Sample  size:  20  UG  and  PG  students  from  different  faculties.

Figure  9:  Level  of  importance  of  each  functionality.

Figure  10:  Level  of  satisfaction  with  each  functionality.

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Plan  courses Course  tooltip Recommend  popular  courses

Add  and  remove  courses

Handbook  search  

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Responsive  handbook  results

Grade  distribution

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Satisfaction  with  Functionalities

Authors:  Wilsen  Tjhung  and  Michael  SimartaSupervisor:  Dr. John  Shepherd

Introduction

Aims  and  Objectives

Functionalities

• Currently, course advice and progression checking are done manually, at high cost.• Previous implementations of the automated course advisors had limitations:

o The academic requirements are not completely represented.o No intuitive way for students to plan their degrees.o No intuitive way to recommend suitable courses.o Not well integrated with other systems (e.g. Handbook)o Did not handle dual-­award programs or transfer students well

• Provide dynamic information that is always up-­to-­date and an accurate representation of faculty rules and regulations.• Provide enrolment information that is easily accessible by both students and student administrators.• Provide fully-­automated progression checks on academic requirements towards degree completion and inform studentson their academic progress.

• Provide students the full control to conveniently plan their degrees while having accessible and understandable programand stream rules, and having the validity of their plans checked regularly.

• Provide accurate and reliable course recommendation.• Reduce workload for admin staff and Directors of Studies.• Provide good UI design to ensure system usability.

ConclusionsAll implemented functionalities are correct and accurate without any major issues. Figure 9 emphasizes the importance of a course advisor system for UNSW demographics. Figure 10 shows the positiveresponse of students towards the degree planner-­related functionalities in our system. They felt that the degree planning system provided the flexibility to plan their degrees according to their own preferenceswhile keeping them informed of their progression. Students appreciated the integrated handbook capability (preferring to the existing handbook and especially the grade distribution, which they felt gives thema sense of the course difficulty.

UNSW Course Advisor

Method

• Implementation is based on two PostgreSQL databases:o AIMS database contains all the academic rules and requirements.o SIS database contains anonymised student data including programand stream enrolments, and academic transcript.

• Technologies used are PHP (Middleware), JavaScript and CSS Bootstrap(Frontend), Python (scripting for parsing the requisites).

Figure  8:  Simplified  execution  flow  of  the  overall  web  system.

Overview  Component Report  Component• View  basic  information  about  program  and  stream  enrolments.

• Expanded  view  shows  the  rules  and  requirements.

Figure 1: Overview page.

• View  academic  transcript with  completed  UOC  and  UNSW  WAM.

Figure 2: Report page.

Planner  Component Progression Component• Planner  board  shows  courses  in  past  and  future  terms.• Progression  board  shows  not  yet  completed  requirements.

• Progress  bars  show  UOC  completed  for  stream/program.• Drag-­and-­drop  mechanism  used to  plan  courses.• Alert  notifications  on  dropping  ineligible  courses.• Integrated  with  recommended  popular  courses.• Add  and  remove  preferred  courses.• Course  tooltip  for  quick  access  to  course  information  such  as  remaining  prerequisites,  remaining  corequisites and  course  offerings.

Figure  3:  Degree  planning.

Figure  4:  Alert  notifications.                                          Figure  5:  Course  tooltip.

• View  detailed completed  and  remaining  requirements.

Figure 6:  Progression  page.

Handbook  Component• Search  any  courses,  streams  and programs  with  fast  autocompletion.

• Responsive  handbook  results  such  as  course  eligibility,  GenEd eligibility,  remaining  prerequisites  and  remaining  corequisites.

• Check  course  difficulty  from  grade  distribution.

Figure  7:  Handbook  result.

Evaluation

Future  WorksCompletely specify all prerequisites and corequisites for all courses. More options for recommended courses such that recommendations can be based on the types of courses taken or the marks obtainedfrom similar courses. Autoload feature to fill plan based on the structure recommended by faculties or the fastest time taken to graduate. Improve UI design especially the colour convention used.