{"id":8120,"date":"2022-10-26T14:04:49","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T21:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/?p=8120"},"modified":"2023-01-06T16:07:57","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T00:07:57","slug":"collaborating-to-connect-the-development-of-the-new-hc-community-connector-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/2022\/10\/26\/collaborating-to-connect-the-development-of-the-new-hc-community-connector-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Collaborating to Connect: The Development of the New HC Community Connector App"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Fall 2021, Dean Toni Doolen worked with a group of Honors College students, who were members of the HC Leadership Circle and charged the group with finding ways to increase student engagement with the Honors College. Over the course of the academic year, the students developed a variety of approaches and ideas, and at the end of Spring term, this group agreed that one of the key issues with engagement was that students simply were not aware of events or opportunities. Doolen recalls, \u201cOne of the suggestions was that, in addition to the Monday Message, we should identify alternate means of getting information about the HC out to students. One of the ideas that was put forward was an app.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doolen, whose faculty line is in The School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, turned to another group of students to move the idea forward. The College of Engineering requires students to complete a capstone project in their final year. Working on ideas submitted by companies and campus partners, students work collaboratively to design and implement a solution to a real-world problem. Doolen drew up a proposal, and four engineering students (two of whom were also HC students) took on the challenge of creating the design for an app to help connect Honors students to Honors College events, activities and opportunities. Over the course of the 2021\u20132022 academic year, the group conducted user studies, designed a conceptual framework and developed a functional prototype. When they presented their results at Oregon State University\u2019s annual College of Engineering Expo, their work caught the eye of Oliver Elliott, a second-year computer science and Honors College student.<\/p>\n\n\n

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As Oliver explored the expo, looking at projects on display, the HC app piqued his interest. He reached out to Dean Doolen and proposed that, instead of outsourcing development, he could take on the programming. Oliver and Adrian Baker, another second-year computer science and Honors College student put together a proposal, which was quickly approved by the college. The pair had a clear vision. The app would serve as a resource designed by HC students for HC students. Oliver outlined the benefits of this approach: \u201cit would be cheaper, of course, and, as honors students, we can suggest relevant features, and we know the community and can help get what the community wants out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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In the summer, Oliver and Adrian set to work. They took the materials from the original design team, and they collaborated with the staff regarding their ideas. Oliver describes it as a \u201cvery flexible\u201d relationship. \u201cThey let us design it the way we thought was best, and it worked out for the best\u2026. [We] designed what we thought would work, the staff gave feedback, we fixed and added things, and were very collaborative.\u201d Adrian says, \u201cGenerally, the way it worked was that it started with the Honors College requesting a feature, or we had an idea. Then Oliver developed the student interface, and I developed the administration panel so the administration could properly use those features.\u201d Ultimately, the app\u2019s development took about six weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Throughout the process, both Adrian and Oliver hoped they would finish the project before the annual Honors College induction in September, when the incoming class is officially welcomed to the college, so new students could be invited to be the first users. Adrian and Oliver achieved their goal, and the Honors College officially launched the HC Community Connector app to promote OSUWelcome activities for new students. In the first day, the app received over 500 downloads. \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve deployed something to production with a lot of users to this scale,\u201d says Adrian. \u201cI\u2019ve had a couple of friends check out my projects before, but this is the first time I\u2019ve had this many people use something I wrote. It\u2019s slightly scary, but more exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Adrian and Oliver are continually working to improve the app. Musing on the app\u2019s future, Oliver plans to \u201cbring it beyond an events app\u201d by adding a resource page that will have help students track their thesis progress, find advising information and track SLUG \u2013 the Honors College student space in Corvallis \u2013 hours. He says of his aspirations for the app, \u201cIn the future, if students keep using this, we want to keep this app open to the community, and if any other developers want to work on this in the future, we welcome that collaboration.\u201d Doolen also has high hopes for the app. She anticipates that, for first-year students, the app will assist with community building and will foster engagement in residence halls. For second-year students and beyond, she hopes the app will be a tool for thesis work and professional development. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s pretty cool this idea came from students and can help shape what the student experience is.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jax Richards, Student Writer, Honors College<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download the Honors College Community Connector app here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Fall 2021, Dean Toni Doolen worked with a group of Honors College students, who were members of the HC Leadership Circle and charged the group with finding ways to increase student engagement with the Honors College. Over the course of the academic year, the students developed a variety of approaches and ideas, and at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11332,"featured_media":8133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205,1049126,1048851,1306],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-homefeature","category-homestories","category-student"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11332"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8120"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8280,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120\/revisions\/8280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}