered this term and where/how?
4. What section can I sign up for?
5. Is the section I want open?
6. Who is teaching the class?
7. Who is this instructor?
8. Does s/he have class materials online?
And not out of the realm of consideration,
9. What have former students of this course and
instructor said about their experiences?
10. Does the bookstore have the required texts?
Although all of these interests may not be of concern to a given student, nor in this order, an interactive body of information could help in the planning and decision-making processes involved in pursuing training and education at WNCC.
Challenge.
Putting together the Web features and tools needed to accomplish information access of this magnitude will take the talents and cooperation of a number of people, and the task will have to be achieved in increments given its breadth and complexity. However, the building blocks are almost ready at hand. Here are the beginning pieces followed by how, if necessary, they can be specifically converted into usable form.
* Programs_Degrees (requirements, descriptions, etc.)
* Courses (prefixes, credits, etc.)
* Master_Schedule (when, where offered)
* Schedule (when, where offered this term)
* Open_Sections (space available)
* Instructors (name, url, e-mail, etc.)
Programs_Degree--from .html versions of brochures/catalog.
1. Highlight the .htm file in a browser.
2. Paste the copy into a text editor.
3. Create a new Access db.
4. Copy and paste blocks of text into the db.
5. Create reports for printing or export in .csv for MySql and the Web.
This appears to be the easiest way to create this table of the db the first time. Once created, the it can be maintained.
Courses--from the PDF version of the Catalog.
1. Highlight one page of the catalog-courses section. Copy it.
2. Paste into a text editor.
3. Remove all carriage returns. Also remove any text that is not a course record like a new section heading (i.e., import only by using the same class prefixes).
4. Search for all instances of • (e.g., from the 1999-2000 catalog) and replace with carriage returns. This separates the records.
5. Save the file.
6. Open Access and get external data, the above-saved file using the defaults that Access recommends.
Once the file is imported into a table print reports if desired and export in delimited text only file (.csv) for Web-accessible db.
Master_Schedule [insert content here]
Schedule--from SIS [correct?]
1. Open .exl or other compatible db import file.
2. Import into an Access db.
3. Export as .csv for MySql and the Web.
This appears to be the easiest way to build the schedule table each time it is good enough to publish in print and periodically during the period when classes are cancelled/added during registrations.
Open_Sections [insert content here]
Instructors.
The online directory look-up can include the instructor's home page with links to classes and materials. Instructors are also listed by courses taught in the schedule.
W-PPS.
The technologies that integrate and make this information easily accessible via the Internet might be called a Web-based Program Planning and Scheduling tool (W-PPS). To get a working version of W-PPS up and running without exhaustive and time-consuming conversion work the following interactive features and interfaces are proposed.
Interactive Features.
1. Search/look-up feature from every page opening in the same window for:
* Programs_Degrees, driven by PDF files/db
* Courses, driven by db
* Master_Schedule, driven by db/PDF
* Schedule, driven by db
* Open_Sections, driven by db
* Instructors, driven by db
Each of these may have additional fields to choose from. For example, if looking into the schedule, the student may want to look up by instructor, or call number, etc.
2. Direct link to registration opening in a new window.
3. Direct links to faculty pages and the Virtual College.
The interfaces for W-PPS would consist of standard header and footer for the main level pages. The body or center of the Web page would have the interactive features and search results particular to the "where" the user is at any given point. Successive windows would open with each new penetration into the depths of information. This way the user can go back to the registration or other windows and compare or supply information as needed.
DB Considerations.
The depths of information are represented by the tables in the database(s). At this writing, these tables would look something like the following, with the key (unique data for one field ) of Class_Title, the field common across most tables and PDF files. If you know the course/class title you should be able to get most other information needed. (If you want to take a course and see how it fits into a course of studies, this is not possible given this design and planned state-of-the-art for W-PPS.)
* Programs_Degrees: [PDF/new db]
Type
Description
Requirements (core, emphasis, etc.)
Recommended
Notes
Sequence (by semester)
* Courses: [new db]
Subject_Area
Class_Title
Class_Prefix
Credits
Prerequisite
Description
Type (transfer, degree, etc.)
* Master_Schedule: [as exists or]
Class_Title
Term
Year
Class_Prefix
Campus
* Schedule: [as exists; field names to be confirmed]
Subject_Area
Class_Prefix
Call_Number
Class_Title
Prerequisite
Credits
Notes
Cost
Location
Day
Time
Date
Spaces
Instructor
* Open_Sections: [insert content here]
* Instructors: [as exists with field names]
Last_Name
First_Name
Title
Department
Campus
Building
Phone
Fax
URL
Next Steps.
Given concurrence on the above and having worked through the db considerations and set the tables up in Access and on the Web server, the next step is to provide the Web interface and programming necessary to get information out. That is, it should be possible to call information from the db and have the server and Web programming generate pages on the fly for users. The next part to W-PPS will address this part--challenge--of the W-PPS project.
