The Ruhlman Conference
A celebration of student achievement
Schedule
What is Rapp?
Rapp is a scheduling application for the Ruhlman conference. It gets an electronic form of the conference program and allows you to search it in various ways (by text, by department, by session, by theme) and to sort the results in various ways (by time, by presenter, by room, by title).
Rapp was adapted from an earlier scheduling application for the Tanner conference called Tandora. (See below.) Rapp was adapted by Scott D. Anderson, and makes significant steps towards making the software flexible and easily adapted to other kinds of conferences like Tanner and Ruhlman.
Tandora
Tandora is a talk scheduling website created for the annual Tanner Conference at Wellesley College as part of the Tanner Technology Initiative. The goal of the website is to assist members of the Wellesley community in creating personalized schedules and to easily search through the individual presentations at the Tanner Conference.
The Tandora was built from scratch by Team Tandora ’10 and expanded upon by Team Tandora ’11 as part of the Tanner Technology Initiative. The application utilizes PHP, AJAX, MySQL, HTML, and CSS.
Team Tandora ’10
Caroline Sun ’11
Scott D. Anderson, Computer Science
Jie Han ’12
Eni Mustafaraj, Computer Science
Orit Shaer, Computer Science & Media Arts and Sciences
Franklyn Turbak, Computer Science
Team Tandora ’11
Olivia Kotsopoulos ’14
Nora McKinnell ’14
Scott D. Anderson, Computer Science
Franklyn Turbak, Computer Science
What is the Tanner Conference?
The Tanner Conference is an annual conference held in the fall semester organized by the Tanner Committee with the help of the Center for Work and Service.
Established through the generosity of trustee emerita Estelle "Nicki" Newman Tanner ’57, the Tanner Conference explores the relationship between the liberal arts classroom and student participation in an increasingly diverse and interdependent world. The conference is premised on the belief that a greater understanding of the learning that takes place off-campus-combined with critical inquiry into the purpose, value, and effect of such learning-has the potential to move liberal education in new directions.
...The Tanner Conference represents the work of over 300 Wellesley students, alumnae, faculty, and staff. In its tenth anniversary, the conference includes special technology projects showcasing Wellesley’s presence throughout the world.
Tanner Conference, Program Guide 2010
What is the Tanner Technology Initiative?
The goal of the Tanner Technology Initiative is to improve participant and attendee experiences at the annual Tanner Conference by developing novel applications that not only highlight the achievements of Wellesley women in the world but also celebrate the conference’s ten year anniversary. With diverse backgrounds in computer science, media arts and sciences, and electrical and computer engineering, five Tanner Technology interns worked closely with the Center for Work and Service and with faculty members from both Wellesley College and Olin College of Engineering to create a personalized online scheduler and build two touch-sensitive computational surfaces and the interactive applications that run on them.
Tanner Technology Interns 2010
Alex Olivier ’11
Jacob Getto ’12 (Olin)
Caroline Sun ’11
Heidi Wang ’12
Colette Whitaker ’10
Tanner Technology Helpers, Fall 2010
Consuelo Valdes ’11
Jie Han ’12
Tanner Technology Interns 2011
Olivia Kotsopoulos ’14
Nora McKinnell ’14
Advisors:
Scott D. Anderson, Computer Science
Mark Chang, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Panagiotis (Takis) Metaxas, Computer Science
Eni Mustafaraj, Computer Science
Orit Shaer, Computer Science
Franklyn Turbak, Computer Science
Who should I contact with questions/comments/concerns?
Please email scott.anderson@wellesley.edu with your feedback. I'd be very glad to hear from you!.
How do I Use This?
Rapp is a scheduling application for the Ruhlman conference, with some elements of social networking. You can
- search for presentations, just like you would in a paper program.
- sort the presentations in different orders, to make it easier to find the ones you are looking for
- filter the presentations by different criteria, again to make searching easier
- build a schedule for yourself, arranging the presentations you chose on a calendar-like display. You can even double-book yourself!
- print the schedule you built, suitable for having handy during the conference, and finally, you can
- share the presentations you find that you like. You can even
- share your entire schedule, so that friends can know what presentations you're attending. Maybe they can coordinate their schedule, or meet up with you after a session.
Using the Application
On the right hand side of the window, the application shows a list of summary information about each presentation: title, names of presenters, time and location. Each presentation is in its own box. If you click anywhere in that box, detailed information is given, including the full abstract. Clicking anywhere in the detail display closes it and returns you to the main application.
Search
The main way to search is to type some text into the search box above
the list of presentations. The list is then filtered such that the text
you typed appears, somewhere, within each presentation. If you type
"Sara" in to the box, it'll show you presentations by people
named Sara
and Sarah
and Sarandon
and with titles
like Sarajevo
so forth. The number of matching presentations is
shown just below the search box. The filtering is done as you type, so
you can stop as soon as you've narrowed the list to your satisfaction.
Sort
The presentations, whether filtered or not, can be sorted by PID
(presentation id
, which is an arbitrary identifying number),
time, title, location and presenters. Ties are broken by PID. You can
change the sort order just by clicking on the name of the sort
criterion, below the search box. If they are sorted by presenter, and a
presentation has multiple presenters, it appears once for each
presenter. Thus, a presentation by Abby Adams, Mildred Middleton, and
Zelda Zane would appear at the beginning, middle and the end of
the list, when sorted by presenters.
Filter
You can filter the list of presentations by department, session (time
slot), or thematic category (the Ruhlman committee groups presentations
into different categories, such as If you choose multiple filters, they are all applied. That is, the
results are intersected. So, following the examples above, if
you used both the If you register and log in, you can build a custom schedule for
yourself. To register, just provide your email address in the box above
the the presentations, and click The application uses no passwords; instead, you're sent a special
private URL. You can use this URL as often as you like. You can
bookmark it, etc. Don't share it with anyone who you don't want to be
able to modify your schedule.
Once you're logged in, you can add a presentation to your schedule by
clicking on the plus sign (+) to the right of the presentation in the
search list.
You can remove a presentation from your schedule by clicking
the If you don't have a hand-held web browser or just don't want to have to
bother with it, you can print out your schedule. Just click the link
below your name in the login box.
The best part of the application is letting other people know about
talks you like, plan to attend, or just want them to notice. You can
share an individual talk by clicking on it to bring up the detailed
display, and then clicking the You can also share your complete schedule. Click on Please
email ruhlman@cs.wellesley.edu
with your feedback. I'd be very glad to hear from you!
Culture and Arts
or Gender
and Sexuality
). To do this, just click on advanced search
,
select the kind of filter to impose, and check the values that you
want included. The more boxes you check, the more
presentations are included. So, if you only want to see presentations
from the departments of Physics and Religion, you'd choose that filter,
check off those two departments. If you only want to see presentations
in the morning, you'd choose the
sessions
filter, and check
off 9:30-10:40
.
departments
filter (choosing Physics and
Religion) and the session
filter (choosing 9:30-10:40), you'd
only be shown morning talks in either Physics or Relgion.
Build a Schedule
register
. The application sends
an email to that address that you can then use to log in.
at the upper right
of its box on your schedule display.
Print
Share
share
link in the upper right.
That gives you a URL that you can email, post to your Facebook page,
tweet, put on Tumblr, ...
share
in
the login area, and you'll get a custom URL that you can share with
others just as you can share a particular presentation. Someone using
that URL will see your schedule, but will not be able to edit it, much
like sharing a Google doc in a read-only way.
Who should I contact with questions/comments/concerns?
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