Final Proposal Final

8/10/2019 Final Proposal Final

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Table of Contents

Abstract 2

Introduction 3

Plan 5

Benefits 9

Approach 10

Evaluation 16

Qualification 17

Appendix 18

Initial Survey Results 18

Application Demo 23

Sources 26


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Abstract

Our team seeks to make the UNC Charlotte registration process a

more positive, successful experience for students. The registration software

and course schedules currently in place are chaotic and unorganized.

Students have to search for courses through layers of class levels and

departments to plan a schedule that fits together and includes course

requirements. This makes it even more difficult for students to plan for

future semesters and even graduate on time depending on whether or not

course requirements are found and completed. Our solution to thisregistration frustration is creating new registration software that sorts

through all of the courses offered in certain departments and plans out

schedules according to those selected courses. Students can now create

schedules in one place and Smart Scheduling takes care of most of the work.


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Why Smart Scheduling?

Current Situation:

The UNC Charlotte registration process seems to leave students with asense of frustration rather than relief. The start to a chaotic registrationweek begins and students frantically anticipate the fight for class spots andsearch for the seemingly hidden classes needed for major requirements.Students should not have problems with the course search engine andfinding what classes are necessary for certain majors. Figuring out whenupper level courses will be offered next and planning for future semesters

should be an easier process for students. It is time for a change in theregistration process.

The Problem:Have you ever wondered if you have taken all of the prerequisite

courses needed for your major? What are the core classes necessary foryour major? What classes have you already taken? What classes havent youtaken? What should you do when your necessary courses have timeconflicts? Do you ever wish that the registration system would plan out yoursemester and future semesters?

The current registration process is extremely limited in terms of what can bedone to make things easier for students. Instead of simply acknowledgingthe time conflict between selected courses, offer an alternative. Supply a listof the major course requirements and label which classes have beencompleted. In such a technologically advanced generation, UNC Charlotteshould have a more cutting-edge registration software system.

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Evidence:

Based on the survey results, most students have the most troublelocating general education course and major specific courses. After eachpassing semester, students claim that the registration process has notgotten any easier. Most students consult a variety of resources to simplyregister for classes. Registration should be an easier process for students.Advisor meetings and course catalogs are not enough to make for a smoothregistration experience.

Relevance:

Being a college student, this problem is more than relevant and affectsall of us. We have all experienced registration to some extent and we are allaware of the problems and difficulties associated with registration. However,these issues regarding the registration process can be changed for thebetter. As the saying goes, out with the old and in with the new.

Our Solution:We have created a registration system that plans and sorts classes

according to the individual needs of each student. This software considerswhat classes have already been completed and compares that information towhat classes are necessary for each major. This new software is able to planfor future semesters based on the courses completed. In addition tocoursework, this software system can sort the times, dates, and coursesneeded into one easily acquired schedule. Its a new day and age. Welcometo Smart Scheduling.

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Proposed Plan

Overview:

The goal of the plan is to provide UNCC students with a better registration

experience. Students need a registration process that generates possible

schedules based on criteria that is important to them, such as the time the

class meets, the days it meets, whether it is a pre-requisite, and whether it

is needed for their major.

We believe that this can be accomplished by 1) standardizing and storing

pre-requisite, major requirements, and course rotation information in adatabase, and 2) expanding the existing registration process in Banner by

allowing more powerful search and filtering using the additional enhanced

data.

Implementation Details

The registration overhaul consists of two main parts: enhance data available

in Banner, and update the current banner software to incorporate the new

data into the registration process.

Part I Enhance data available in BannerThe University needs to create a cross-departmental project with the goal of

standardizing the information for the pre-requisites for each course, the

schedule of course rotations, and the courses that are required for each

major and degree. Once this information is standardized it needs to be

stored and maintained in a database.


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Part II Enhance the Banner software

Once the additional data is collected, the user interface for scheduling needsto be greatly enhanced to allow for more informed scheduling. See

Appendix for sample walkthrough.

User should be able to enter constraints into banner regarding whatcourses to build a schedule upon. For example, user wants to takeMATH 2142 and any MATH 3000 level class

Given the enhance data, user should be able to request a coursethat is required for their major that they meet the prerequisites for.

With the enhanced user data, user should be able to enter a targetclass, and the constraint generated is to select the pre-requisitesfor that class that have not yet been met.

User should be able to enter constraints based on specific classtimes, or any AM or PM class

User should be able to enter constraints based on days User should be able to enter constraints based on the instructor, or

internet only Given the constraints the user has entered, the system should

generate all possible valid schedules. If no full schedule meets valid constraints, banner should relax

constraints until a valid schedule is returned, along with the failing

constraint User should be able to filter on only packed schedules, i.e.

schedules with no gaps between classes on any given day Schedules generated should be in order by day and time Should also generate future semester schedules by course to help

with graduation planning

Why our solution is the best

We believe this is the best solution because the solution is complete.

Implementing either part of the solution would help, however, the real

power of both pieces lies in being able to combine student specificinformation and needs with the course scheduling information.

Implementing Part I only would leave banner unchanged, so figuring out

schedules would have to be done by hand, outside of the system.

Part II only would allow banner to generate schedules, however, it would not


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know the individual users courses taken, and major requirements so would

be a limited help in long term planning for graduation.

Possible objections

Data Security The proposed solution involves combining scheduling data

and student data. Following standard database security and information

access protocols should mitigate the concern with inappropriate access to

student data.

Banner already includes all of the student data. Our proposal just allows the

user to see their own personal information combined with class schedule

information

Expense Given the Universitys overall budget, this is a relatively small

expense, and will provide a substantial benefit to the entire student

population. Departments will have to undertake a one time effort to

standardize data and an ongoing effort to keep it updated. Aside from the

fact that it is being put into an information system, the effort should be no

different than the current effort taken to keep this information up to date.

For Banner, there will be a one time effort to enhance the interface, and

write the logic to handle the new data, but the ongoing effort to keep Banner

functioning should fall within the current Banner maintenance effort.


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ComputabilityThe proposed solution allows schedules to be generatedbased on constraints entered by the user. It is possible given loose enough

constraints that the number of possible schedule permutations is so large

that the program would never finish generating schedules.

First, given practical set of constraints, the number of possible schedules

decreases quickly since there are only so many classes offered at any one

time and only so many slots available during a given week.

Second, the software can easily cap the number of results returned without

trying to generate all possible solutions.

Meeting Standards

Our proposal for the project follows a standard software implementation

proposal where a project management team interacts with the source of the

data to determine specifications, then hands the specifications off to the

database administrators and software developers. Appropriate testing occurs

at each step

Additionally, we believe our proposal adheres to the current UNCC

information Security policy located here. http://legal.uncc.edu/policies/up-

311

The student specific data already exists and is viewable by that particular

student. Our proposal will keep this data separate from the less sensitive

course data, We are just allowing the student to see their own personal data

combined with course data. The data already exists in separate areas of

Banner.


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Benefits

Problems With Banner

Every semester students find themselves

forced to work with Banner on 49er

express in order to sign up for classes for

the following term. This period of time

results in the heaviest call load to the IT

help desk, and the highest amount of

frustration students experience with the

system. The goal of any online

application used by this school should be

to ease the average students experience, knowing this is one of the most

stressful times in their educational careers. Banner has been shown to fail

under heavy usage by students, have search tools that have never worked,

and generally exacerbate an already difficult process. This difficulty doesn't

just concern students. Multiple students recalled witnessing their advisors

experience difficulty in opening the application, or in traversing its pages.

Until now Banner and its maintenance has been provided by Elucian inc. but

in light of survey results presented in this packet showing marked levels of

dissatisfaction with their current product, we believe that Smart Scheduling

would be a better choice for all your online scheduling needs. With the

information we gathered in our extensive surveying of your student body,

we believe that we can improve students experience with scheduling classes

in the following ways:

Improvements

! Shorten the overall time taken each semester scheduling classes

! Update and replace old search tools that never worked

! Make accessing student information as an advisor easier! Help students align times within their schedules better

! Help students search through the class list faster than before

! Ease the experience overall for students registering

! Offer more useful visuals than the previous application

! Run the application with less failures and less maintenance


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Approach

Overview:

Smart Scheduling will contract with the University to provide project

management services with the goal of enhancing the course registration

process. Smart Scheduling will provide a project manager and process

analysts to work with University departments to create the missing course

data. Once the additional course information has been gathered and stored

in a database, Smart Scheduling will work with University software

developers and University database administrators to expand the capabilities

of Banner to allow the use of the new data.

Project Organization and Responsibilities:

Departmental Resources

Currently, information regarding pre-requisites, major requirements, and

course rotations exists within individual departments in a variety of formats,

but is not centralized in a database. Smart Scheduling will need to work with

personnel in each department to gather the information and normalize it so

that it can be stored in a database for use in scheduling.


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Project Manager and Process Analysts from Smart Scheduling

The project manager and process analysts are responsible for facilitating the

process and serving as the liaison between the University departments and

the technical developers.

University Banner Database Administrator (DBA)

The DBA is responsible for expanding the existing database to hold the new

course information and creating a process to maintain the data.

University Front End Developer

The Front End Developer is responsible for changing the user interface that

students use for course registration to allow for better filtering, search, and

the inclusion of the new data sources.


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Timeline:

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Projected Costs:

Smart Scheduling will hire a project manager and 2 process analysts tocomplete the work. We will also require the use of departmental resources to

gather information and University DBAs and University software developers

to complete the project.

Since the 4 Smart Scheduling co-founders are UNCC students, we have

agreed to waive our normal consulting fee to facilitate this project.

The project costs are predominately one-time costs associated with

gathering the information and expanding existing databases and interfaces.

The keys to completing this project in the timeframe allotted are a good

project manager and process analysts. They are able to drive the process

forward and communicate effectively between the departmental side and the

technical side.

Additionally, there will be ongoing maintenance costs from both the

Departmental standpoint and the DBA standpoint after the project has been

completed. e believe these ongoing costs should be small and should not

impose a significant time commitments time commitment for several

reasons. First, the data is similar to the data that already exists for courses.This should allow for the maintenance to be folded into the normal

maintenance required each semester for determining what classes are

offered. Second, this additional data relates to majors and pre-requisites, it

is far less likely to have significant changes than the complete rescheduling

that occurs each semester for course specific data.


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Resource Cost

Smart Scheduling Consulting Fee Waived for UNCC

Project Manager on 4 month contract $30,000

2 Process Analysts on 2 month contract $20,000

Departmental Resources for data collection Assumes available

University DBA Assumes available

University Developer Assumes available

Total $50,000


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Smart Scheduling Organization


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Evaluation

We will assess the success of the project based on three criteria:

1. Did the project finish in time for the Spring 2015 registration session?2. Was the project completed within budget?3. Have student satisfaction scores increased after the implementation of

the proposal?

While the project is being implemented, we will monitor costs and timeline

using the proposed schedule and budget.

After implementation we will assess satisfaction by giving the same Survey

Monkey survey to all participants and comparing the results to the initial

survey.


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Qualifications

Caitlyn BergmannBrand Identity Director

Caitlyn spent 7 years as the global brand director at Nike.

Caitlyn was a key administrative leader of the team

responsible for leading strategy and implementing programs

for Nike athletes around the world. She has engaging and

strategic skills which are essential at Smart Scheduling.

Christopher GraferDeveloper/Engineer

Chris spent 12 years consulting on information system

implementation projects for a variety of Fortune 500companies. He is experienced in managing the business and

technical aspects of projects of this size. He holds an MBA andan undergraduate degree in Computer Science.

Jacob ShawVisual Designer/Engineer

Jacob spent 5 years at Apple Inc. where he specialized in

visual design aspects and engineering. While at Apple Inc.his primary role included designing visual UI and

incorporating them into products including software run on

the Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Noah MillerDirector of Marketing

Noah holds a degree in Marketing with a concentration inSocial Media. He spent 5 years working for several early

stage software development companies focused on new

business acquisition and electronic media integration. He is

currently serving as the Director of Marketing for Smart

Scheduling.


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Appendix:

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Sources

Portion of 49erexpress related to Banner

https://49erexpress.uncc.edu/cp/home/displaylogin

Departmental Websites

http://belkcollege.uncc.edu/

http://coaa.uncc.edu/

http://cci.uncc.edu/

http://education.uncc.edu/

http://health.uncc.edu/

http://clas.uncc.edu/

http://engr.uncc.edu/

Standards

http://www.versionone.com/pdf/V1_The_Agile_Project_Manager.pdf

http://www.globalpmstandards.org/attachments/GAPPS_Project_Manager_v

1.1150411_A4.pdf

http://legal.uncc.edu/policies/up-311

Other resources

http://www.salary.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management

Documents

Final Proposal Final