Course Navigation for NKU

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Couse 1 Pre-Requisites
Couse 2 Pre-Requisites

Inspiration

NKU Course Navigator was developed in response to the need for a more streamlined and organized approach for NKU students to navigate their academic journey. Our goal was to create a tool that simplifies the intricate process of planning course prerequisites and empowers students to confidently achieve their graduation objectives.

What it does

NKU Course Navigator is a website designed to streamline course planning for NKU students. It visualizes prerequisite chains and enables users to easily map out their path to graduation. By providing a clear overview of course sequences, it helps students make informed decisions about their academic trajectory. It has the catalog data of 3 years helpful for students who are freshman, sophomore and junior.

How we built it

We developed NKU Course Navigator using Selenium, BeautifulSoup, Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. We employed Selenium and Beautiful Soup to scrape NKU's undergraduate catalog and aggregated the data into JSON files. The platform integrates course data from these files and utilizes visual representations to illustrate prerequisite relationships. Our team collaborated to design an intuitive user interface and ensure accurate data handling.

Challenges we ran into

During development, we encountered several challenges, including: Navigating NKU's course catalog HTML and addressing inconsistent prerequisite formatting while scraping the courses. Building a disjunctive normal form algorithm to parse the prerequisite sections of the courses. Creating an intuitive visualization for complex prerequisite chains. Ensuring the platform's performance while handling large datasets.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successfully creating a functional prototype that accurately visualizes prerequisite paths. Designing a user-friendly interface that simplifies complex academic planning. Overcoming data integration challenges to deliver a seamless user experience.

What we learned

through this project, we gained valuable insights into: The importance of clear data visualization in academic planning. Techniques for handling and processing large datasets. The necessity of user-centric design to enhance the usability of educational tools.