Senior Design Projects

ECS193 A/B Winter & Spring 2022

Find a Talk - A Searchable Database of Current and Past Seminars

Email **********
Name Dante Leventini
Affiliation UC Davis Graduate Group in Horticulture and Agronomy

Project's details

Project title Find a Talk - A Searchable Database of Current and Past Seminars
Background -- Want to attend a seminar outside of your major, but struggle to find information? -- Receive too many emails reminding you about the same event? -- Wish there was a comprehensive database like UC Davis schedule builder, but for all seminars, talks, and presentations? ...Perhaps, you are also wondering if the seminars offer free food and snacks? Each quarter, departments and graduate group host hundreds of seminars across campus on specific topic areas. Students are expected to take seminar classes to both learn new perspectives and fulfill their degree requirements. However, the current format poses a unique course scheduling challenge: there is no beaten-path for students to select seminars from, the seminar content is highly diverse, and many talks are offered on a non-regular basis. Each local event calendar on campus remains unsynced with each other. The Class Search Tool (https://registrar-apps.ucdavis.edu/courses/search/index.cfm), while providing advanced search options, does not support the display of seminar details. There is a gap between the need for information about subjects/schedule of seminars (both past and present) and what the current scheduling system is able to provide.
Description We propose the construction of a database which may serve as a centralized record of both current and past seminars offered by all departments and graduate groups. This database would include seminar topics, instructors, speakers, course numbers, quarter(s) when it is offered and, if applicable, has been offered in the past, and any other relevant information. Entries to the database may be made by instructors, or ideally with the help of an algorithm that can automatically create entries based on seminar advertisements (email, PDF poster) that are previously mailed to listservs.
Deliverable A web-based app, with database front-end for the use of seminar instructors (add seminar) and potential audience (search for seminar). Tentative milestones that can be revised following the meeting with the student team: 1. A survey of all current approaches available at UC Davis or other institutes. 2. Development of a web-based app. 3. Implement automated algorithms to extract information from seminar advertisements 4. Incorporation of user feedback
Skill set desirable - Database APIs - Web development (including but not limited to front-end: design, interactivity; back-end: database management, hosting, deployment, familiarity with common tools: HTML, CSS, and Javascript) - Cross Platform APP development - Browser extension development - User privacy protection / encryption
Phone number **********
Client time availability 30-60 min weekly or more
IP requirement Open source project
Attachment Click here
Selected No
Team members N/A
TA N/A