Academics & Research News

UH? There’s an app for that

The home screen of the UH Guide iPhone app.

With technology growing more every year, UH now has its very own app for students who own an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Created by UH computer science undergraduates Kaleb Fulgham, Andre Navarro, Nick Prescott and Hussain Abbasi, the new app will provide maps as a guide to get around campus, routes to eateries and shuttle buses, announcements for campus events, updates on the weather, campus photos and Twitter updates from UH President Renu Khator.

“We have pledged to provide our students with an educational experience that is top tier and to offer them training that is globally competitive,” Khator said. “The development of this application is a wonderful example of innovative thinking and creativity that supports top-tier student success and achievement. I’m pleased, too, that this application will help us further engage members of the university community, while also providing a host of useful services.”

The UH app is the product of a semester-long project for Ubiquitous Computing, a UH computer science course.

New features will be added throughout the semester.

“We will be constantly adding points of interest to the map, which will update automatically on the app. We will also be integrating more real-time information, such as estimated arrival times for UH shuttle buses and METRO city buses at each stop, in addition to the real-time parking lot capacity statuses, which we currently have,” Navarro said.

Navarro said the app benefits freshman students the most, since it will help them easily locate buildings and eating places.

“Our next priorities are a complete course catalog from PeopleSoft and a student/faculty directory search. We also want to integrate more social networking features with Facebook and Twitter, as well as UH events, news, sports, etc. We are currently in talks with the University on how we can continue to do all that we have in mind,” Navarro said.

Development of the app, according to Navarro and Fulgham, required the entire fall semester.

“Most of the time was dedicated to actually learning how to use the program for the iPhone. We dedicated a lot of time and effort to this app, especially towards the end, with long nights in our 24-hour access computer science lab. The Cougar pride has really started to grow exponentially, and we wanted to be part of that,” Navarro said.

The group plans to continue its work this semester.

“We really want to continue developing this app during the upcoming semester and also make the necessary tools and documentation to pass it onto somebody at the University once we graduate, to ensure that the app doesn’t go stale,” Fulgham said.

To download the app, which is free of charge, visit the iPhone App Store. More information about the application can be found at http://uhcamp.us.to/blog/.

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