Correction appended
A recovered version of the Student Assembly Course Guide, which had been inaccessible since October, is now available online, Ian Webster '11, a member of the College's Hacker Club, said in a campus-wide e-mail on Wednesday. Students can now read course reviews written by other students between 2002 and 2010, although students are unable to submit reviews in Course Guide's current version. Course Guide which was previously hosted on a Student Assembly server is now available on a new website developed by the Hacker Club, a group of Dartmouth students interested in computer programming.
Last spring, the Assembly tried to move Course Guide and its data onto new servers to transfer old reviews from Course Guide onto CourseRank, a free course review website that includes several tools such as a GPA calculator and class tracker features that were unavailable on Course Guide, The Dartmouth previously reported.
This attempt caused the original Course Guide site to shut down, Will Hix '12, who previously served as a member of the Assembly's Student Services Committee, said.
Hix's attempts to revive Course Guide began in late November, he said. After failing to get in contact with past programmers of the original website, Hix joined forces with Parker Phinney '12, founder of the Hacker Club.
"Everyone was talking about how lame it was that Course Guide wasn't up," Phinney said. "Then it occurred to me that Course Guide was hosted at Dartmouth so it was probably maintained by system administrators who very likely had backups."
Students investigated the status of Course Guide for several months. Last Friday, Computing Services sent them an e-mail stating that a backup containing Course Guide data did exist, Hix said.
"We were pretty confident at that point that Course Guide would be up in time for Spring course election," he said.
Hacker Club received the backup data Wednesday afternoon, according to Phinney. Phinney and Webster began assembling the new website, but ran into some difficulties, Phinney said.
"A lot of the code was broken when we got it, so my job included fixing that," Webster said. "I fixed some code, worked on some setup issues with the machine and took a look at the dependencies and libraries that were missing."
Hacker Club members recovered approximately 30,000 student reviews, Webster said.
Student Body President Eric Tanner '11 said the Assembly was unaware that Hix and the Hacker Club were working to revive Course Guide. Tanner had met with administrators since the website shut down to try to restore the Course Guide, he said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
"I have been checking in regularly with the administration about its status," Tanner said. "[The Assembly] has had meetings with all levels of administration for the past five months it seemed like a lot of progress was being made because a lot of high-level people wanted to talk about it."
Student Assembly found out about the new website at the same time as the rest of campus, Tanner said.
"I woke up to the blitz just like everyone else," Tanner said.
Tanner said that, although he was unaware of the project, he was pleased that the new website was running once again.
"[The Assembly] is thrilled to have our data back, no matter the case," Tanner said. "Now I have started to talk to Webster and [the Hacker Club] about how we can return Course Guide to our new [Assembly] server."
The Assembly plans to integrate Course Guide into its new website that will launch in March, Tanner said.
"Our new site will be a one-stop shop for students," he said. "It will feature many resources such as access to campus and global news, dining menus, student blogs and other guides which highlight [the Assembly's] commitment to serving our fellow students."
Students interviewed by The Dartmouth said they were pleased that the old course reviews were available again.
Hannah Kim '12 said the return of Course Guide is comparable to "having an old familiar sense of comfort back."
"I was really happy about it and CourseRank just did not have the same level of depth as [the Assembly's] Course Guide," Kim said.
Mike Marcusa '11 said he is looking forward to using Course Guide for electing classes for next term.
"I only have one term left to use it, but I'm sure the early reviews on Course Guide will be very valuable for those in the future," he said. "I know it certainly helped me my first few years here."
Several students said that Course Guide is easier to navigate than the CourseRank site.
"CourseRank doesn't provide any information about professors and it's hard for me to find out what professor is best for a certain class," Jeonhu Gim '11 said. "I wish Course Guide came back earlier."
Although the current version of Course Guide is in its beginning stages, the Assembly is eager to have it fully functioning as soon as possible, Tanner said. Webster said there is still work that needs to be completed on the project.
Phinney formed the Hacker Club last year to improve and develop computer programs aimed at helping students, he said.
The Hacker Club, formed by Phinney last year, is excited about expanding its role on campus following its recent involvement with Course Guide, Phinney said.
"I'm really proud of the work Hacker Club did and the reception of our work has been overwhelmingly positive," Phinney said.
