- Funder: QAA/HWU
- Value: £3,250.00
Starting university, either as an undergraduate or postgraduate student, is a major transition step. As an undergraduate it is likely to be the first time that you are expected to fend for yourself. As a postgraduate, many of our students are from overseas and so are trying to fit into a new culture. In both cases, a new student needs to be able to find their way around one of our campuses, attend lectures and labs, and meet and socialise with other students.
The proposed project is to develop a smartphone app that will support students starting at Heriot-Watt University. Once registered with the app a personal timetable can be generated with the times and locations of lectures and labs. The locations of these would be integrated with the map feature on the phone to support finding their way around and potentially integrating with services like Google Now to provide alerts to prompt the student to make their way to a lecture/lab. Search functionality will be included in the app to support the student in finding unfamiliar locations, e.g. a specific lecture room (EM1.58), or a member of staff. Further enhancements could include integrating the with external services, e.g. Lothian bus travel data in Edinburgh, to enable students to plan their journeys on and off campus, as well as a social interaction element, or listing of social events.