The best result for this feature is to use tag to build the course related data set.
For example, a listing for a book that used on ECON 101, spring 2011, will be tagged as: UHM, ECON, ECON 101, Spring 2011. And these tags are on: University, School, Class, Semester.
By this, we no longer need to build and maintain the course list for each university. It will be gradually built by the users from their tags.
With tags data available, more search and browse functions will be practical. Tag clouds will ge a cool eye-candy as well.
Add Tagging capabilities for listings. Rails has the acts_as_taggable built in: http://rubydoc.info/gems/acts_as_taggable/2.0.2/ActiveRecord/Acts/Taggable/ClassMethods This could be the start point.
Also this gem, acts-as-taggable-on seems to be a very nice extension: https://github.com/mbleigh/acts-as-taggable-on It can differentiate multiple context for tagging.
The best result for this feature is to use tag to build the course related data set.
For example, a listing for a book that used on ECON 101, spring 2011, will be tagged as: UHM, ECON, ECON 101, Spring 2011. And these tags are on: University, School, Class, Semester.
By this, we no longer need to build and maintain the course list for each university. It will be gradually built by the users from their tags.
With tags data available, more search and browse functions will be practical. Tag clouds will ge a cool eye-candy as well.