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. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Login as an existing user Guest form View basic information View progression checks Plan courses Course tooltip Recommend popular courses Add and remove courses Handbook search autocompletion Responsive handbook results Grade distribution Average Importance (out of 10) Functionalities Importance of Functionalities 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Login as an existing user Guest form View basic information View progression checks Plan courses Course tooltip Recommend popular courses Add and remove courses Handbook search autocompletion Responsive handbook results Grade distribution Average Satisfaction (out of 10) Functionalities Satisfaction with Functionalities Authors: Wilsen Tjhung and Michael Simarta Supervisor: 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 dualaward programs or transfer students well • Provide dynamic information that is always uptodate and an accurate representation of faculty rules and regulations. • Provide enrolment information that is easily accessible by both students and student administrators. • Provide fullyautomated progression checks on academic requirements towards degree completion and inform students on their academic progress. • Provide students the full control to conveniently plan their degrees while having accessible and understandable program and 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. Conclusions All 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 positive response of students towards the degree plannerrelated functionalities in our system. They felt that the degree planning system provided the flexibility to plan their degrees according to their own preferences while 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 them a 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 program and 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. • Draganddrop 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 Works Completely 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 obtained from 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.