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Computer Science Search

Brett Hlavinka and Chris Aikens. Computer Science Search. Imagine…. You’re a CSCE Junior about to start upper-level courses You’re frustrated with howdy and its uselessness You don’t want to pay simply to look up professor reviews You want to find courses you have an interest in.

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Computer Science Search

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  1. Brett Hlavinka and Chris Aikens Computer Science Search

  2. Imagine… • You’re a CSCE Junior about to start upper-level courses • You’re frustrated with howdy and its uselessness • You don’t want to pay simply to look up professor reviews • You want to find courses you have an interest in

  3. Sources of Information • Course information is spread across many sources • howdy • Course schedules • myEdu (formerly PickaProf) • Grade distributions and reviews • CS Department website • Course descriptions

  4. Search Problems • Searching through courses is limited • howdy • Limit results with advanced search filters • myEdu (formerly PickaProf) • Course number or professor’s name • CS Department website • No searching

  5. Motivation • Problem: Cannot easily determine which courses you want to take • Solution: A consolidated, searchable website for CS courses • View course schedules • Search over descriptions and reviews • Be free of charge • Enter Computer Science Search (CSS)

  6. Related Work • MyEdu • Grade distributions and professor ratings/reviews • Starting at $10 a year

  7. Related Work • Stanford’s Course Rank • Search, Review, Schedule, and Plan • Can be adopted by other universities

  8. Related Work • AgProfessors.com • Course/professor grade distributions and reviews • Texas A&M specific (and free of charge)

  9. Related Work • Summary • All related works incorporated good ideas • Searching • Reviews • Course Descriptions • Try to integrate related works and our own ideas • Idea: make a course search site specific to Texas A&M that helps students build their schedule • Should be easy to use and allow students to retrieve information

  10. Methods Used • Scope: make the site CSCE only with static content to start • Collected course info • MyEdu reviews as base (plus some original) • Store various fields relevant to courses in an XML file • Use Digester to parse the XML file • Use Lucene to allow the user to search over courses and reviews

  11. Demo • Search for Course Number 470 • Search for Name Hurley • Search for Time MWF • Search for All “Database” • Search for All “Aggies Roolz” • Browse by Number • Browse by Prof

  12. Scenario 1 • Information need: retrieve relevant information for taking CSCE – 410 • AgProfessors: Search finds course and gives grade distributions • MyEdu: Search finds course and tells grade distributions and has professor reviews • CSS: Search finds course and gives general information about the course

  13. Scenario 2 • Information need: retrieve relevant courses to the search “scheduling and memory allocation” • Try to find course that covers this material • Hope to find CSCE – 410 • AgProfessors and MyEdu fall short here • This is the reason behind CSS • The search returns CSCE – 410

  14. Evaluation • All the searchable sites have useful information, the user needs to decide their information need • Grade Distributions • Professor Reviews • Course Scheduling/Reviews • CSS was made to find courses from a general search • We did not expect the other sites to perform well in this area

  15. Analysis • Student values a site that is essentially all in one package • Stanford’s Course Rank has all the features that any student would need when constructing a course schedule • Search capability • Reviews • Built in scheduling • Planning

  16. Conclusions • There is an obvious absence of searchable course listings • CSS is a site designed for finding courses you want • CSS could be further developed to implement more features • Writing reviews • Grade distributions • Course recommendations

  17. Conclusions • Information should be consolidated • CSS is a consolidated site, combining course listings with searchable descriptions and reviews • Reduces time retrieving information, as well as the hassle of doing so

  18. Questions?

  19. Thank You

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