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Student Team Creates 'mtsu Mobile' App For Campus

By Middle Tennessee State ­niversity
January 9, 2012
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MTSU Mobile, an Android app developed by students for students at Middle Tennessee State University, is now available in beta form for anyone to test and use, the student team of developers say.

"We hope the new app will help students do things like, look up class and schedule information, map classrooms and offices, get times and dates of sporting events, and check the latest dining specials," says Craig Murphy, a computer-science major who graduated in December from MTSU. "As far as we know, it's the only app in the state that's been created by students as opposed to other schools that went out and hired a company to do it."

Murphy is one of five computer-science students who started working in March 2011 to develop MTSU Mobile. Others who worked on the project are seniors Jason Bandy, Chris Johnson, Chelsea Rath, and Brandon Beard.

The app started as a class project, with computer-science Professor Sung Kun Yoo as project adviser. Yoo later received a grant that provided funding for the five students to do development work last summer. The team also received support from the Information Technology Division at MTSU.

"We wanted to seek out ways for our division to assist students in real-world learning experiences," says Tom Wallace, associate vice president of ITD. "We heard about this project and wanted to help by assisting the students and providing financial support. They are a hard working bunch, and their initiative and expertise have been great."

"They loved it right off the bat," says Murphy, who is now affiliated with ITD. "I think it was something that they had wanted to do, and so we happened to walk in and do what they wanted to do."

The Android beta version of the app currently provides maps to classrooms, offices and other points of interest on campus. Students can also access academic information through their pipeline account, calendar information, and email and phone contact information of their professors. The beta version can be downloaded at: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.MTSUAndroid.

"The plan is to have version 1.0 of both Android and Apple applications," says Murphy, who also works part-time at the university's ITD Help Desk. "We are working to add sports schedules, dining information and other functions for students to download."

"The biology department has emailed us and wants an app for meetings," says team member Jason Bandy. "We also got an email from the fellow who does Lightning's Locker Room, and he's wanting to get with us and collaborate on a mobile development project." Lightning's Locker Room is a retail outlet operated by the athletic department that sells MTSU merchandise.

The MTSU Mobile team has a dedicated lab space in the MTSU Parking Services Building. Last summer, thanks to a grant, each member received a modest stipend while working on the app. Team members have worked in excess of 500 hours building the application from the ground up, Bandy says.

"It been a pretty steady job," he says. "I have learned a great deal, not only the programming, but what it takes working with a client and actually have learned a lot more about MTSU. This has provided me with experiences that I would have never gotten in the classroom."

"Totally," Rath laughs, when asked if she were a geek. "It's not an insult — we just have to accept it."

"Look around," Bandy adds. "Computers run the world. And we run the computers. The technology is the wave of the future."

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