Class Central

making class scheduling decisions easier for students

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Inspiration

We were inspired by the inefficiencies in scheduling courses for students. Scheduling classes is always a stressful ordeal for students. Everyone needs to know what classes they need to take to graduate, what classes they would be interested in, what teachers are good or bad, and which classes are easier or harder. The counselors have to work with 300 students each, and can’t possibly be expected to give individualized attention to every student within a reasonable time frame.

What it does

Class Central addresses the scheduling issues by providing students with a central location where they can easily find all the information they need to know. Students can see what requirements they need to have to graduate, and input all the classes they’ve already taken to create a personalized transcript. This will help them make smart decisions about the classes they want to take. Students can also rate the teachers and classes they’ve had, and view other student’s ratings so that they can decide which classes they would enjoy taking.

How we built it

We built it using HTML, PHP, SQL, and CSS. We made a SQL database to store all the data, then built our main page using HTML. We styled it with CSS, and used PHP to create our functionality. We also used some JavaScript.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into issues with integrating data from our SQL database into our PHP main page, particularly the different types of ratings. However, we were able to successfully write PHP functions including SQL to display our data.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of getting our rating system working, and the graduation bar to display progress through transcript requirements.

What we learned

We learned how to successfully divide our work between front and back end, as well as working individually on different functinalities, then coming together to integrate them.

What's next for Class Central

With more time, our plans for Class Central are to add a comment function in our teacher ratings, with moderation for appropriateness. Also we would like to create a function where administrators can post announcements regarding which classes are full, which classes aren’t, and any updates about the scheduling process.

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