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PROVO -- A BYU student entrepreneur has shut down a third-party registration site rather than risk being suspended from the school.
Brigham Young University student Brendon Beebe originally created Schedule Snatcher in Janary 2011 to help a friend get into a class. In August 2011, he created a website open to all BYU students.
Beebe designed the site to scan BYU's registration site every 5-10 seconds to check for class openings, after which students who had signed up to use the service would be registered automatically on a first come, first serve basis.
The website grew to more than 5,000 users in its first semester, some of whom paid $65.95 for a premier account that gave them priority access to classes.
Beebe said he was told in mid-December that unless he shut down the site immediately, he would be suspended.
"BYU wasn't really too happy that an independent business had the power to add or drop classes for 5,000 of their students," Beebe said. "It's understandable, but those students were freely giving out that information. There was nothing they could really do because it wasn't illegal, so instead they decided to threaten us with suspension."
The school asked Beebe to take down the site due to liability concerns and because of the load it was putting on BYU servers, according to BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins.
The school cautions students against providing their usernames and passwords to third parties.
"For a long time, we have asked students not to provide confidential information to a third party," Jenkins said. "There have been times in the past when we have determined whether an organization complied with record compliance laws, but we ask students to be extremely cautious and careful. We were concerned about the potential compromise of confidential information."
Beebe said he understood the school's concern, but felt it was up to individual students to decide whom to give their information to.
I will no longer be working on BYU's Schedule Snatcher. I value my education and can't risk being suspended.
–Brendon Beebe
"It was kind of like the banking applications where people give out password," he said. "The customer is taking that chance by providing that information. The student is giving up security assuming the website is not going to abuse it. It should be a student's choice."
Liability was not BYU's only problem, though.
"It significantly interfered with the university's computer system," Jenkins said. "Because Schedule Snatcher was continuously performing multiple transactions on our website, it was slowing down the performance of system."
According to Beebe, though, in a November meeting with the school's registrar, he was told Schedule Snatcher was having a negligible effect on the university's servers.
"I asked the registrar about the conversation, and he said he does not know how (Beebe) interpreted that," Jenkins said. "I am not sure how he came to that interpretation."
BYU administrators made Beebe aware of their concern with the website in the meeting, but did not explicitly state that the it should be shut down. It was at a second meeting a few weeks later that Beebe was told there would be "further review if it continued because of the significant disruption it was causing to other students," according to Jenkins.
Jenkins said the school had received multiple complaints from students who were concerned about the system's slower performance and the unfair advantage students who paid for premier accounts had in the registration process.
"It retrospect, it was unfair," said Ben Hunt, a BYU student. "I guess I didn't really have a problem with using it when it first came out, but if people were paying to get better access, that is sketchy. I guess they did the right thing by shutting it down."
Because Schedule Snatcher was continuously performing multiple transactions on our website, it was slowing down the performance of system.
–Carri Jenkins
BYU has since developed a Schedule Snatcher-esque registration waitlist, which will be implemented Feb. 1 and will serve the same purpose as Schedule Snatcher did, sans premier accounts.
Beebe said he had not been planning on continuing much longer with Schedule Snatcher at BYU due to the university's plans for a waitlist, but he was not expecting to have to shut down the site "immediately."
"The phone call came out of nowhere," he said. "Basically, ‘get out of here; we don't want you anymore.' They said if I didn't, they would give my name to the subcommittee on disruptive students."
In an email to those who had registered on the site, Beebe wrote, "I will no longer be working on BYU's Schedule Snatcher. I value my education and can't risk being suspended. I apologize for this and would have hoped for a better ending."
He said he received hundreds of emails in response, most of which expressed support for the site.
Deciding the concept was one that could be implemented nationwide, Beebe decided to take his program elsewhere, hoping other universities without registration waitlists would be interested in using it.
"We're up and running in testing for BYU-Idaho," he said. "Ideally we'll go nationwide -- it's just a matter of time."
Beebe said he recognizes that Brigham Young University-Idaho could have the same concerns with liability as BYU, but thinks it is worth a try.
"We have a better chance at BYU-I," he said. "We're not students there so we're not under same authority, and, regardless, it's not against the law."
Email: sgrimes@ksl.com
