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C.U. Not Anti-Schedulizer, Registrar Says

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I would to like to make clear several facts about Cornell's course schedule system and the business enterprise Schedulizer that may have been obscured in recent news reports.

The University has not changed its systems in order to thwart the popular commercial enterprise, Schedulizer — and the university is always working to improve its systems in support of students. Any changes in the systems run by the university have been made to improve the utility and functionality of those systems for the benefit of students. Schedulizer has been challenged by its inability to work with the university to, in an approved way, adapt practices to the university's new systems.

Schedulizer, an application supported by Schedulizer Inc., was developed by several former Cornell students and is now owned by a group of Cornell undergraduates. It is not now and never was a university-supported or university-owned application. Cornell does not control any aspect of this software, including its methodology for obtaining course/class data. Schedulizer's use of this data is independent of any university supported systems. There are no formal agreements between Schedulizer Inc. and Cornell to share data, or for the university to provide Schedulizer with data.

Built in the days of an older generation of student information, Schedulizer served a very useful function for students that the old CoursEnroll application did not provide — but which the new PeopleSoft Student systems does. In fact, PeopleSoft Student's functionality is fully integrated and does not require students to reenter course and class selections. Functions like wish list, wait list, pre- and co-requisite course checking, will improve certain outcomes and support course enrollment management and selection. Visit http://www.studentcenter.cornell.edu/

When Cornell began using PeopleSoft Student, Schedulizer was forced to develop new methods for gathering the data to fit its business model. And the company chose to not work with the university to create approved methods of gathering this information. In fact, Schedulizer's unauthorized method of gathering data during heavy activities, such as CoursEnroll, could have serious impacts on university systems. And several university policies on responsible computer use and the Campus Code of Conduct may have been violated.

While Cornell appreciates the ingenuity of its students, it must always uphold the business and academic needs of the university to protect and preserve the integrity of university resources and records, including both its network systems and institutional data. It is for this reason that the university has asked for and obtained Schedulizer Inc.'s agreement to cease using unauthorized approaches to obtaining the data it needs directly from production information systems.

The Registrar's Office has agreed to consider a proposal from Schedulizer Inc., delivered this past Friday, for a different methodology for its data retrieval. But first, an analysis of the possible impacts must be done. When that analysis —which will include an assessment of how the proposal may impact PeopleSoft Student and other aspects of the university's technology resources — is completed and appropriate protocols are agreed upon, the university will be glad to make the data available to Schedulizer Inc. We want to establish an approach that protects the university's resources and records, while supporting Cornell students' ability to create their class schedules effectively.

David Yeh is the Cornell University registrar. Guest Room appears periodically.

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