Using Course Data

Full data format shift coming in v3.0

In the upcoming Paper version 3, course data is no longer exactly structured in the way outlined on this page. It's strongly recommended that if you're planning on developing with Paper, you should wait until version 3 and its documentation is released.

First, you'll need instructions and access to course data. Then, you can proceed.

All course data is stored in a series of quite large minified JSON files. One JSON file holds the latest plan data (around 2 MB - 3 MB), and each term (quarter) available to Paper has a JSON file with the term-specific schedule data (each around 3 MB - 4 MB). While schedule data files doesn't include all of the course data like the plan data file does, schedule data files tend to be larger since they can include paragraphs of descriptions provided by instructors.

There is currently no standalone conversion tool available to convert the JSON files into a more usable format. Instead, you'll need to use the tables below to understand the structure of these files.

You can see these conversions being made here in the Paper source code.

Plan data

The following are the keys of the root object of the plan data file.

• courses - An array of all current courses.
• legacy - An array of old courses that used to be included in the data from the registrar but no longer are. This is important in case a user has a plan that includes one of these courses back when it may have been offered.
• majors - An object where the keys are the course subject names (ex. "COMP_SCI") and the values include the subject ID used by Paper serialization (ex. "027") (you'll need this if reading user plan data), the full name (ex. "Computer Science"), and the color theme used in Paper (ex. "blue").
• major_ids - A object that maps subject IDs to subject names (ex. "027" to "COMP_SCI").

Short	Long	Type
courses	courses	PlanCourse[]
legacy	legacy	PlanCourse[]
majors	subjects	{string to PlanSubject}*
major_ids	major ids	{string to string}*

* This property will be removed in Paper v3.

Schedule data

THe schedule data file consists of an array of ScheduleCourse.

Type Reference

Many properties in these types will not always exist. I highly recommend null checking every one.

PlanCourse

Short	Long	Type
i	id	string
n	name	string
u	units	string
r	repeatable	boolean
d	description	string
p	prereqs	string
s	distribution areas	DistrosString
f	foundational disciplines	DisciplinesString
l	placeholder	boolean
t	terms	string[]

PlanSubject

Short	Long	Type
i	id	string*
c	color	string
d	display	string

* This property will be removed in Paper v3.

ScheduleCourse

Short	Long	Type
i	course id	string
c	school	string
t	title	string
u	subject	string
n	catalog number	string
s	sections	ScheduleSection[]

ScheduleSection

Short	Long	Type
i	section id	string
r	instructors	SectionInstructor[]
t	title	string
k	topic	string
u	subject	string
n	catalog number	string
s	section number	string
m	meeting days	(MeetingDaysString | null)[]
x	start time	(Time | null)[]
y	end time	(Time | null)[]
l	room	string[]
d	start date	string
e	end date	string
c	component	string
a	capacity	int
q	enrollment requirements	string
p	descriptions	SectionDescription[]
o	distribution areas	DistrosString
f	foundational disciplines	DisciplinesString

SectionInstructor

Short	Long	Type
n	name	string
p	phone	string
a	campus address	string
o	office hours	string
b	bio	string
u	url	string

Time

Short	Long	Type
h	hour	int
m	minute	int

DistrosString

A DistrosString is a normal string where each character represents a distribution area.

Character	Distribution Area
1	Natural Sciences
2	Formal Studies
3	Social and Behavioral Sciences
4	Historical Studies
5	Ethics and Values
6	Literature and Fine Arts
7	Interdisciplinary Studies

For example, the string "14" means both the Natural Studies and Historical Studies distribution areas are linked to the course.

DisciplinesString

A DisciplinesString is a normal string where each character represents a foundational discipline.

Character	Distribution Area
1	Natural Sciences
2	Empirical and Deductive Reasoning
3	Social and Behavioral Sciences
4	Historical Studies
5	Ethical and Evaluative Thinking
6	Literature and Arts
7	Interdisciplinary

For example, the string "14" means both the Natural Studies and Historical Studies foundational disciplines are linked to the course.

MeetingDaysString

A MeetingDaysString is a normal string where each character represents a day of the week.

Character	Day of the Week
0	Monday
1	Tuesday
2	Wednesday
3	Thursday
4	Friday

For example, the string "024" means the section includes a repeated meeting time on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

SectionDescription

A SectionDescription is an array of strings (string[]). The first element is the description title. The second element is the description value.

For example, a section may have the following SectionDescription[] value:

[
  [
    "Overview",
    "This is an overview of this class. Blah blah blah words here words there and so on."
  ],
  [
    "Class Materials",
    "You'll need this textbook and this calculator and this device and so on."
  ]
]