Bear Scat first came online over five and a half years ago on March 20, 2003. Since then, tens of thousands of students have designed over half a million schedules and hundreds of thousands of watch list and grade notifications have been sent out. It's been a privilege to offer this service to students. Today, Bear Scat is shutting down for good.

I have spent the last year or so working closely with the University of Alberta to make Bear Tracks better. The university has incorporated a number of key features from Bear Scat into the next version of Bear Tracks including the colour-coded schedule grid, watch list, and grade notification. In addition, I had the opportunity to drastically improve the navigation and look and feel of the new site.

However, there's still a bit more work to be done on Bear Tracks. There was a fixed amount of time to get improvements in for the November 17 launch. It's certainly not 100% there, but it's reached a sufficient level of functionality and ease of use to make Bear Scat obselete. The university has committed to continue to improve Bear Tracks in the months ahead.

Hopefully you'll find the new version of Bear Tracks much more usable. I would like to thank you and the Students' Union for your support throughout the years. I encourage you to drop by the new version of Bear Tracks and take a look for yourself.

Sincerely,

Steve Kirkham
Creator of Bear Scat