Spring 2010 Grade Data Available

July 5th, 2010

This update is a little late, but UGAKey.com and The Key have been updated with Spring 2010 grade data.

UGAKey.com now has grade data for University of Georgia classes from Fall 1999 to Spring 2010.

We did a test for bugs, but we certainly could have missed something.  If you find something wrong or have questions or suggestions, please get in touch with us here.

Thanks!

~UGAKey.com Developers

Fall 2009 Grade Date Now on Key

March 7th, 2010

Fall 2009 grade data has been added to UGAKey.com.  See these grades in the column ‘Year’ under ’2009-2010′.

We hope this helps you register for summer and fall classes at the University of Georgia.

We did a test for bugs, but we certainly could have missed something.  If you find something wrong or have questions or suggestions, please get in touch with us here.

~Your UGAKey.com Developers

PS – We are working hard on professor reviews.  Keep an eye here (and on Twitter and Facebook) for updates.

Quick Update to Fix Issue

January 10th, 2010

We were informed after the recent roll out about an issue with filtering by course number.  In essence, you couldn’t filter by course number any more.

Until I can figure out the ultimate issue, I’ve moved the course information links to a new column (“Course Info”) at the far right.  The “Course Number” no longer contains the links.  Now you can filter by course number.

Thanks to Jeff, who notified us of the problem.  If you find/notice any problems, please please please contact us right away and we’ll get it fixed.

~UGAKey Developers (namely Chris)

More Info and More Speed for UGAKey.com

December 30th, 2009

Happy New Year!  We are trying to start the New Year off right by rolling out some new changes!

Today we’ve upgraded UGAKey.com to what we are calling version 2.5 (see the announcement post for version 2.0 and other upgrades).

This upgrade provides more helpful information for students, while optimizing your viewing experience.

First things first.  We’ve added links to the UGA Bulletin’s course descriptions.  Click on Info under “Course Info” and you will see the full course title, a detailed description of the course, any prerequisites, semesters offered, grading system, course objectives, and topical outline.  This is a pretty nifty tool that UGA has recently started offering, and we’re glad to be able to implement it in the grade data.  We hope this will help students make better decisions on their class schedules (the more information the better).  Note, some specialized and old courses do not have course descriptions available.

Second, when you click on a department from a dropdown menu or on the homepage, you’ll notice that the data page is now more compact.  We’ve moved the percentages for individual letter grades on to separate pages for each course.  You can click the ‘More Data’ link on the left side of a course to view detailed course grade data.  We’ve made this change to allow the data pages to load quicker on your screen.  This change will also allow us to better integrate more features in the future, including a possible course review or professor review capability (something we’re currently working on).

Lastly, we’ve done a lot of optimizing and cleanup.  Pages should load  faster than before, which we know is helpful when you are registering for that needed course on Drop/Add (got to beat everyone else to OASIS).

If you used the previous version to do detailed filtering of courses by letter grades or other columns, this upgrade limits your abilities.  But, to compensate, we’re keeping the previous version available for you to use, right here.

If you notice any problems with the upgrade or if you have any problems, questions, feedback, or comments, please use our contact form to let us know.  We want to help you, and if something is broken, we can fix it quickly if you let us know.

~Your UGAKey.com Developers

PS- We are waiting to get the Fall 2009 grade data.  We’re hoping to get that in time for Drop/Add.

Registration for Spring 2010

December 8th, 2009

This week is open registration for spring 2010 classes at the University of Georgia.  We at UGAKey.com want to provide you a few updates which will help you registration experience.

The Red and Black has a good article today that discusses the declining number of classes across campus and the declining number of tenure and tenure-track professors.  Students have always had trouble getting needed classes in some majors (*cough*, International Affairs and Political Science), but this trend is spreading.  The University and individual departments are making continual budget cuts, and keeping professors is hard on a short budget (as is filling vacant professor positions).  So departments are offering fewer classes.

This ultimately means many students are having trouble finding good classes.  That’s where we come in.

UGAKey.com helps you pick the best classes of those being offered.  Need an International Affairs class and none taught by the big name professors are being offered? Check out UGAKey.com and look for good graduate assistants, and make sure to check classes in Political Science and Public Administration (which can fulfill an IA major).  Do you need more classes to stay full-time? Look on UGAKey.com for good courses.  Are you worried about losing the HOPE Scholarship and not being able to cover your tuition bills? Look at UGAKey.com, browse an offered course’s syllabus, and find the classes that will keep you HOPE-eligible.  Drill down through departments and professors, sort classes by GPA or number of withdrawals to find what works best for you.

Remember, we have the most recent grades available (along with many course syllabi) so you can make the best decisions for your class schedule.

But that’s not all.  We are continuing to make improvements at UGAKey.com to help students, including:

  • We are currently testing professor reviews, which will complement the course grades that are already offered.  You will be able to rate professors on the overall course,  homework, exams, and lectures, and provide general feedback.  We really believe this will help students register for classes.
  • We are also waiting for the University to release textbook lists, so we can help you find the cheapest books possible.
  • We will also be obtaining Fall 2009 grade data as soon as it is available.

As you register (and in January during Drop/Add), remember to use UGAKey.com.  And check back, because we hope to have new and helpful features out soon.

~The UGAKey.com Developers

Problems with Safari Browser

August 18th, 2009

We’ve been watching the site stats with the new version of the Key, and Paul noticed that some Mac/Apple and Safari users are having issues.  We did quite a bit of investigating to pinpoint the problem.

*Note: This applies only to users of Macs using the Safari web browser (the default browser on a Mac)*

Some Safari (on Mac) users are having trouble filtering grade data and seeing grades.  This issue seems to have popped up when users upgraded to Safari version 4.0.2.  As such, this does not appear to be an issue with UGAKey.com  For most users, the upgrade to Safari version 4.0.3 (typically an automatic upgrade) appears to have fixed the issue.  If you haven’t upgraded to the latest version of Safari, please do so (good instructions here).

If you are using Safari version 4.0.3 and continue to have problems with UGAKey.com, please contact us immediately and include your operating system and version of Safari.  You might try using another web browser, like the free and open source Firefox, to get the full experience.

We apologize for any trouble this has caused you during drop/add and we will keep an eye on the problems.

~The UGAKey.com Developers

Letter to Editor and Students from UGAKey.com Developers

August 17th, 2009

The UGAKey.com Developers had a Letter to the Editor in today’s Red and Black announcing some of the changes to UGAKey.com:

Recent changes to UGAKey.com

We would like to let all University students know of a few recent updates to UGAKey.com, the online database of course grade distributions dating back to 1999.

UGAKey.com includes syllabi for over 4000 classes, with another 2000 forthcoming before the end of drop/add, and now has better support for the Safari browser.

UGAKey.com includes class grades up to Spring 2009 for most course sections and professors, meaning you can see and use 10 years worth of grades on UGAKey.com.

As you decide on classes during fall drop/add and spring registration, don’t get caught unprepared — use UGAKey.com.

If you have any problems accessing the grade data, contact us here.

Chris M. Lindsey, Noah Mink and Paul Ruddle
UGAKey Founders

Welcome Back to Campus with Updates to UGA Key

August 17th, 2009

Hey Everyone,

UGAKey.com now includes syllabi for over 6000 classes, has better support for the Safari browser, and includes grades from Fall 1999-Spring 2009 (that’s right, ten years worth of data to help you pick classes!). Also, if you want to save money on textbooks, avoid lines at the bookstore, and support The Key, go here to make your textbook purchases. You save money and help support continued development of UGAKey.com.

If you have any problems accessing the grade data, please contact us right away. Also, let us know if there’s any changes you would like to see, or any additional features you would like included on UGAKey.com

-UGAKey.com Developers (Chris, Paul, and Noah)

Several New Departments Added

July 16th, 2009

These departments/disciplines have been active since we upgraded to the new version of UGAKey.com, but we wanted to make sure everyone can find the grade date for these new classes.  The new departments include:

Click the links above to go see the new grade data!

Please let us know if you have any problems with these new disciplines or with any part of the site.

~ Your UGAKey.com Team

UGA Key, Version 2.0, Launches

June 29th, 2009

This morning,  shortly after midnight, we rolled out version 2.0 of UGA Key.  We have been working on it for a while, and are excited to roll it out for everyone.  Go, check it out!

This new version of UGAKey.com uses a newer system to display grade tables, which solves a problem we’ve had for a while (some people had trouble viewing in Safari and Internet Explorer and on slower systems).  It also means that grade tables load much (much!) faster than before.  In fact, I just loaded all English subject classes (almost 3,000 classes worth of data) and the page finished loading within 8 seconds (that’s on a fresh install of Firefox 3.5 RC3).

The new version also includes course syllabi, a frequent request.  Check out the column on the far right when looking at grades – if there is a link in the cell, we have the syllabus in our repository.  We will be adding more syllabi as we move forward.

This version of UGAKey.com contains grades from Fall 1999 through Spring 2009.  That’s ten years worth of grades for you to use when choosing courses!  This also means we have 32,366 classes worth of data!

If you happen to prefer the old version of UGAKey.com, you can find it here.  We can’t guarantee how long it will work and the grades on it only go through 2008, but it is up for the time being.

We would love to hear from UGA students! Do you like the new Key, love it, hate it?  Get in touch with us!  We think we’ve squashed all of the bugs, but if you have any problems or suggestions, please contact us.

To stay up-to-date with the latest on the UGA Key, check UGAKey News or @ugakey on Twitter.

~The UGA Key Developers