A new schedule builder was released at the end of the fall 2022 semester and has received mixed reviews from Los Medanos College faculty and students. At first, many students encountered technical and software issues with the new program. While these issues have since been fixed, there are still complaints about the accessibility and interface. 

Director of Information Technology Satish Warrier, sent an email to all district employees in the Contra Costa Community College District, describing what steps are being taken to improve the program and what steps have already been taken. 

“Upon clicking the ‘Registration’ tile in InSite, students will now be routed to a new web page containing a variety of resources, including the full course schedule search, the schedule builder, short instructional videos, FAQs and registration-related links,” said Warrier. 

In terms of visuals, the new schedule builder will be accompanied by the old version, and both will be available to students in the “Search-for-Classes” tile in their InSite portal. There, students can either view the old schedule builder with the first option or move to the new one with the second option. 

LMCAS President Jeffery Bui explained what he thinks needs to be improved in the new Schedule Builder.

“I think it needs to be more fleshed out. Especially on the interface and how to see it,” said Bui. “It definitely needs some work, especially visually. But I don’t think that’s the priority necessarily.” 

Other students, such as Thomas Mann and Manny Rodriguez have also expressed their criticism about the new schedule builder. 

“Too many buttons. It’s too complicated,” said Mann while adding, “The previous schedule builder feels easier because the list of all the classes is available.”

“I still use the old one. The new one is just too complicated,” said Rodriguez.

The Experience reached out to the counseling department, but as of press time had not received comment.

With all of the work that has been done on the new schedule builder, the district will keep both the new and old programs for the future. As for the difficulty in using the new visual, Bui speculates as to why it received so much negativity.

“Maybe it’s just once you’re used to a particular system it is hard to adjust to a new one. Whereas, if you are still learning you are still very open to receiving that information,” said Bui.

Despite the negativity due to technical issues or unfamiliarity, the new visual schedule builder is here to stay.

Editor’s note: Story updated to remove a quote about a software program for an online catalog that was inadvertently included about the Schedule Builder.