1 / 19

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.

bunme
Télécharger la présentation

Computer Science Search

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  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

More Related