Quarrel With Univ. Registrar Forces Schedulizer Website to Shut Down
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In a surprising and unprecedented move, the popular website Schedulizer.com decided to discontinue its service for Cornell students, causing massive outcry as Cornellians attempted to plan their classes for the semester. At approximately 8:15 last night, the system shut down all class listings and other Schedulizer services, leaving in its stead only an open note to Cornell students.
“Schedulizer is down because Cornell has made it prohibitively difficult for us to maintain accurate course information,” the note read.
The website — which collects Cornell course roster information and allows students to optimize their schedule planning — has remained up and running for the other eight schools that it serves. 11,033 Cornell students have logged in to Schedulizer in the last six months, and it has grown at 50 percent per year at Cornell since it was introduced.
According to Jay Searson ’08, CEO of Schedulizer, the decision was the result of a disagreement between the website owners and the Cornell Registrar.
Schedulizer relies on public course listings to allow students to create their schedules, using a “robot” to “crawl” the data. Because Cornell course listings change often, the system updates at least every week.
However, since Cornell switched its course management system to PeopleSoft, the robot that Schedulizer uses has begun to interfere with the University’s Student Services program. The Registrar subsequently prohibited Schedulizer from updating its course listings by using its robot to crawl PeopleSoft. The University also began constantly changing the structure of its PDF course roster — the other available form of course information — forcing Schedulizer to re-input data multiple times, which Searson noted was an extremely difficult and expensive process. Thus, Schedulizer had no tenable way of retrieving the course information
“We’ve been talking with David Yeh [vice president for student and academic services] since the end of last semester,” Searson said. “We tried to cooperate as much as possible with them, but they made it really difficult … The Registrar has dropped the ball. We don’t really have a choice.”
Searson said that Schedulizer will remain inactive at Cornell until the University begins to cooperate with the company. Searson wants a way to receive the course information that is not in PDF form. However, he questioned how open to cooperation the administration really is, noting that the University has threatened his company with legal action for hacking into PeopleSoft. He maintains that they were just using their robot to crawl for course information.
“We have made our best efforts to work with the University Registrar to arrive at an acceptable solution to keep Schedulizer running, but the Registrar has been unresponsive,” the note on the website read. “We know that many of you depend on Schedulizer to schedule your classes, and believe us when we say we really, really didn’t want to do this.”
Yeh responded that Cornell has changed its format as it has adjusted to the new PeopleSoft program, and that the University will not go out of its way to help Schedulizer.
“We’re not helping them do their work. That’s not our responsibility,” Yeh said. “It’s a commercial company. They have resources. We did give them an approved location to give them information.”
Yeh added that Cornell does have a somewhat similar scheduling program within the Student Center of the PeopleSoft program.
Simeon Moss ’73, director of Cornell Press Relations, said that if Schedulizer comes up with a proposal to work with the University, the administration would be open to working with the website.
Meanwhile, students who have tried to use Schedulizer since it went down have responded with outrage. Because PeopleSoft has prohibited many students from adding and dropping courses due to complications with the program that started this morning, many Cornellians still don’t have their schedules finalized. According to some students, Schedulizer’s downfall further complicated the process.
“As one of the top colleges, I’m glad we use scheduling software as user-friendly and compatible as PeopleSoft,” said Pete Kelly ’11 sarcastically, who has already sent an e-mail to the registrar expressing his frustration. “They’re going to have hundreds of emails tomorrow.”
Upon hearing the news, Ilyssa Meren ’10, reacted: “Oh my god, I didn’t get a chance to print my schedule yet. I’m going to cry.”
Oren Factor ’11 expressed frustration that he was forced to manually balance his schedule on the day before classes began.
“If Cornell is responsible for this, they have found yet another way to make enrolling in classes more difficult,” he said.
Furthermore, students have begun a Facebook group called “Bring Schedulizer Back to Cornell.” At press time, it had 660 members.
This reaction from Cornell students is exactly what Searson is hoping will spur the Cornell administration to work with him.
The note on the website states: “Please, if Schedulizer is important to you, send an email to the registrar at univreg@cornell.edu. Let them know. Ask them to work with us to bring Schedulizer back.”
"Oren Factor ’11 expressed
"Oren Factor ’11 expressed frustration that he was forced to manually balance his schedule on the day before classes began"
You were chosen to attend Cornell over 1000 other candidates, I think you can handle this.
schedulizer
this is ridiculous. Schedulizer simply made things easier and fixed what peoplesoft could not do. It is completely selfish and unresponsive for Cornell to ignore the well being and not accommodate students. Because of the software being down I now am searching the web for another schedulizer program in order to provide a schedule for a job application due tonight. This is incredible and very disappointing once more with the registration office.
At the risk of sounding like
At the risk of sounding like a jerk, I have to ask: what, exactly, is preventing you from doing this by hand? In the time it will take you to search the web and find a schedule creator that works for you (e.g. is free, user-friendly, etc.), you would probably have finished it if you just used Excel or, I don't know, a pen and paper.
I realize that Schedulizer made things easier on people, but it's not the end-all be-all of finding classes. In the 4 years I was there, most people I knew still used the course roster and a piece of paper. It's just not that complicated.
Schedulizer: its a third party. Why are you relying on it?!
I absolutely agree with both of the above. These students were accepted into an IVY LEAGUE UNIVERSITY!!! The loss of Schedulizer is not the catastrophe that people have made it out to be. Back in April and even now after Schedulizer is back up and running, there are details within Schedulizer that are completely inaccurate. AEM 417 has a duplicated section and is totally missing another. Yes, Schedulizer is convenient, but don't take it as the end-all-be-all source of making your schedule. Schedulizer is not a primary source, it is a third party. It is a company outside of the university, unrelated to the university. Maybe I'm just too organized or too old-fashioned, but it really wasn't that hard for me last semester to sit down with an excel spreadsheet and the course roster and plan out my schedule. This is my last semester at Cornell, and because I took 30 minutes during pre-enrollment last semester to plan out my schedule on my own, I didn't flinch when this whole thing happened. Don't take Schedulizer as gospel. I know its convenient, but what I've found in the past from other experiences is the more independent you can make yourself, the less you rely on others, and the less you find yourselves in situations like these. I know that PeopleSoft is cumbersome, and the University are still certainly working out some major kinks, (I'm a student too and its frustrating, I miss JTF), but it is the primary source of student schedules. Students make their schedules official within PeopleSoft. So why, if its official in PeopleSoft would you go elsewhere to obtain an unofficial copy that you can't guarantee is right?
Obviously poster #1 is an
Obviously poster #1 is an employee of the registrar's office.
I for one am not impressed. Perhaps Mr. Duffield should fix his awful software before he forces it on his Alma Mater.
Maybe I'm old...
I graduated 8 years ago from Cornell so I know times have changed. We have the Ipod and now I phone. Jessica Simpson is now a country star. But what happened to just getting a pad of paper and pen, making a quick chart, and filling it in. It worked for me.