Development of a Time Scheduling System through Cloud Computing Technologies

Many students single out poor time management skills as a one of the reasons for failed projects and courses.  For this reason, we have undertaken the task to develop a “smart” scheduler that helps students manage their time effectively.  This scheduler is intended to be a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application based on cloud computing technologies. This allows us to reach and help the largest amount of students and gives us the infrastructure we need to periodically update and maintain the application. 

 The scheduler incorporates results from time management studies as well as research on student learning patterns. It generates a "smart" schedule that contrasts with other applications by providing a personalized and optimized time distribution.

The structure of our application consists of a web-based user interface, built with HTML5, CSS, Javascript, and JQuery; and a server-side implementation, built with Java, JSP, and RESTful.  Users that are logged into the system will be able to add and edit events that will then be used to create a calendar.   Behind the scenes, we parse and divide the events into statically allocated and dynamically allocated events. Once a user is done adding his/her events the information is sent to our server to be processed.  The scheduling process occurs on our server-side Java implementation where a priority queue assigns order of precedence to the events and assigns them to a self-balancing tree.   Currently, the application is entering its pre-alpha stage and awaiting feedback.  In conclusion, we believe Smart Scheduler will positively impact student performance.