ORCA is an open-source API for RPI's course schedule.

Deployed at https://rcos-orca.herokuapp.com/docs (alternate docs)

Overview

ORCA gives you access to every course offered in a semester along with the sections scheduled with weekly periods. This includes:

• course title
• course id (e.g. BIOL-1010)
• course sections with
  • crn
  • id (section 01, 02, ...)
  • how many credits it can be taken for
  • current enrollment count
  • max enrollment count
  • url to textbooks (RPI Bookstore)
  • section periods with
    • type (lecture, recitation, lab, ...)
    • start and end time
    • days of the week it meets
    • instructor(s)
    • location

Look at the requests' example responses to see the full schemas.

Data

ORCA periodically fetches its data from the SIS course search and the public page listing course sections with enrollment data in table format. Spring 2021 Example Theses pages are difficult to read and even more difficult to programmatically parse. The data is fetched and updated once every hour during the day each day, though it is unclear how often the Registrar updates the pages themselves.

Uses

This course data can be used for a variety of purposes small and large. Here are some examples:

• create your own scheduling interface (e.g. YACS or QuACS)
• create student tools that use course data
  • used textbook marketplace
  • study group organizers
  • schedule visualizers
  • schedule importers
• data visualizations
  • map out locations of periods
  • create directions for getting to and from classes

Documentation

Semesters

The Registrar evidently identifies semesters with a short numeric code comprising:

1. 4-digit year the semester starts during
2. 2-digit zero padded month the semester starts during
3. (Arch) 2-digit code for specific part of semester
   • 01 - Full Term
   • 02 - First Half
   • 03 - Seond Half

Examples

• 20210 Spring 2021
• 202009 Fall 2020
• 20210501 Summer 2021 (Full Term)

Database Schema

Here is a visualization of the simple database schema used for the API. It also has the schema written in Database Markup Language.

Source Code

ORCA is entirely open source and hosted on GitHub at Apexa/orca

Issues/Feature Requests

Please report these on the GitHub repo at Apexa/orca!

Main Contributors

• Frank Matranga (@Apexal)
• Joshua Wu (@123joshuawu)