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Joyce Winslow
jwins@uoregon.edu
“This is sooo cool!”
“I love it!”
These are the kinds of spontaneous comments we've heard recently from students trying out the new online class schedule for the first time.
According to Associate Registrar Sue Eveland, these comments are typical of the student feedback she's been receiving since the new class schedule debuted March 2.
The most popular feature of the new interactive website is its dynamic searchability. Users can customize their searches in a variety of ways, narrowing the search for courses according to such specifications as availability, time of day, classroom location, number of credits, relevance to General Ed requirements, reduced tuition, or other criteria.
Once a class is selected and the class web page opens, users still have the option to further customize their search or begin another by using the “New Search” menu on the right of the page (see 3 in the illustration below). In the upper right of the page are useful links to the Campus Map and DuckWeb (2) , and on the upper left (1) you'll find all the course requirements.
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| Results of a search for a sociology class using the criteria "Undergraduate,"
"Reduced Tuition," and "Tuesday-Thursday." Clicking
on the class Notes (4) takes you to the Course Data page,
which includes the Academic Deadlines and an email link to the instructor.
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The new user-friendly website is the product of more than a year of careful forethought and planning. Realizing that students were increasingly bypassing the printed version of the class schedule in favor of the online version (DuckHunt), the Registrar's office began to focus on improving the website.
After months of carefully combing through all the desirable data elements of DuckHunt and Banner and gathering extensive feedback from students, faculty, and administrators, Associate Registrar Sue Eveland and Assistant Registrar Gayle Freeman developed a comprehensive “wish list” of features for the new online class schedule.
Next, they presented the list to Computing Center systems analyst Tim Ketchum with the hope that his programming skills could make their vision a reality. To their delight, Tim not only fulfilled every item on their wish list, he contributed some useful features of his own.
Tim added explanatory mouseovers to course notes, links to web resources for courses that use Blackboard, and direct email links to instructors. He also suggested placing the search menu on each class page for easy access and navigation.
Another major improvement to the class schedule site is that it now updates instantaneously instead of hourly or daily, so that students may be sure they're getting the most up-to-date information.
After trying the new site, most users will probably never return to DuckHunt or the printed class schedule, but to smooth the transition, DuckHunt will remain available into fall term. The last printed schedule of classes will be the winter 2005 schedule.