Most students taking computer science classes at Edmonds want to transfer to a 4-year university using the computer science direct transfer agreement (CSDTA). Unfortunately, the CSDTA is pretty confusing, and students have a tough time understanding exactly what classes they need to take. Each university has different requirements.
The Edmonds website has a description of the CSDTA requirements. However, it is a long list with separate sections for each school. This makes it very hard to tell what classes will open up the most transfer options for a student and sometimes even exactly what they need to transfer.
To solve this problem, I created a web page with a visualization of the courses required for each school and the prerequisites for those courses. Click a school's name to see the courses required for transfer. Click the course to see what schools require it.
Most of our students aim to do a direct transfer. The direct transfer requirements are also the most consistent and easily accessible. Therefore, they were a good place to start. However, students relatively frequently also ask about the minimum requirements to transfer to a school or if there are any other classes they could take at Edmonds and that would count towards graduation after transferring. I would like to create two more instances of this visualization showing the relevant data for each of these.
The tool is very easy to extend as all of its data is in JSON format and not embedded in the code. That means, with a little reformatting, any set of course requirements can be added in without any logic changing. The hardest part of doing this, and the reason I haven't done it yet, is getting accurate information is tricky. Some universities at least list some transfer information publicly, but it is not always up-to-date. I plan to contact the CS department at each of the schools our students tend to transfer to in order to double check next quarter.
Since this tool can deal with any set of courses and requirements, I have offered it to other departments in STEM to use for their classes as well. I have had some conversations with Biology about getting it up and running for them. I am just waiting on their data.