Abstract

1. The University Class Scheduler (U.C.S.) Deanna Needell, Jeff Stuart, Tamara Thiel Dr. Sergiu Dascalu, Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. Department of Computer Science, University of Nevada, Reno Abstract The University Class Scheduler (U.C.S) is an innovative scheduling tool. It is intended to be used by major Universities to schedule classes into classrooms, although it can easily be adapted for general use outside the academic realm. U.C.S. allows University administrators to enter relevant college and building information, schedule the input classes into the input classrooms, and create web pages linking to the appropriate University pages with the scheduled class/classroom information. Scheduling is done based on a wide variety of user-chosen parameters. Thus U.C.S. is quite flexible to each individual user’s needs. U.C.S. also comes with a generic XML parser, allowing the program to read and translate files it has stored. • Future Extensions • Suggest an optimal course of action for resolving scheduling conflicts • Extend the scheduling capabilities to also schedule class times • Include additional features that will make the UCS a more general scheduling system Use Case Diagram The Use Case diagram depicts the interactions between the staff, students, and professors of the University and the program. The staff of each department will enter in the professor, college, building, department, class, and classroom information. Once this is done, the University administrator will use the University Class Scheduler to create the classroom schedule. The University Catalog Creators will then use the generated classroom schedule to create the semester class catalog. The University webmaster will post the web pages and the generated schedule file to the University’s server. Then students and professors may view and use those web pages. Web Pages Output by U.C.S. Web Pages 1: Department Page – Displays schedule of classes in classrooms per department. Web Pages 2: Classroom Page – Displays schedule of classes in a classroom Add Class The most important of the user interfaces provides a means for entering class information. Because the structure of classes at different Universities varies, this component allows for flexibility. It allows the user to subdivide classes into lectures and labs, manually restrict lab locations, enter different class times on different days, and provide other mechanisms to distinguish classes of different types. • Main Characteristics / Components:  • The University Class Scheduler will consist primarily of two components:  • The first component is used by the administrators of the University. This component allows the administrator of each University department to enter in, either manually or from a file, the department’s classes, times, and professors. The program then saves this information. Next, this component schedules the input classes into classrooms without overlap based on various constraints and parameters set by the user. Such constraints may be classroom size, distance from department, and room features.   • Once the scheduling is complete, the program creates a Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML) file based on the user’s parameters. This file embodies the second component of the program, and will be used by students. It consists of a list of classes and contains appropriate links to the University’s online map system, as well as professor and department home pages.  • The University Class Scheduler is written in C++, and its interfaces are implemented using the QT Non-Commercial Toolkit. It stores all files used by the program in XML format. Schedule User can set parameters that U.C.S. needs to consider when scheduling classes into classrooms. Once all the parameters are set, and the user selects the Schedule button, U.C.S. puts the classes into available classrooms. If no complete schedule can be created, the user is notified and must resolve the conflict. Once scheduling is complete, the user can create web pages to enable students to view the data. Information: For additional information, please visit our web site at:http://www.cs.unr.edu/~Needell/cs426/ This project was developed as part of the Senior Projects course CS426, Instructor Dr. Sergiu Dascalu, Spring 2003