Tag Archives: class

HOW CAN USER FEEDBACK BE INCORPORATED INTO THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF A CLASS SCHEDULING SYSTEM

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Incorporating user feedback is crucial when developing any system that is intended for end users. For a class scheduling system, gaining insights from students, instructors, and administrators can help ensure the final product meets real-world needs and is easy to use. There are several ways to collect and apply feedback throughout the development life cycle.

During the requirements gathering phase, user research should be conducted to understand how the current manual or outdated scheduling process works, as well as pain points that need to be addressed. Focus groups and interviews with representatives from the target user groups can provide rich qualitative feedback. Surveys can also help collect feedback from a wider audience on desired features and functionality. Studying examples from comparable universities’ course planning platforms would also offer ideas. With consent, usability testing of competitors’ systems could provide opportunities to observe users accomplishing typical tasks and uncover frustrations.

The collected feedback should be synthesized and used to define detailed functional specifications and user stories for the development team. Personas should be created to represent the different user types so their needs remain front of mind during design. A preliminary information architecture and conceptual prototypes or paper wireframes could then be created to validate the understanding of requirements with users. Feedback on early designs and ideas ensures scope creep is avoided and resources are focused on higher priority needs.

Once development of core functionality begins, a beta testing program engaging actual end users can provide valuable feedback for improvements. Small groups of representative users could be invited to test pre-release versions in a usability lab or remotely, while providing feedback through structured interviews, surveys and bug reporting. Observing users accomplish tasks in this staged environment would surface bugs, performance issues, and incomplete or confusing functionality before official release. Further design enhancements or changes in approach based on beta feedback helps strengthen the system.

Throughout the development cycle, an online feedback portal, helpdesk system, or community forum are additional channels to gather ongoing input from a wider audience. Crowdsourcing ideas this way provides a broader range of perspectives beyond a limited testing pool. The portal should make it easy for users to submit enhancement requests, bugs, comments and suggestions in a structured format, with voting to prioritize the most impactful items. Regular review of the feedback repository ensures no inputs are overlooked as work continues.

After launch, it is critical to continue soliciting and addressing user feedback to support ongoing improvement. Integrating feedback channels directly into the scheduling system interface keeps the process top of mind. Options like in-app surveys, feedback buttons, and context-sensitive help can collect insights from actual usage in real scenarios. Usage metrics and log data should also be analyzed to uncover pain points or suboptimal workflows. The customer support team also serves as an invaluable source of feedback from addressing user issues and questions.

All captured feedback must be systematically tracked and prioritized through a workflow like an Agile backlog, issue tracker, or project board. The project team needs to regularly pull highest priority items for resolution in upcoming sprints or releases based on factors like urgency, usage volume, ease of fixing, and stakeholder requests. Communicating feedback resolution and applying learnings gained keeps users invested in the process. Over time, continuous improvement informed by users at every step helps ensure a class scheduling system that optimally supports their evolving needs.

Incorporating user feedback is an ongoing commitment across the entire system development lifecycle. Gaining insights from representative end users through multiple channels provides invaluable guidance to address real-world needs and deliver a class scheduling solution that is intuitive, efficient and truly helpful. Maintaining open feedback loops even after launch keeps the product advancing in a direction aligned with its community of instructors, students and administrators. When prioritized and acted upon systematically, user input is one of the most effective ways to develop software that optimally serves its intended audience.

CAN YOU PROVIDE SOME EXAMPLES OF TECHNOLOGIES AND FRAMEWORKS THAT COULD BE USED FOR DEVELOPING A CLASS SCHEDULING SYSTEM

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A class scheduling system would allow students to browse class options, view schedules, and register for classes. It would also need to integrate with administrative functions like faculty roster management and classroom/resource allocation. Such a system could be developed as a web application leveraging modern front-end and back-end technologies.

On the front-end, a framework like React would be well-suited to build components and views for browsing classes, viewing schedules, performing searches, and handling registration/checkout flows. React is very popular, has a large ecosystem of third-party components, and facilitates building complex single-page applications. The views could be made responsive using CSS frameworks like Bootstrap or Tailwind CSS.

For the administrative interfaces, traditional server-side rendered views using a framework like Laravel or Django may be preferable for their admin templates and access controls out of the box. A unified frontend in React interfacing with the same API as the admin views could also be implemented.

The back-end would require a database to store classes, schedules, users and associated metadata. A relational database like PostgreSQL or MySQL would be appropriate to model the different entities and their relationships. An object-document mapper (ODM) like Sequelize for PostgreSQL or Mongoose for MongoDB could provide an abstraction layer over the raw queries.

The application backend could be built using a full-stack JavaScript framework like Node.js/Express or Python/Django. These provide routing, middleware and tooling to build RESTful JSON APIs for the front-end to consume. Node.js has the advantage of offering a unified programming experience with the frontend. Other choices like Python, PHP or Java are also commonly used.

Security is important – user authentication would be required via credentials and OAuth/OIDC. Authorization policies for accessing administrative functionality should also be in place. Passport.js is a popular Node.js authentication middleware supporting different identity providers and OAuth2 flows.

Caching and data access objects should be implemented to avoid hitting the database on every request. A caching library like Redis could store frequently accessed data more efficiently. ORMs provide abstraction but additional query builders may help construct complex dynamic queries for browsing/searching classes.

Automated testing is critical for any application – unit tests validate business logic, integration tests exercise app functions, UI tests validate views. Frameworks like Jest, Mocha and React Testing Library help write reliable tests. Continuous integration using GitHub Actions or Jenkins runs tests on code changes.

In production, the application would require cloud hosting – popular choices include AWS (EC2, ECS, RDS), Google Cloud Platform and Azure. Containerization using Docker to package and deploy the app is common. Serverless technologies on AWS Lambda/API Gateway or Azure Functions handle automated scaling. Caching, databases and hosting can all be deployed as fully managed cloud services.

For optimal UX, integration with single-sign on (SSO) identity providers is valuable like campus Active Directory accounts. Interfaces with downstream administrative systems ensure consistency of class data. Accessibility standards help all users browse and register effectively. Complying with FERPA/privacy regulations is also important for student data.

Proper documentation generated from code comments ensures seamless onboarding. Configuration management with Git ensures stable deployments. Logging, monitoring and alerting tools provide operational visibility for support. An agile development approach with user research helps iteratively refine and expand functionality over time.

Modern frameworks, database, APIs, authentication, caching, testing, infrastructure automation, security practices and integration enable building a robust, scalable and accessible class scheduling application to streamline the registration experience for students and staff alike. Careful design informed by users maximizes value. With the right technologies and approach, the system can efficiently fulfill its core functions while remaining adaptable to evolving requirements.

CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLASS MODULES AND STANDARD MODULES IN EXCEL VBA

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In VBA, there are two main types of code modules – standard modules and class modules. While both allow writing macros and procedures to automate Excel, there are some key differences between them.

Standard modules, sometimes referred to as regular modules, are the default module type in VBA. They use a declarative programming style where all procedures and variables declared in a standard module are available to the entire project. Code written in standard modules can directly manipulate objects, write to cells, run macros, etc. Code written in standard modules does not support object-oriented programming features like encapsulation and inheritance that are supported by class modules.

Class modules allow writing code using object-oriented programming principles in VBA. A class module defines a data type template for an object and is used to instantiate objects of that class. Class modules contain procedure codes just like standard modules, but the procedures and variables declared inside a class are private to that class by default and cannot be accessed directly from outside the class. To access the members of a class, you need to create an instance of that class first. For example, to access the properties and methods of a class called Employee, you would need to instantiate it as Set Emp = New Employee.

Some key differences between standard modules and class modules in VBA:

Standard modules use declarative programming style while class modules use object-oriented programming principles like encapsulation and inheritance.

Variables and procedure declared in a standard module are public and can be accessed from anywhere in the VBA project directly. Variables and procedures declared in a class module are private to that class by default and require object instantiation to access.

Standard modules do not support object-oriented features like inheritance and polymorphism. But classes can inherit from other classes and procedures can be overridden to support polymorphism.

Standard modules are used primarily for procedural macros and utility functions. Class modules are used when you need to model real-world objects and behaviors using objects and OOP concepts.

Code in standard modules cannot be reused by instantiating objects. Code in a class can be reused by instantiating multiple objects from the same class.

Standard modules do not require instantiating objects before accessing the members. Class modules require creating instance objects using Set ObjectName = New ClassName before accessing members.

Some key similarities between them:

Both can contain variable and procedure declarations to automate tasks in Excel.

Standard modules and class modules can call procedures declared in each other.

Both support parameter passing in procedures and functions.

Standard modules are mostly used for procedural programming whereas class modules support object-oriented features like encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism by modeling real-world entities as objects. Standard modules are simpler to use, while class modules make the code more organized, reusable and maintainable through object-oriented design principles. It is generally considered a best practice to use class modules for non-trivial projects to leverage the advantages of object-oriented programming.

Some examples of when to use each type:

Use standard modules for simple automation macros, stand-alone functions and utilities.

Use class modules to design object models for complex applications involving interrelated real-world objects like Employees, Customers, Orders, etc.

Create class modules to encapsulate common code for UI elements like forms, user controls, command buttons etc.

Design data access layer using classes as opposed to direct database calls from standard modules.

Apply inheritance and polymorphism using classes for extensible and maintainable code.

While both standard modules and class modules are useful for VBA development, class modules are more powerful as they support concepts of object-oriented programming for better code reusability, structure and maintenance in larger and more complex VBA applications. The module type needs to be chosen based on the specific project requirements and size. Standard modules are appropriate for simple procedural macros whereas class modules become necessary for serious object-oriented application development in Excel VBA.