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Academic Computing and Communications Center | |||||||||
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Up-to-the-Minute Course Information in Gopher |
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What is the final exam schedule for this semester? What courses will be available this summer and in the fall? Is the course you want register for open or closed? How many seats are left in the class? You can find up to the minute answers to all of these questions via Gopher. Gopher is available on the Computer Center's public personal computers and on CMS. Enter Gopher, and in the ADN Gopher main menu, select "The Classroom." The course availability information we're looking for comes from two items this menu:
When you're preparing to register, first use the items in the Timetable Listing menu to see what courses are available and what the prerequisites for those courses are. Then, after you decide what courses interest you, use Timetable Course Section Information to see which sections are still available. This is a gopher search, so an explanation is in order. When you select a gopher search item like Timetable Course Section Information, Gopher will display a prompt asking you to enter search keywords. What search keyword(s) you use depend on what courses you want and what the search engine you're using expects. In this case, in response to the "Enter keywords" prompt, type a list of the courses you are interested in, giving the department abbreviation and course number for each course, separated by spaces, and then press Enter. Some examples are: math 101 or: math 101 summer or: math 101 103 203 engl 304 405 or: engl 405 math 303 allCourse information for the upcoming semester (Fall or Spring) is searched by default; specify the keyword summer if you want information about the Summer Session. By default, only open sections are included, but you can override this by specifying the keywords all or closed. Don't worry if you can't remember how to do the search; if the Timetable search engine can t make sense of the search keywords that you enter (or if you just press Enter without having entered any search keywords), it returns a menu with just one entry: a document explaining how to use the Timetable search, and how to read the search results. When your Timetable search is successful, it returns a regular gopher menu, with a separate menu entry for each course you asked about and also a menu item leading to the how-to document. Select the entry for each course in turn to see the information about that course. TITLE- INTRO FINANCIAL ACTG CREDIT HOURS- 03.0 SEND NOTICE- CAMP SEQ REQ STAT EQUIV CR HRS- CRN TYP DEPT S DAYS BEGT ENDT BLDG ROOM CAP MAX ENR CEN REM 10225 1 068 1 C D050 1 1 T 1800 1950 BH 0305 080 065 000 000 065 10233 1 038 1 B D050 1 1 MW 1400 1450 LC 00D5 226 225 000 000 225As you can see above (which is a listing for Accounting 110), the course information itself is somewhat cryptic. It's in rows, one row for each section of the course. The CRN column gives the course numbers. DAYS tells what days the section meets (M for Monday, T for Tuesday, W for Wednesday, R for Thursday, and F for Friday), and BEGT and ENDT are the beginning and ending times. The times are given in 24 hour time: 00:01 to 12:00 are the standard morning hours; 12:00 is Noon; and 13:00 and later are afternoon and evening. Thus the first section, with call number 10225, is an evening course, which meets in ROOM 305 in the BLDG BH (Burnham Hall), Tuesdays, from 6pm to 7:50pm. The last five numbers are room and enrollment totals: CAP is the room's capacity, MAX is the maximum enrollment in the section, ENR is the current enrollment, CEN is not used, and REM is the number of spots remaining in the section. The Timetable Course Section Information searches the actual ISIS registration database, so the information it returns is correct up to the minute. It should prove to be a very valuable tool for both students and their faculty advisors during registration. It is brought to the ADN with the cooperation and help of the ISIS office and AISS, the administrative computer center. Comments are appreciated; send them to |
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| The ADN Connection, May/June 1994 | Previous: Class Scheduling Assistant | Next: Client Server Software: How Gopher Works |
| 1999-9-1 connect@uic.edu |
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