AggieExplorer
Fall 21 Upkeep Project
Introduction
AggieExplorer is a full stack application that gives our fellow Aggies more insight into class statistics so that they can make a more informed decision when selecting classes. The sites include information about grade distributions and class enrollment. This tool was first introduced in Spring of 2021. The goal of the Fall 2021 cohort was to improve this site by enhancing user experience, improve usability, address bugs, and update information for the current quarter.
The Team
Prabhdeep Kainth — Project Manager
Derek Ma — Developer
Andrew Song — Developer
Sreeram Sandrapati — Developer
Timeframe
Oct–Nov 2021 | 6 weeks
Tools
ReactJS
Bootstrap
Node
MongoDB
Python Web/Excel Scraping
The Project
View the live website at https://www.aggieexplorer.com/.
Development
Update for Current Quarter
With a new quarter comes new classes. Enrollment for Winter 2022 is underway and so is enrollment statistics for AggieExplorer. Course metrics for this quarter were collected using web scraping to get course information (Available Seats, GE requirements, prerequisites, units, etc.). We store these metrics in our Mongo database and fetch this data in our frontend.
Improving Usability
We made some updates to better improve user experience. The enrollment page now displays seats available as percentages of total seats so that the graph is at the same scale for large classes (> 200 seats) and smaller classes (< 50 seats). Additionally, the grades page displays the classes selected in a similar fashion as the catalog page. Speaking of the catalog page, we have now implemented infinite scrolling and gotten rid of the next page buttons. Overall, the mobile view has been improved to allow a seamless user interaction.
Takeaways/Challenges
In-Person Work
With the return to in-person work, there needed to be some adjustments. Although we bonded over coursework and were able to communicate more effectively, we needed to figure out meeting logistics. Overall though, we learned that meeting face to face was beneficial to our team bonding and work efficiency.
Learning the Codebase
Since this project already had a functional codebase, getting acclimated with the code itself took a while. Instead of learning a new language and setting up new frameworks, we had to work with code that other people had written.
Closing
Looking back on our work during these last couple of weeks, we feel that we have successfully improved the functionality of the site and have set it up for success in the future. Although enhancements were made, there is always room for improvement and we are excited at what comes next for AggieExplorer.
