Jeff Chambers Kevin Hein Casey Jackman Kyle Mathews Brian Silvenis

Every morning 30,000 cougars wake up to the enormous task of preparing for the day. While each student was fast asleep, the internet was wide awake accepting all the changes to syllabi, course documents, assignments, and due dates posted the day before. Better check your calendar... But which one???

“If someone says I have a mistake in chapter 1, I have to go on my disk and make the changes to it there. Then I go to Blackboard and click modify, delete chapter 1 and toss it out—the whole thing! Then I have to browse for the updated file and upload it.” “Is there one…I have never even clicked on the Blackboard calendar.” Gayle Rockwood Attorney, BYU Mcomm instructor

Stats 67 percent of surveyed BYU students have missed an assignment deadline because scheduling problems with BlackBoard last semester alone.

Stats 95 percent of students have had an instructor at BYU that did not use blackboard and 51 (over half!) said it happens very often.

Stats 89 percent of students at BYU have had an instructor use a non-Blackboard website for access to course information.

Stats 65 percent of students would consider Blackboard a difficult way to synchronize classes

Stats 79 percent of students feel that Blackboard needs to be revised or replaced

Stats 86 percent of students familiar with Google Calendar (an interactive calendar) would consider it a simple and easy to use tool.

Stats 78 percent of students who use electronic calendars would like to assignments and syllabi to sync with their e-calendar.

How often have you had an instructor that did not use Blackboard for assignments?

Blackboard needs to be revised/replaced

Imagine something that could change the life of every student on BYU’s campus. What if it could save time, bring students together, and simplify lives? What if it served more than just students: teachers, staff, administration, clubs, employees, and sports?

What if it was free? Imagine…

–Students will be able to access their personal interactive calendar (similar to Google Calendar) –Students will further be able to search for individual courses and upon importing course calendars, the following will be synchronized for all their classes in calendar format: Course assignments Exams

This tool will give students the power to see at a glance, for ALL THEIR CLASSES: –When all of their assignments are due –Which days are more hectic than others –When they have time for leisure In addition, students will be able to enter their personal schedules in their interactive calendars –This includes work, church, sports, and other activities

What sets cougarSync apart? Between professors and students As an option, professors may organize their schedules to accommodate as many students as possible cougarSync will be able to filter through the students’ calendars and determine, using a range of dates specified by the professor, when the most students will have the lightest schedules for exams and assignments Among students Calendar sharing with cougarSync will help students easily organize study groups Utilizing a filter to compare the calendars of the students, cougarSync will quickly determine conflicts common openings among students’ schedules

Not only classes... In addition to synchronizing all assignments, quizzes, exams, etc., students will be able to use cougarSync to search for and import calendars that could easily be provided by: Clubs Intramural sports Other university-sponsored events and activities

Here’s a glimpse…

From the perspective of the teachers Professors can schedule office hours and know if a student is coming (the student can set appointments with professors via cougarSync) Professors have a single syllabus that can easily be updated, which will be immediately available to students, thus eliminating the need to send s to students for this purpose Professors may transfer their syllabus to a different semester or a different year automatically Professors can print their syllabi as normal hard copies Professors have the option of calculating when the best time is to schedule an assignment for their students

From the perspective of the students Students can synchronize their online school calendar with personal items and course syllabus To better distinguish between activities and classes, cougarSync will have a color-coded feature by class or category Students can schedule appointments with fellow students Students will be able to download their calendars onto their Palm Pilots and cell phones, with the optional feature of automatically silencing the phone during desired scheduled periods (such as class and church) Students will be able to receive automatic updates of course work or activities on their personal, interactive calendar, which is at a single location Students will be able to preview a class schedule before they sign up for the class that has been created based on existing time constraints (such as work) To better distinguish between activities and classes, cougarSync will have a color-coded feature by class or category for both professors and students

Is cougarSync really feasible? YES! Here’s how!

Feasibility Technological Easy to created BYU’s web programmers are capable of implementing changes very rapidly Economical Low maintenance costs Created by the students!

Jeff Rosenbaugh, Master of Information Systems “The value of a real world experience is better, you need a real world business situation.” What exactly is the student’s value?

15 – 20 hours

$

24 weeks

100 students

Minimum Human capital

$540,000

Maximum Human capital

$1.2 million

So what are we saying? We propose next year’s “Capstone” project be the creation of a test version of cougarSync

Gary Hansen, ISYS Associate Chair “Students would prefer to create something that other [students] could use and benefit from.” “It would be a worthwhile project and they would learn an enormous amount.”

What are the advantages to using the Isys students? We will be taking better advantage of our resources Students will gain real world, hands-on experience Students will feel more pride in their accomplishments, and see them come to life Could be here by Fall 2007

It’s wonderful… It’s feasible… It’s monumental… “Lost time is never found again” -Benjamin Franklin

Imagine…