The faculty-staff directory for the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford is now available as an application for Android smartphones thanks to the programming skills of three Pitt-Bradford students.
Three computer information systems and technology majors, Roland Cross of South Euclid, Ohio, Wes Milliron of Julian and Mark Saccucci of Oxford, created the winning design in a Mobile Application Development course taught by Jeremy Callinan, a 2004 graduate of Pitt-Bradford and co-owner of Protocol 80.
Students in the course were divided into teams to work on the app, which makes navigating the directory from a phone easier. Users can search by name and have the option to instantly call or email the person they are looking for.
While the app may appear simple, a lot went into designing it.
“There’s a lot that they had to learn just to get it to work,” said Don Lewicki, associate professor of business management, who oversees the CIST major. “They learned a heck of a lot in 15 weeks.”
Callinan said he was very pleased with how much the students learned in a short amount of time and their dedication to the project. He said the opportunity to create an app for actual use made the students keep their user in mind while designing.
Callinan and the students put in many extra hours outside of class searching for solutions to problems and working together to write hundreds of lines of computer code needed for the app.
Each team submitted its design to a panel of Pitt-Bradford faculty and staff, which chose the winning entry.
The directory app is available for free on the Android Market (market.android.com).
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