Sarah Jones

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CalEvents_at_BerkeleyAnatomy of an Event Calendar

• Sarah Jones
• CalAgenda (campus online calendar) Service
• sarah_at_socrates.berkeley.edu
• UCCSC 2004 - 2 August 2004

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Agenda

• Origin
• SIMS 290 - Document Engineering class
• Event Calendar Modeling Team
• Event calendar model
• User Interface for Event entry form
• Now what?
• Q A

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Origin of project

• Desire to offer ability to subscribe to events to
  CalAgenda subscribers
• Campus calendar (Oracle Calendar) system had only
  simple event calendars
• Current, de facto event calendar using old
  technology, lacks features
• http//www.berkeley.edu/calendar/
• Professor Bob Glushkos SIMS Document Engineering
  class - Spring and Summer 2003 needed real campus
  examples to model

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SIMS 290 assignment

• Spring 2003 School of Information Management
  Systems assignment in SIMS 290-4 Document
  Engineering
• 10 different teams analyzed and modeled 6
  different calendars
• UC Berkeley Events
• College of Letters Sciences
• Haas School of Business
• Mens Basketball
• Official Academic Calendar
• PDA (Mail taxes on April 15)
• Why these event calendars were chosen

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Approaches to modeling

• Classical modeling
• Abstract real world system or environment
• Systems analysis
• Systems design
• Document engineering modeling
• Data viewed as document, a collection of
  information

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The modeling process

• Why bother to model?
• Fresh look at business processes
• Dont just replicate current process
• Broad survey of domains

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Creating a data matrix

• Create an aggregate data matrix by examining
  elements of 6 event calendars
• Determine core and context elements
• Core elements- those that are common to all
  calendars, such as event title
• If you change the element, does it change the
  event?
• Context elements - those that are used in
  specific kinds of calendars, such as score,
  admission fee, refreshments

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Aggregating element data into a matrix

• Enter event calendar element names down left
  column
• Enter X for each element contained in a
  particular calendar

Element Calendar 1 Calendar 2 Calendar 3 Element
1 X X X Element 2 X X Element 3 X X Element
4 X
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Team 9 model
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Team 7 model
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Campus events - a closer look

• August 2003 - Do broader survey of campus event
  calendars
• Event calendar survey team (7 members)
• School of Info Mgmt graduate students
• Lawrence Hall of Science technical Web folks
• Campus calendar system (CalAgenda) technical
  folks
• What has been done? Standards?
• Oracle Calendar
• iCalendar, SKiCal, Oasis Universal Business
  Language (UBL)

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Categories of campus calendars

• Athletics - Men's Basketball, CalFit
• Performances - Cal Performances, Music
  Department Noon Concerts
• Museums - Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film
  Archive, Lawrence Hall of Science
• Academic Departments - Math Department,
  International Area Studies
• Administrative Departments - University Health
  Services, Capital Projects
• Centers - Center for Document Engineering,
  California Biodiversity Center
• Schools/Colleges - Letters Science, Haas School
  of Business
• Student Groups - SUPERB
• Libraries - UC Berkeley Library, Bancroft Library
• Calendar applications - PDA (handheld personal
  data assistant), CalAgenda
• Aggregate calendar - UCB NewCenter Calendar

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A couple of calendars of interest

• Men's Basketball (Intercollegiate)
• Capital Projects

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Common event elements

• Event name
• Date event being held
• Event start time
• Event end time
• Duration
• Location
• Repetition

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Less common event elements

• Ticket required
• Admission fee
• Refreshments
• Score

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Event Calendar Model

• Again, why bother doing a model?
• Assumptions
• Special cases
• Standards
• Work with UBL technical committee members
• Use UBL elements in model

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Cant assume

• Conferences (nested calendars) - how do you
  connect the events, especially if you have tracks
• Repeating vs recurring events
• Exhibits and building hours

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Cant ignore special cases

• Refreshments
• Event is rescheduled
• Permanent exhibit
• Holidays

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Our event model evolution

• Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• Relationships
• Similar to database modeling
• Combined our Team A Team B Models to produce
  final model

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Final event calendar model
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Administrative User Interface

• SIMS graduate students used model as basis for
  developing UI for entering event calendar data
• Use cases
• Usability testing
• Demo

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Now what?

• Finish requirements
• Bring model into agreement with iCalendar
• Whats out there
• WebEvent - not standards based

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Q A

• Questions?

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Credits

• Modeling
• Lawrence Hall of Science - Sara Leavitt, Kathleen
  Connors
• SIMS graduate students - Allison Bloodworth,
  Carolyn Cracraft
• CalAgenda - Jeff McCullough, Mimi Mugler, Sarah
  Jones
• User Interface - Allison Bloodworth, Myra Liu,
  Nadine Fiebrich, Zhanna Shamis