Case Study: LUMS Course Scheduler — Mirage × Aria

Author: mfaseehuddin

Overview

When Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) released upcoming‐semester offerings as department PDFs, students faced a slow, error-prone process: scanning dozens of pages, cross-checking timings, and building conflict-free schedules by hand. Mirage × Aria partnered to turn those static PDFs into a fast, interactive scheduling experience: LUMS Course Scheduler (lums.promirage.com). The web app surfaces an at-a-glance weekly grid with a searchable catalog of sections, meeting times, instructors, and credits—so students can assemble schedules in minutes instead of hours. lums.promirage.com

Challenge

• Fragmented source data: Multiple PDF documents per department/level, each with its own formatting and quirks.

• Manual reconciliation: Students had to compare times across PDFs to avoid clashes.

• Timeliness: Course lists change; updating a static compilation was tedious.

Solution

Mirage × Aria designed an ingest → normalize → publish pipeline and a lightweight front end:

1. Automated parsing from PDFs

   • Extract course code, title, days, times, instructor, and credits.

   • Normalize inconsistent abbreviations (e.g., “MW” vs “Mon/Wed”), fix OCR glitches, and standardize time ranges.

2. Clean, conflict-aware presentation

   • A weekly timetable grid anchors the UI, with “Available Courses” shown as structured cards (course code, section, title, days/times, instructor, credits). This mirrors how students actually plan—by visualizing their week. lums.promirage.com

3. Incremental refresh

   • New PDFs can be re-processed quickly; only diffs are published to keep the catalog current.

Implementation Highlights

• Parsing & normalization: Custom parsers with pattern libraries for course codes and meeting patterns; post-processing to fix OCR artifacts (e.g., stray characters in department names).

• Schema design: Canonical fields (dept, number, section, title, days, start/end time, instructor, credits, semester window).

• Front end: Minimalist schedule grid with a scrollable catalog; designed for rapid scanning on desktop and mobile. The live site presents Spring 2024 data with section details right in the list. lums.promirage.com

Impact

• Time saved: Students move from PDF-hunting to direct schedule building—fewer clicks, fewer mistakes.

• Lower friction: No spreadsheets, no manual clash checks; structured timeslots make conflicts obvious.

• Better decisions: Seeing instructors, credits, and meeting patterns side-by-side helps compare options quickly. lums.promirage.com

What’s Next

• Filters & search refinements: Department/level filters, keyword search by instructor/title.

• Change tracking: Highlight newly added/updated sections on refresh.

• Export & share: One-click export of a selected schedule (ICS/PNG) for personal calendars and advising.