Every semester students face the scheduling nightmare: juggling ideal class times with desired professors. Because of the launch of a new website, however, this semester's struggle might be a little less stressful.
Senior computer science major Michael McKay and sophomore computer science major Sasha Slutsker created OurUMD.com to ease the concerns of students who are frustrated with the scheduling services available. The site is a combination of the popular teacher evaluation website Pickaprof.com and student scheduling service, Testudo.umd.edu.
The site, launched a little more than a week ago, has already seen 317,249 hits and has almost 1,000 members on its Facebook group. The duo said they got the idea for the site in July because they were frustrated that Testudo.umd.edu doesn't allow its users to search for class by times. After a little development, they decided to expand the program to the university for free.
"It can be confusing, checking a site that costs money [such as Pickaprof.com] and then having to modify back-and-forth between three sites," said Slutsker. "It's annoying, frustrating and difficult."
The inventors almost paid out of pocket for the grade data that Pickaprof.com publishes for students. But because Pickaprof.com had already paid the cost, McKay received seven semesters of data through the Maryland Public Information Act.
The creators said they are committed to keeping the website free and don't have any imminent plans for advertisements. They said they just wanted to share the new resource with their fellow students.
"We wanted to provide students with a quick, easy place for students to make schedules for free," said Slutsker.
Student officials said they are happy about Slutsker and McKay's proactive steps.
"The more we can do to foster sound and knowledgeable decision making the better," said SGA President Andrew Friedson. "Students should know what they are getting into before they take a class."
Friedson said the Office of the Provost is planning a new service, which involves releasing course evaluations to students. The evaluations will be a better measurement of a class because it will require users to participate in the survey.
But the OurUMD.com creators hope to receive more input and interaction between students. They are continuing to add ideas to their site, such as a map feature that allows students to trace their path between classes.
McKay said his goal is for a quarter of the university to use the resource and find it "helpful and useful."
"I think it will help people avoid nightmarish professors," said McKay.
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