There's Been a Change in Schedule: A New Tool for Students
How collaboration brought the Schedule Planner to UMBC
It was several years ago that UMBC students decided that the best tool for them to utilize would be a 'schedule builder'. They created a custom program that would look at the list of classes being offered for the semester and block out certain times to help make the perfect schedule.
By word of mouth, the schedule builder spread around the campus but the group of students graduated and did not maintain support for the product.
“We sought a more holistic solution…”
Arnold Foelster, Director for Enterprise Applications, was just one of the several people who helped bring
the new Schedule Planner to life. “UMBC looked at the [previous] product and saw great value, however we also found some shortcomings.” Foelster said, “We sought a more holistic solution that had single sign-on, was mobile friendly, and real-time integration with our student system.”
DoIT had been listening to student feedback carefully, with common complaints that registration isn't the best experience it can be and that it doesn't match the needs of today's student.
Image shows a screenshot of an example schedule generated with the tool. In the top right, you can see a “Send to Shopping Cart” option that automates the process of registering for courses, while making a visually appealing layout.
“I couldn’t really stop and get lunch or a snack.”
In the last spring semester, Matthew Titzer, a sophomore in Information Systems, was enrolled in classes back to back, creating a very stressful schedule for him. “I couldn’t really stop and get lunch or a snack.” said Titzer.
After discovering one of his classes was cancelled, Titzer was able to use the Schedule Planner to easily find a new class. “The Scheduler Planner is extremely helpful,” said Titzer, “it has helped me fit a class into my packed schedule.”
Now, thanks to the planner tool, Titzer has more control over his time and highly recommends it for anyone to use. “Generate schedules for your classes to see if you can find a more stress-free schedule.” said Titzer, “I highly recommend it for anyone to use.”
Image shows Ken Baron, Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Advising and Student Success, next to a UMBC map. Baron was just one of several people that helped bring the Schedule Planner to UMBC.
“Collaborating with DoIT on the Schedule Planner has been, and will continue to be instrumental.”
Ken Baron, Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Advising and Student Success, worked closely with both DoIT and the Registrar’s Office on the tool. Baron said, “Collaborating with DoIT on the Schedule Planner has been, and will continue to be instrumental.”
The Office of Academic and Pre-Professional Advising worked with DoIT to review, test, and evaluate the Schedule Planner so that it suited the needs of students. They also have leveraged UMBC’s Academic Advising Community through demonstrations and feature reviews during Advising Community meetings, specific training sessions and through targeted communications posted on the Advising Community’s myUMBC group.
Image shows UMBC Advising and Orientation day.
“We believe that one of the most dynamic qualities of College Scheduler is its ability to strategically reveal exciting and relevant general education courses.” said Baron. “The College Scheduler has the ability to present a rich array of potential course options that meet the specific needs of students while also highlighting for consideration – a whole host of courses that students may not have considered otherwise.”
Working with DoIT however, was key in delivering a great product. “In particular, DoIT colleagues have taken the time to understand our desire to reduce and eliminate (where possible) the “clerical nature” of certain academic advising tasks.” said Baron.
“Moving away from pen and paper process….is what students and the campus as a whole would like to see.”
The collaborations didn't just stop with Baron though, another key figure was Iman Riddick, Assistant Registrar. Riddick understood the need to enhance the enrollment & registration process for students. She was instrumental in working with a team comprised of Academic Advising and DoIT for the initial setup and soft roll out of the tool during the Summer 2016 orientation.
Image shows student advising underway.
Riddick sees students using this during enrollment periods to find the best possible schedule of classes for each term. “Moving away from the pen and paper process and being able to instantly and easily generate all conflict free schedules possible is what students and the campus as a whole would like to see.” said Riddick.
Riddick also emphasized the role DoIT played with the tool. “DoIT has been very instrumental in the technological set up of our PeopleSoft system and the College Scheduler product.” said Riddick. “The team made sure that all security requirements are met in order to protect the students and UMBC’s systems.
“A step of many in improving the registration process and system…”
Thanks to a strong collaboration from DoIT, Advising, and the Registrar's Office a very useful tool was able to come forth and help enrich student lives. Before, student schedules could be a mess. Now, the new planner tool amends all that, in what Foelster calls a step in the right direction.
“A step of many in improving the registration process and system so that it better meets the needs of not just today’s students, but tomorrow’s students as well.” said Foelster.
Read more about how to use the Schedule Planner here
Like this story? Read more DoIT success stories:
The Schedule Planner offered by UMBC is a dynamic tool that can generate multiple possible schedules, and then send them to checkout in PeopleSoft. You can access it by navigating to myUMBC, selecting topics, and then selecting classes & grades.
It’s important to note that the scheduler does not replace Peoplesoft when adding classes, but it does make scheduling classes easier.
Before beginning, you may need to disable the pop-up blocker on your browser to launch the Scheduler Planner. The Scheduler Planner helps you plan your classes you want to take while factoring in your free time needs. It’s a mobile friendly, cloud based tool that will remember all your values you select while using it. The planner can be broken down into three key sections: search terms, courses & breaks, and schedules.
Search Terms
Once you’re set, using the planner is easy and intuitive. You can select which campus you want to plan your schedule on (Shady Grove, Off Campus, UMBC), or even incorporate all three.
Image shows what the search fields look like when using the desktop client. From here, you have complete customization of how you want to search for classes and generate your schedule.
The Schedule Planner takes into account many different terms you can set yourself. You can search for open classes only, open & full, or even open & full with an open waitlist. You can also choose between online classes and hybrid classes. Want to set the search to only Engineering & Information Technology? You can change that under the Academic Groups field.
Courses & Breaks
You can search for any class through the Schedule Planner by subject or by course attribute. To get started, select “Add Course” and then proceed to search for what course you want. After adding the course, you can select “Options” to choose what sections you want to include or exclude before you generate your schedules.
Image shows an example course selection list when using the desktop client. Under “Options” you can select which section you want to include before generating your schedule. The “i” in the blue circle gives the course info. Note that until you view a possible schedule, the lock icon will be greyed out. After you do view a schedule and lock it from there, you can unlock it
Breaks are times during the day that you do not wish to take classes. You can add multiple breaks that can be customized individually and applied to whichever day you want.
Schedules
After you have added your desired courses and breaks, simply select “Generate Schedules”. If you have any course conflicts, you won't be able to see the schedule until you address the conflicts. If you select the magnifying glass you can get a quick glance at what each schedule looks like.
Image shows what the view screen looks like using the desktop client. You can lock courses, see how many seats are open and get a basic overview of how long each course runs. Note the message up top that reads "You are viewing a potential schedule only and you must still register." These classes are not in your cart so be sure to use the "Send to Shopping Cart" option to proceed to PeopleSoft's interface
For more in-depth information, you can select 2 or more schedules to compare side by side. You can also select view to give you a complete look and overview of everything. One thing you can do is “lock” a course by selecting the lock icon. This tells the planner tool that you want to keep that particular section for a course which it will then only incorporate if you decide to generate alternative schedules.
Once you finalize which schedule you want, you can send all of the courses you have selected straight to PeopleSoft checkout. There are helpful videos at the top of the Schedule Planner tool in addition to
DoIT’s FAQs on the tool.
Image shows an example of a 'finalized' schedule.
Interested in learning about how the Schedule Planner came to be? Check out that story here.
Want to know what other software is available to UMBC students? Check out the Student Resources Page over on the DoIT website.
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